Tag: nature

African penguins could be extinct by 2035 – how to save them

Posted on by amanda.woodman-hardy
African penguin on a beach
African penguin. Photo by Taryn Elliott via Pexels.

In October 2024, the African penguin became the first penguin species in the world to be listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

This is a sad record for Africa’s only penguin, and means it is now just one step away from extinction.

How did this happen? African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) are found only in Namibia and South Africa. Their numbers have been declining since the 1800s. At that time, they were burnt in ships’ boilers, their eggs were harvested and consumed as a delicacy, and their nests were destroyed by guano-harvesters seeking a rich source of fertiliser.

Such activities are fortunately no longer allowed. African penguins have been protected under South Africa’s Sea Birds and Seals Protection Act since 1973 (and more recently under the Marine Threatened or Protected Species Regulations since 2017).

These laws and regulations ban the capture of penguins or their eggs, and any intentional harm done to them. Fertilisers no longer use guano (penguin excrement). After egg and guano harvesting stopped, the lack of prey (small fish like sardines and anchovies) became the main issue for penguins from the early 2000s.

The impacts of climate change on the distribution and abundance of their food, and competition with industrial fisheries, have contributed to a 70% reduction in this penguin’s population between 2000 and 2024.

We are a group of scientists from universities and non-governmental organisations that have, for years, focused on solutions to save the African penguin. Today, unless the South African government takes urgent steps to protect the African penguin, it will likely become extinct in the wild by 2035. At present there are fewer than 20,000 birds left in the wild.

Penguins are like the canaries in the coal mine. They are disappearing because the ecosystem they rely on, together with many other species, including fish targeted by commercial fisheries, is in dire straits. By saving them, we protect their ecosystem and the other species that rely on it.

Penguins are also valuable to the economy, bringing in revenue from tourism.

What’s worked for the penguin so far

The destruction of African penguins’ nesting habitat over the centuries has been partly repaired by setting up artificial nests in penguin colonies. New research has found that these improve the number of penguin eggs that hatch by 16.5% compared to natural surface or bush nests which remain vulnerable to the elements.

Steps to protect the African penguins’ food supply also worked. One step was the experimental “no-take zones”, where the South African government prohibited fishing around the penguins’ breeding areas between 2008 and 2019.

The government closed commercial fishing of sardines and anchovies in a 20km radius around Robben Island on the west coast and St Croix Island in Algoa Bay for three years. During this time, commercial fishing around the neighbouring penguin colonies of Dassen Island and Bird Island was still permitted. The closure was alternated every three years until 2019 to see if it affected the penguin populations.

The results were positive. Penguins were able to catch fish with less effort and their chicks’ health and survival rates improved. The population increased by about 1% – a small increase, but very important, considering they were already endangered.

In parallel, the African Penguin Biodiversity Management Plan was published in 2013. The plan focused on managing predators, such as Cape fur seals and kelp gulls, and rescuing abandoned eggs and chicks. Thousands of individual penguins were saved and released into the wild over the years.

What has gone wrong for the penguin

Despite these efforts, the African penguin population fell faster from the mid-2010s. This was mostly due to the sudden collapse of the colony at St Croix Island, then the world’s largest African penguin colony.

This collapse coincided with the establishment of ship-to-ship bunkering activities (refuelling ships at sea rather than in ports) in Algoa Bay in 2016. While the ships were refuelling, four oil spills occurred.

Ship-to-ship bunkering also increased underwater noise pollution due to a ten-fold increase of maritime traffic in the bay.

Our previous research has revealed that African penguins are highly sensitive to underwater noise. Noise from ships or drilling equipment chases penguins away from their feeding grounds.

This also uses up the African penguins’ energy, often at a time when they have none to spare. Penguins need energy reserves before starting their annual moult, when they stay ashore for three weeks without eating to replace all their feathers. If they don’t find enough food before or after that stressful period, they die.

Can the African penguin be saved?

The experimental use of no-take zones in penguin breeding areas ended in 2019. A panel of international experts was then appointed by the South African government to review the experiment and suggest a way forward.

The panel said no-take zones should be put in place around all colonies. They recommended ways to balance the benefit to penguins against the cost to fisheries.

But the government departed from the panel’s recommendations and put in place fishing closures aimed at minimising economic losses to fisheries, and not conserving penguins. For example, they closed down fishing in some areas where penguins don’t hunt for fish.

In March 2024, the non-profit organisation BirdLife South Africa and the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds, represented by the Biodiversity Law Centre, asked the Pretoria high court to review and set aside the Minister of Fisheries, Forestry and Environment’s August 2023 decision on fishing closures around key African penguin breeding colonies. The case is still underway.

Meanwhile, bunkering in Algoa Bay has stopped temporarily after the South African Revenue Service detained five ships in September 2023 on allegations of breaching customs laws.

Subsequently, small increases in the St Croix Island penguin population have been seen for the first time in nearly ten years.

African penguins can bounce back when environmental conditions are good. Government and non-governmental organisations have worked hard to prevent various threats to penguins. But critical work remains to be done to protect their foraging habitat (the ocean around their colonies) from polluting activities.

Penguins also need protection from competition with industrial fisheries for fish supplies.

—————————–

This blog is by Lorien Pichegru, Adjunct professor, Nelson Mandela University; Alistair McInnes, Research Associate, Nelson Mandela University; Katrin Ludynia, Honorary Research Associate and Research Manager at SANCCOB, University of Cape Town, and Peter Barham, Professor emeritus, University of Bristol. Dr Lauren Waller of the Endangered Wildlife Trust contributed to this article.The Conversation This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Fresh reflection on COP 16 of the Convention on Biological Diversity

Posted on by amanda.woodman-hardy
Margherita Pieraccini and Naomi Millner at COP16. Sat down and holding a block representing the SDGs,
Margherita Pieraccini and Naomi Millner at COP16.

As 2024 is drawing to a close, Conferences of the Parties (COPs) of three major Multilateral Environmental Agreements are happening in close succession: COP 16 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was held between end of October and the beginning of November, COP 29 of the UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is happening in mid-November, and COP 16 of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification will take place in early December.

Although exploring the synergies between these three COPs is of great importance and their close temporal proximity this year facilitates such discussion, I will focus solely on the CBD COP 16 as I had the opportunity to attend it in person as a University of Bristol academic observer.

CBD COP 16, held in Cali, Colombia started on the 21st of October and was due to end on the 1st of November. Negotiations overrun until the morning of the 2nd of November but they were suspended as the quorum was lost, leaving discussions on some key issues such as the strategy for resource mobilization to be resumed at a later date.

As biodiversity COPs are held biannually, COP 16 was the first COP since the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) at COP 15 in 2022. No one was expecting the negotiation of another major agreement at COP 16, with the key issue being the implementation of the GBF framework.

An introduction to the GBF

Differently from the Paris Agreement under the UNFCCC, the GBF is not legally binding.  Nevertheless, given that the boundary between binding and non-binding instruments in international environmental law is not always so clear-cut, the GBF has a central role in directing biodiversity law and policy. The GBF is a largely aspirational goal and target-oriented instrument. It contains four Goals to ‘live in harmony with nature’ by 2050 and 23 global Targets for 2030, split into three categories, namely ‘reducing threats to biodiversity’, ‘meeting people’s needs through sustainable use and benefit-sharing’ and ‘tools and solutions for implementation and mainstreaming’.  The Targets have different degrees of ‘quantifiability’, impacting also on Parties’ strategies and methodologies of implementation.

For example, the well- known ‘30 by 30’ target (Target 3) sets the threshold of 30% of the coverage of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) in terrestrial and inland water areas as well as marine and coastal areas to be reached by 2030. In contrast, Target 5, which still falls within the first category of ‘reducing threats to biodiversity’, is framed using a more general language: ‘ensure that the use, harvesting and trade of wild species is sustainable, safe and legal, preventing overexploitation, minimizing impacts on non-target species and ecosystems, and reducing the risk of pathogen spillover, applying the ecosystem approach, while respecting and protecting customary sustainable use by indigenous peoples and local communities.’

There are not only differences between Targets but the wordings of individual Targets themselves is sometimes contradictory, making for complex implementation as conflicting directions are suggested. For example, Target 19 pushes for the marketisation of nature, encouraging the private sector to invest in biodiversity and employing uncritically the language of green bonds and payments for ecosystem services, whilst, at the same, promoting the role of ‘Mother Earth centric action and non-market approaches’. Even if not all targets are rife with internal contradictions, other internal differences may exist, with some objectives expressed in a qualitative rather than a quantitative manner or by reference to concepts that lack unified legal definitions. This makes it more difficult to devise specific indicators, with the consequence that Parties will likely concentrate on the objectives requiring easier interpretative skills. For example, going back to the ‘30 by 30’ Target 3, the quantitative component is followed by references to ‘equitably governed systems’, which could mean very different things to different regulatory actors and there is still much work to be done on the identification of OECMs.

It should be recalled that this is not the first time the CBD employs the language of Targets and Goals. Notably, the CBD Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 included the Aichi Biodiversity Targets structured around 5 strategic goals, though most were not achieved and few partially achieved, as reported in the Global Biodiversity Outlook 5. COP 16’s focus on implementation was therefore crucial to avoid historical failures repeating themselves in 2030.

The spaces and voices of COP 16

COPs are notoriously busy and chaotic events. COP 16 of the CBD did indeed feel busy, with many side events happening simultaneously and in parallel to the formal negotiations of the two Working Groups and plenaries, as well as press conferences and Pavilion events. It was also the largest-ever CBD COP with some 23,000 registered delegates. Yet, the Conference Centre that hosted COP 16 in Cali was very capacious and the horizontal disposition of the spaces facilitated inter-ethnic, inter-generational, inter-disciplinary and of course inter-jurisdictional discussions under a Colombian sky often veiled by clouds.

It was a pleasant surprise to witness the high representation of youth, as well as indigenous peoples and local communities advocating for their rights and the rights of nature, though one may wonder if this was primarily due to the fact that COP 16 was organised in South America where the question of who is indigenous and who is not is not as contested as in other continents (such as Africa) and where youth environmental activism is thriving.

Side events also saw the participation of a plurality of voices, hosting delegates from a myriad of Inter-governmental organisations (IGOs) and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), as well as researchers, Secretariat members and sometimes Parties. Thus, cross-fertilisation of ideas dominated the Conference with the hope that points made in side events by activists, academics, and others could filter through Parties to the negotiation tables. Indeed, many times in side events speakers addressed the audience as if it were an audience entirely made up by Parties’ delegates (seldom the case in practice), encouraging it to report back to the contact groups, which are closed working groups attended by Parties discussing draft texts of decisions.

Human rights as a framing device for different world-makings

The language of human rights pervaded the whole COP 16. This is a recent turn for the CBD, considering that the CBD itself and its instruments pre-GBF do not explicitly refer to human rights. In contrast, the GBF lists among the considerations for the implementation of the Framework a ‘human rights-based approach’. Section C 7(g) states in full that ‘the implementation of the Framework should follow a human rights-based approach, respecting, protecting, promoting and fulfilling human rights. The Framework acknowledges the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment’. There are a few other references to human rights language scattered in the text. For example, in Target 22, reference is made to the ‘full protection of environmental human rights defenders’. The GBF’s explicit inclusion of human rights language and also the acknowledgement of a substantive human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment—which cross references the UN General Assembly Resolution of 28 July 2022—has solidified the link between human rights and biodiversity protection. Thus, it is not surprising that delegates at COP 16 used human rights language extensively.

In this context, it was interesting to observe that different groups internalised and strategically deployed human rights language to advance different, sometimes, but not always complementary, world-makings. Youth representatives referred to human rights as a tool for achieving inter-generational equity in biodiversity conservation; many indigenous peoples’ representatives employed human rights language to advance substantive claims such as rights to land and resources as well as procedural ones such as participatory rights in conservation decision-making; women representatives employed human rights language to address gender inequalities in conservation; some UN representatives strongly supported a human rights-based approach to area-based conservation as a means to avoid the tragedies brought about by ‘fortress conservation’; others used human rights language to reiterate key objectives of existing international law instruments.

The concept of human rights returned over and over in COP discussions intersecting with other reflections that unwrap the many lines around which biodiversity is framed and practiced by different communities and actors.

Outcomes and beyond

As mentioned above, COP 16 was suspended leaving for a later date, decisions on some critical issues, such as finance mechanisms and monitoring mechanism to measure Parties’ progress in achieving GBF Targets and Goals. Considering the slow implementation of the GBF- only 44 Parties have submitted revised National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), which are the main national implementation tools under Article 6 of the CBD- it is disappointing that decisions on budget and monitoring mechanisms have been left pending. However, there were also many achievements at COP 16, including:

  • the launch of the ‘Cali fund’ to operationalise the sharing of benefits from uses of digital sequence information (DSI);
  • decisions on Article 8(j), focused on traditional knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities, including the adoption of a new Programme of Work on Article 8(j) and the establishment of a new permanent subsidiary body on Article 8(j);
  • a number of sectoral decisions, including one on the mechanism for identifying ecologically or biologically significant marine areas (EBSAs), which had been the subject of legal and political discussion for eight years.

The decisions related to Article 8(j) stand out considering the central role indigenous peoples and local communities play in the protection of biodiversity and the importance of including different epistemologies in biodiversity decision-making. During COP itself, there were arguments in favour and against the creation of such subsidiary body. Concerns revolved around questions such as ‘Why fixating on only one article of the CBD? Why a subsidiary body on this specific article and not others?’, ‘Would the subsidiary body silo indigenous peoples and local communities concerns?’, ‘Should indigenous peoples and local communities still be clustered together?’ Many counter-arguments were raised promoting the establishment of the subsidiary body as a way to legitimise and render more visible indigenous peoples and local communities’ practices turning these actors as policy makers instead of policy takers included in NBSAPs. The new subsidiary body’s modus operandi will be developed over the next two years, and it will be interesting to follow such development.

Outcomes are important, and in a goal and target-oriented environmental law world such as the one the CBD governance infrastructure presents, it is natural and logical to focus on what is achieved and what is not. However, the success of COP 16, like all COPs, should not solely be determined by its outcomes. It is essential to remember the spaces and the conversations that unfolded in between, the sharing of knowledge by a global community coming together for a few days from very different paths of life and with different agendas, a multitude unified by the shared concern of biodiversity loss, which continues at unprecedented rates and deserves everyone attention in COPs and beyond.

————————————–

This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member, Professor Margherita Pieraccini, Professor of Law at the University of Bristol Law School.

Margherita Pieraccini
Margherita Pieraccini

How fly fishing strengthens our connection with wildlife and fosters conservation efforts

Posted on by adele.hulin

Whether it’s to reset our mental health or simply to take time out from the hurly-burly of work and urban life, many of us head for oceans and rivers to enjoy their restorative capacities.

Encountering wild animals in these blue spaces contributes to the beneficial effects of being in nature and forms the basis of tourist economies the world over.

Yet, how does our presence affect the creatures that call blue spaces home, and how do encounters with wild species change our relationships with natural environments?

River and stones with green trees and shade
The River Lyd, Devon. Avi Shankar

For nearly a decade, we have been researching human interactions with wild trout and salmon in the context of fly fishing. We spent months immersed in river environments both in the UK (the Lyd and Tamar in Devon, and the Usk and Wye in Wales) and North America (the rivers of the Gaspe region, Quebec and Lewisburg, Pennsylvania). We went fishing, observed and interviewed fly fishers, and learned as much as we could about fish behaviour.

In our recent paper, we explain how human interactions with fish can result in three kinds of interspecies encounters that strengthen people’s connections with wildlife and natural environments.

Separated encounters

Most often, wild animals remain indifferent to humans, driven as they are by natural motivations to feed and breed, within environmental habitats that humans do not fully understand.

For instance, Duane, a novice fly fisher we interviewed in Pennsylvania, didn’t know that trout eat aquatic insects: “I didn’t know squat … flies actually come out of the water?”

This lack of understanding of other species often ensures that wild animals remain undisturbed by human presence. Yet the elusiveness of creatures such as trout and salmon can also motivate people to find out more about them.

Slippery encounters

To improve their chances of catching fish, fly fishers learn about fish behaviour, river environments and the life cycles of the insects that fish feed on.

Equipped with this knowledge, fly fishers become better able to locate trout and salmon, and to select and cast a near weightless imitation “fly” designed to mimic a fish’s insect food.

Learning and honing these skills is a lifelong project during which fly fishers become savvy hunters with heightened abilities to sense what is going on in the water. Equally, fish learn too, becoming shy and ready to slip away from human contact.

Sticky encounters

On the rare occasions that fish are hooked, humans and fish enter what we call a “sticky encounter”. The mixed emotions of catching a wild salmon are captured in Annetta’s field notes:

I look down at this beautiful, majestic being. The fish is a fresh, healthy, silver, bright female … I look at her, she looks back at me … She wrangles free. She’s on a mission to spawn in her home river. I stand up but I’m weak in the knees. Full of pride, humility, and guilt.

Over time, these intense experiences of eye-to-eye contact can inspire fly fishers to consider the welfare of fish.

A wild Usk brown trout in a net
Netted: a wild Usk brown trout – most fly fishers now carefully return their catch back into the river. Avi Shankar

Fly fishers now release the majority of the fish they catch. Moreover, one fly fisher we interviewed explained that he has entirely removed the hooks from his flies, declaring: “I don’t want to catch that fish. I caught so many in my life. I know what the feeling is like.”

Stewarding blue spaces

It may seem ironic that fly fishers become passionate about conserving fish and river environments by practising what many people consider to be a cruel sport. Yet, fly fishers have first-hand experience of declining fish numbers.

Some of our interviewees spoke of trout and salmon as “canaries in the coal mine” – a warning sign of how river ecosystems are threatened by pollution, overdevelopment and climate change. In response, organisations such as the Wild Trout Trust and the Atlantic Salmon Trust highlight the necessity for conservation.

With wild populations of animals declining globally, the presence of humans in blue spaces deserves scrutiny. Nevertheless, interspecies encounters can change the relationship between people, fish and rivers from one of human gratification to one of reciprocity, stewardship and care.

—————————————-

This blog is written by Professor Avi Shankar, Professor of Consumer Research at the University of Bristol. It is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Avi Shankar standin in the street
Professor Avi Shankar

Are you a journalist looking for climate experts for COP28? We’ve got you covered

Posted on by amanda.woodman-hardy

COP28 logo

We’ve got lots of media trained climate change experts. If you need an expert for an interview, here is a list of our experts you can approach. All media enquiries should be made via Victoria Tagg, our dedicated Media and PR Manager at the University of Bristol. 

Email victoria.tagg@bristol.ac.uk or call +44 (0)117 428 2489.

Climate change / climate emergency / climate science / climate-induced disasters

Dr Eunice Lo – expert in changes in extreme weather events such as heatwaves and cold spells, and how these changes translate to negative health outcomes including illnesses and deaths. Follow on Twitter/X @EuniceLoClimate.

Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Dani is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports.

Dr Katerina Michalides – expert in drylands, drought and desertification and helping East African rural communities to adapt to droughts and future climate change. Follow on Twitter/X @_kmichaelides.

Professor Dann Mitchell – expert in how climate change alters the atmospheric circulation, extreme events, and impacts on human health. Dann is also a Met Office Chair. Follow on Twitter/X @ClimateDann.

Professor Dan Lunt – expert on past climate change, with a focus on understanding how and why climate has changed in the past and what we can learn about the future from the past. Dan is also a Lead Author on IPCC AR6. Follow on Twitter/X @ClimateSamwell.

Professor Jonathan Bamber – expert on the impact of melting land ice on sea level rise (SLR) and the response of the ocean to changes in freshwater forcing. Follow on Twitter/X @jlbamber

Professor Paul Bates CBE – expert in the science of flooding, risk and reducing threats to life and economic losses worldwide. Follow on Twitter/X @paul_d_bates

Dr Matt Palmer – expert in sea level and ocean heat content at the Met Office Hadley Centre and University of Bristol. Follow on Twitter/X @mpclimate.

Professor Guy Howard – expertise in building resilience and supporting adaptation in water systems, sanitation, health care facilities, and housing. Expert in wider infrastructure resilience assessment.

Net Zero / Energy / Renewables

Dr Caitlin Robinson – expert on energy poverty and energy justice and also in mapping ambient vulnerabilities in UK cities. Caitlin will be virtually attending COP28. Follow on Twitter/X @CaitHRobin.

Professor Philip Taylor – Expert in net zero, energy systems, energy storage, utilities, electric power distribution. Also Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Bristol. Follow on Twitter/X @rolyatlihp.

Dr Colin Nolden – expert in sustainable energy policy, regulation and business models and interactions with secondary markets such as carbon markets and other sectors such as mobility. Colin will be in attendance in the Blue Zone at COP28 during week 2.

Professor Charl Faul – expert in novel functional materials for sustainable energy applications e.g. in CO2 capture and conversion and energy storage devices.  Follow on Twitter/X @Charl_FJ_Faul.

Climate finance / Loss and damage

Dr Rachel James – Expert in climate finance, damage, loss and decision making. Also has expertise in African climate systems and contemporary and future climate change. Follow on Twitter/X @_RachelJames.

Dr Katharina Richter – expert in decolonial environmental politics and equitable development in times of climate crises. Also an expert on degrowth and Buen Vivir, two alternatives to growth-based development from the Global North and South. Katarina will be virtually attending COP28. @DrKatRichter.

Climate justice

Dr Alix Dietzel – climate justice and climate policy expert. Focusing on the global and local scale and interested in how just the response to climate change is and how we can ensure a just transition. Alix will be in attendance in the Blue Zone at COP28 during week 1. Follow on Twitter/X @alixdietzel.

Dr Ed Atkins – expert on environmental and energy policy, politics and governance and how they must be equitable and inclusive. Also interested in local politics of climate change policies and energy generation and consumption. Follow on Twitter/X @edatkins_.

Dr Karen Tucker – expert on colonial politics of knowledge that shape encounters with indigenous knowledges, bodies and natures, and the decolonial practices that can reveal and remake them. Karen will be in attending the Blue Zone of COP28 in week 2.

Climate change and health

Dr Dan O’Hare – expert in climate anxiety and educational psychologist. Follow on Twitter/X @edpsydan.

Professor Dann Mitchell – expert in how climate change alters the atmospheric circulation, extreme events, and impacts on human health. Dann is also a Met Office Chair. Follow on Twitter/X @ClimateDann.

Dr Eunice Lo – expert in changes in extreme weather events such as heatwaves and cold spells, and how these changes translate to negative health outcomes including illnesses and deaths. Follow on Twitter/X @EuniceLoClimate.

Professor Guy Howard – expert in influence of climate change on infectious water-related disease, including waterborne disease and vector-borne disease.

Professor Rachael Gooberman-Hill – expert in health research, including long-term health conditions and design of ways to support and improve health. @EBIBristol (this account is only monitored in office hours).

Youth, children, education and skills

Dr Dan O’Hare – expert in climate anxiety in children and educational psychologist. Follow on Twitter/X @edpsydan.

Dr Camilla Morelli – expert in how children and young people imagine the future, asking what are the key challenges they face towards the adulthoods they desire and implementing impact strategies to make these desires attainable. Follow on Twitter/X @DrCamiMorelli.

Dr Helen Thomas-Hughes – expert in engaging, empowering, and inspiring diverse student bodies as collaborative environmental change makers. Also Lead of the Cabot Institute’s MScR in Global Environmental Challenges. Follow on Twitter/X @Researchhelen.

Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Dani is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports. Also part of the Waves of Change project with Dr Camilla Morelli, looking at the intersection of social, economic and climatic impacts on young people’s lives and futures around the world.

Climate activism / Extinction Rebellion

Dr Oscar Berglund – expert on climate change activism and particularly Extinction Rebellion (XR) and the use of civil disobedience. Follow on Twitter @berglund_oscar.

Land / Nature / Food

Dr Jo House – expert on land and climate interactions, including emissions of carbon dioxide from land use change (e.g. deforestation), climate mitigation potential from the land (e.g. afforestation, bioenergy), and implications of science for policy. Previously Government Office for Science’s Head of Climate Advice. Follow on Twitter @Drjohouse.

Professor Steve Simpson – expert marine biology and fish ecology, with particular interests in the behaviour of coral reef fishes, bioacoustics, effects of climate change on marine ecosystems, conservation and management. Follow on Twitter/X @DrSteveSimpson.

Dr Taro Takahashi – expert on farming, livestock production systems as well as programme evaluation and general equilibrium modelling of pasture and livestock-based economies.

Dr Maria Paula Escobar-Tello – expert on tensions and intersections between livestock farming and the environment.

Air pollution / Greenhouse gases

Dr Aoife Grant – expert in greenhouse gases and methane. Set up a monitoring station at Glasgow for COP26 to record emissions.

Professor Matt Rigby – expert on sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances. Follow on Twitter @TheOtherMRigby.

Professor Guy Howard – expert in contribution of waste and wastewater systems to methane emissions in low- and middle-income countries

Plastic and the environment

Dr Charlotte Lloyd – expert on the fate of chemicals in the terrestrial environment, including plastics, bioplastics and agricultural wastes. Follow on Twitter @DrCharlLloyd.

Cabot Institute for the Environment at COP28

We will have three media trained academics in attendance at the Blue Zone at COP28. These are: Dr Alix Dietzel (week 1), Dr Colin Nolden (week 2) and Dr Karen Tucker (week 2). We will also have two academics attending virtually: Dr Caitlin Robinson and Dr Katharina Richter.

Read more about COP on our website at https://bristol.ac.uk/cabot/what-we-do/projects/cop/
——————————
This blog was written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Communications and Engagement Officer at the Cabot Institute for the Environment. Follow on Twitter @Enviro_Mand and @cabotinstitute.

Watch our Cabot Conversations – 10 conversations between 2 experts on a climate change issue, all whilst an artist listens in the background and interprets the conversation into a beautiful piece of art in real time. Find out more at bristol.ac.uk/cabot/conversations.

Four ways winter heatwaves affect humans and nature

Posted on by janet.crompton
Temperature anomaly in Europe, Jan 1. Much of the continent was 10°C or more (dark red and grey) above the long-term average.
WX Charts, CC BY-NC

An extreme winter heatwave meant countries across Europe experienced a record-breaking New Year’s Day. New daily temperature records for the month of January were set in at least eight countries: Belarus, Czechia, Denmark, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Netherlands and Poland.

In many cases the temperatures were not just breaking the old highs, but smashing them by massive margins. On a typical January day in Warsaw, Poland, temperatures would barely go above freezing, yet the city recently experienced 19℃, breaking the previous January high by 5.1℃.

New January records were set at thousands of individual stations in many other countries such as 25.1℃ at Bilbao airport in Spain, 0.7℃ hotter than the previous record set only last year. Large areas of central and Eastern Europe experienced temperatures 10℃ to 15℃ warmer than average for this time of year – and that has persisted through the week.

When Europe experienced extreme heat in July of last year, more than 20,000 died. Fortunately winter heatwaves are much less deadly, but they can still affect both human society and natural ecosystems in many ways.

1. Less energy is needed

In Europe deaths due to cold weather vastly outweigh those caused by extreme high temperatures – in the UK there are ten times more. Warmer winters will reduce this excess mortality and, with the current cost-of-living crisis, many will have been relieved that a heatwave meant less energy was needed to heat their homes.

Electricity demand is influenced by things like the time of day, the day of the week and socio-economic factors like the COVID pandemic or the war in Ukraine. The weather also makes a difference. For example, in Poland and the Netherlands demand was noticeably lower than average, especially since January 1 was a Sunday. The extent of the heatwave also meant countries could refill some of their winter gas reserves, or large batteries.

Energy consumption in Poland December 28 to January 5. The red line shows the 2022-2023 heatwave period, and the grey lines show available data from 2015-2022.
Hannah Bloomfield / data: transparency.entsoe.eu, Author provided

2. Reduced yields for some crops

Winter warm spells don’t always have such a positive impact though. For instance a lack of snow in the mountains affects agriculture and can reduce crop yield, since snow creates an insulating blanket that prevents frost from penetrating into the soil. This means snow can actually increase soil moisture more than rainfall, thus improving growing conditions later in the season.

The big snow melt in spring time replenishes reservoirs and allows hydroelectricity generation, but unexpected snow melt can lead to flooding. Changes to the timings of these events will require preparation and adaptation to enable a steady supply of water to where we need it.

Warmer temperatures will create longer growing seasons in many regions. This is not always the case though. A recent study showed that for alpine grasslands an earlier growing season (the point when snow has melted entirely) leads to ageing and browning of the grasses in the later part of the summer.

3. The snow economy is in trouble

The heatwave caused ski resorts across the Alps to close in what should be their busiest time of year. In January the slopes would be expected to have a good covering of snow – but instead we saw green grassy fields.

This hits the local economy where many people rely on winter sports tourism. Events such as the Adelboden alpine ski World Cup are relying on artificial snow, which comes with a further environmental cost increasing the carbon footprint of ski resorts and requiring a large water supply. Indeed, the Beijing winter Olympics used the equivalent of daily drinking water for 900 million people to generate the artificial snow it required.

4. Animals out of sync with the climate

We humans are perhaps fortunate, as we are able to adapt. Some ski resorts have already opened mountain bike trails in winter to offer alternative tourism, but wildlife and ecosystems cannot adjust so rapidly.

In the mountains many species, such as ptarmigan and mountain hares, change their colouring for winter to camouflage in the white snow. The timing of this change is determined by length of day – not the temperature or amount of snow. These creatures are at greater risk of being preyed on when it is warmer.

White rabbit, brown background
Mountain hares are dressed for a climate that has changed.
Mark Medcalf / shutterstock

Over the past century heat extremes in Europe have increased in intensity and frequency. Both the general warming and heatwave events have been firmly attributed to humans.

Future projections suggest these trends will continue and heatwaves in both summer and winter will get hotter, last longer, and occur more often. We need to learn to adapt for these changes in all seasons and think about the impacts on everyone – and everything – on our planet.The Conversation

—————————-

This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment members Dr Vikki Thompson, Senior Research Associate in Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol and Dr Hannah Bloomfield, Postdoctoral Researcher in Climate Risk Analytics, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Farmer of Myddfai

Posted on by janet.crompton

Above the village of Myddfai, Escairllaethdy Farm stretches over 150 acres. The farm, which lies on the western edge of the Brecon Beacons at the foot of the Black Mountains, has been in Hywel Morgan’s family since his grandfather bought it after the Second World War. It’s an upland livestock farm, and Hywel also has grazing rights on the common land on Mynydd Myddfai for his sheep, horses, and, more recently, cattle. He describes himself as a hill farmer, and one who is especially passionate about the hills.

For the past five years Hywel has been gradually reducing the impact of his farming methods on the land. In an interview in March 2022, he told me more about how this came about. In the wake of Brexit, Hywel met with a Welsh civil servant and asked him what was really required of farmers in this new political context. The reply was that what the Government wanted was for farmers to farm “with nature”. This set Hywel on a journey of discovery that included a study-tour with the Farming Connect Management and Exchange scheme, investigating low-impact farming in Britain and continental Europe, as well as a visit to the Food and Farming conference in Aberystwyth, where he found disappointingly few farmers but did discover a stand for the Nature Friendly Farming Network. He decided to get involved.

Hywel’s move into lower-impact, nature-friendly farming has had a number of practical results. One is in the amount of hedgerow now on the farm. He explained: “I’ve put in about a thousand metres of double fencing every year for the past five years for hedgerow restoration, whether that is planting new hedges, coppicing hedges, or hedge-laying”. He has also been letting the hedges grow taller, sometimes leaving them for three years before cutting them. He says with a sense of pride, “All of a sudden I saw all these birds around in later winter”.  The beneficial effects of the hedges are visible in the summer too, reflected in the behaviour of the livestock. Hywel has noticed that on hot summer days his sheep and cows hide in the shade of the hedges, “and when the sun moves they move with the shade”. He adds, “Watching your animals tells you a lot”. He has also given up using artificial fertiliser and cut down on pharmaceuticals. Where he used to spray off a field of grass with Roundup and drill swedes for the sheep, he now conserves the grass for winter feed.

Farming in a nature-friendly way has involved some changes in the kind of livestock Hywel keeps on the land. He has introduced Highland cattle to his herd, and practises conservation grazing with all of his cattle. The Highlands live up on the hill and Hywel can already see how this stimulates greater biodiversity. In this respect cattle do better than sheep, “because sheep will nibble the short sweet grass right down. The cattle will just trample it for a start, and by trampling it they’re putting organic matter back into the soil and regenerating it a bit”. The hoof impact helps to create habitat for invertebrates and the browsing methods of the cattle “will leave a bit more over for nature”.

How much to leave for nature is a potentially difficult question given that farms are businesses and need to be run as such. Hywel admits that “production-wise it isn’t fantastic because you’re producing less meat per acre or per hectare”, but he argues with great conviction that “we have to have this balance of food production and nature – biodiversity and wildlife – and finding the sweet spot between biodiversity and productivity is key”.

Hywel’s relationship with this landscape is steeped in its history as well as invested in its future. Myddfai is a kind of hallowed ground, the ancient home of the legendary Lady of the Lake and the Physicians of Myddfai, The story of the mysterious Lady and her children, who began a tradition of healers in the village that continued for hundreds of years, was included in The Red Book of Hergest which dates from the late 14th century. Among other tales, the manuscript tells the story of the son of a famer killed fighting to preserve the independence of Wales, who while wandering along the edge of Llyn y Fan Fach, saw a beautiful woman sitting on the surface of the lake. He fell in love with her and wooed her with gifts of bread. On the third occasion, with the bread cooked exactly to her liking, the woman agreed to marry him and stay with him “until she received from him three blows, without any cause”.[i] It was a long time before the man landed the third blow on his wife, but true to her word, she left him and returned to the Lake. The story might be read as a stark warning against domestic violence. But there is a more positive kind of sequel. The couple had three sons and the mother sometimes appeared to them, teaching them about the medicinal qualities of the plants to be found in the area. The boys grew up to become skilful physicians who then recorded their knowledge in writing, “for the benefit of mankind throughout all the ages”.

In a quiet and modest way, Hywel thinks of himself as the inheritor this tradition of herbal knowledge. He has begun planting herbal leys in preference to rye grass because, as he says, “if I can’t grow them, who should?” As a society, we are probably only just beginning to discover how much can be learnt from the herbal medicines of the past. In part this is because the awareness of such sophisticated knowledge and wisdom has been obscured by more dominant, often urban-centric narratives. While the Enlightenment represented a huge advance in knowledge in some areas of the British Isles, the historian David Gange has written of how it benefited the big cities of the British Isles but actually heralded an age of darkness for other areas of the archipelago. In Wales it contributed to the suppression of the histories of the Age of the Saints, a period of intense Christian activity linked with learning and with the emergence of a deeply rooted Welsh culture.

Hywel takes inspiration from this ancient past as well as trying to draw on the practices of his own more recent ancestors. In some respects, regenerative farming means remembering agricultural methods from before the industrialisation of farming – which took place most significantly in the wake of the Second World War and the Agriculture Act of 1947. Farmers involved in nature-friendly farming often look back not to their fathers’ generation for wisdom but to that of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, who were farming before the intensification of agriculture really took hold. In some ways, those generations modelled a way of life that seems preferable to the pressured lives of contemporary farmers. Hywel admits: “But hearing my father repeating stories about my grandad, his dad, I thought how fantastic life sounded. Hard, but just going up on a hill on horseback and chatting to a fellow grazier for hours and hours on end”. Now, in contrast, he says: “I feel like we’re just working. Like we’re running faster to stand still at the moment, because even at 15 I had my own sheep, and I pretty much had the same money then as I’m having now. It hasn’t changed. The price of fertiliser and feed and fuel and everything’s gone up crazy, but what we get for the end product hasn’t”.

The stories from the past, both ancient and more modern are significant. They speak of a tradition of farming on the Welsh uplands that has been in place for millennia. This tradition reflects a particularly deep relationship with the landscape built through hard toil and a commitment to learning the character of the land itself. Hywel’s story is an important counter to some of the current rewilding narratives that, at their most extreme, seem to suggest that the uplands would be better left untouched by farming of any kind. It is because of his careful stewardship that his land is flourishing.

Part of this process involves learning to see how the landscape might begin to heal itself. In a sense, Hywel is continuing in the tradition of the Physicians of Myddfai. Farmers like him are physicians of the land: wise practitioners who don’t impose a range of chemically based industrial-style remedies on the earth, but as the medieval Physicans of Myddfai were reputed to do, find ways of helping the patient through small interventions. This means moving away from the big-ag big pharma model in which agriculture is dominated by pharmaceutical companies and their agrochemicals, and thinking about what the land itself can do.

But regenerative farming does not just mean looking back in time. What struck me most when I first visited Esgairllaethdy was the way in which the wisdom of the past was being combined with some extraordinary contemporary technology. The Highland cattle on the hill wear collars fitted with GPS equipment. The collars enable Hywel to monitor where the cattle are and control their movement by setting up virtual fences using an app on his phone. When the cattle cross the boundary of the virtual field that Hywel maps out for them, the collars emit a high-pitched sound that causes them to step back into their allocated area. He tells me: “I think, in time, I’ll be able to manage without the collars, because the cattle will get used to the place”.

While Lyn y Fan Fach, the lake from which the legendary Lady emerged is two miles from Hywel’s farm, up on the mountain that adjoins his land, Hywel does now have a mini-lake of his own. He had always wanted a pond on his farm and two year’s into his membership of Glastir Advanced (a whole-farm sustainable land management scheme), he decided to build one. While some construction issues meant that the pond sometimes dries out, when the rain comes it creates a pool. After four days of heavy rain last Autumn, Hywel says, “the pond was full to overflowing”. He has witnessed how the pond has brought new species to the farm: “There was a duck there yesterday, there’s a heron, there’ll be Canadian geese, there’s all sorts of insects, dragonflies, around there”.

When I first visited Esgairllaethy in October 2021, I was at a low ebb: like everyone else, I was reeling from the practical and emotional effects of eighteen months of the pandemic, and from environmental fears prompted by the findings of the 2021 IPCC report and the figures for bioversity decline that came out before COP2021. But walking in the drizzling rain on the Open Farm Day walk, I felt buoyed up by an unexpected sense of hope. Here we were, in the midst of a vibrant landscape nurtured by a farmer whose deep love for the place and growing knowledge of its needs inform his farming practices. Species declining elsewhere are still present here and increasing in number – the hare, the curlew, and the skylark – and species new to the farm are arriving. With a newfound optimism, I thought of how the pond is providing a haven for passing waterfowl; how the Highland cattle on the hill are disturbing the ground, making new habitats for invertebrates and encouraging the growth of rare plants; and how the restored hedges are providing shelter for overwintering birds and shade for the livestock in summer. There’s a strong sense here of how the land is gradually recovering its health and how we in turn might heal our relationship with it.

————————–

Pippa Marland

Excerpts from the interview with Hywel Morgan are quoted here with his kind consent.

This blog is written by Pen and Plough researcher Dr Pippa Marland and is based on her interview with Hywel Morgan (https://thepenandtheplough.wordpress.com/2022/05/17/an-interview-with-nature-friendly-farmer-hywel-morgan-pippa-marland/) and published with his permission. Illustrations by Katie Marland. This blog has been reposted with kind permission from Pippa Marland. View the original blog.

Katie Marland is an artist and illustrator based between Bristol and London, where she recently completed her masters at the Royal Drawing School. Her practice is research-led, working from esoteric texts, medical history, museum collections and from close observation of the natural world. Her work can be found on her website, on instagram @kmarlandart, and on twitter @kmarlandart.

[i] Additional information about the stories of the Lady of Lake and the Physcians of Myddfai is drawn from Terry Breverton’s (2012) The Physicians of Myddfai: Cures and Remedies of the Mediaeval World (Carmarthenshire: Cambrian Books).

IPCC blog series – Working Group 2 – Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

 

This blog is part of a series from the Cabot Institute for the Environment on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent sixth Assessment report, with this post covering the output of Working Group 2 and the impacts of climate change on society and ecosystems. This article also features a chat with Prof Daniela Schmidt, a Professor at the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, and a Lead Author on the IPCC’s AR6 report. For links to the rest of the series, see the bottom of the post.

Welcome to the next post in this series on the IPCC sixth Assessment Report (AR6). Now that we’ve covered the background science to climate change, the next phase looks at the impacts on society, ecosystems, and the intricate fabric of everything in between – combining the science and aiding the transition of translating to policies that governments can implement to better the planet and mitigate the impacts.

This report is, in my opinion, the most alarming of the bunch – some scientists referring to this as the “bleakest warning yet”. Here are the key points:

The increased frequency of Extreme Weather and Temperature will have a cataclysmic impact – Everywhere will be affected

There is no inhabited region on earth that escapes the impacts of climate change. It’s estimated that over 3.3 billion people are living in areas highly vulnerable to climate change effects – largely extreme temperatures, leading to food insecurity and water shortages. Extreme weather events, such as tropical storms and flooding, are also set to increase in both frequency and severity.

As we’ve seen in recent years, wildfires have become more common (Australia and California making international news) and will continue to rise in frequency – wreaking devastation on communities and wildlife. This, along with the retreat of glaciers and polar ice caps, also results in a release of even more carbon to the atmosphere as the Earth’s natural carbon sinks continue to be dismantled. The ensuing feedback loop amplifies the warming, only serving to increase the severity of these events.

However, the impacts of climate change won’t be experienced uniformly across the planet…

The Impacts of Climate Change will not be experienced equally

This is one of the most important statements from all three Working Groups. It’s been well reported that sea level rise will be existentially cataclysmic for atoll island nations such as Kiribati and the Maldives, but there are other effects of climate change that will be unequally experienced. At the other end of the scale, Britain and other western European nations will see less drastic impacts, despite having some of the greatest contribution to the emissions at the root of the climate crisis. In summer, some parts of the globe are already becoming unliveable due to the extremely high temperatures. In India and Africa for example, where temperatures can exceed 40 degrees C, the number of deaths due to heat are increasing year on year. Poorer communities, especially those who work outdoors, are disproportionately affected as their occupation puts them at greater risk.

Some of the nations with the lowest development and therefore lowest contribution to climate change will experience the impacts more than some of the greatest contributors.

A Climate Crisis exacerbates other ongoing Crises

The effects of a climate crisis add an extra layer of complexity to all sorts of problems the world is already facing. Threats to food and water security because of climate change will increase pre-existing geopolitical tensions as resources become more and more scarce. Therefore, the likelihood of conflict and war increases – which in turn shift focus from fighting climate change. To some extent, we are seeing this already with the war in Ukraine, for example. In summary, climate change can increase severity of a crisis and limits the efficacy of response.

Impacts on ecosystems are already happening as well

Mass die-offs of species are well underway, particularly in oceanic ecosystems as sea temperatures rise and ocean acidification takes place. Deforestation and wildfires are destroying ecosystems.

When I spoke to Professor Daniela Schmidt, a lead author on the WGII report (more from her at the end of the article), she was quick to point out and stress the connections between nature and society, links often underestimated – “Negative impacts on nature will negatively impact people”. Nature, land-use, and conservation will be some of the key tools in helping mitigate the effects of climate change.

This is something to explore further with the next blog in this series on Working Group 3: Mitigation of Climate Change.

Insight from IPCC AR6 Lead Author Professor Daniela Schmidt 

Daniela Schmidt is a Professor of Palaeobiology, Cabot Institute member and a key author on the IPCC’s WG2 report.

How did you get involved with IPCC AR6 and Working Group II in particular?

“I was a lead author on the fifth assessment report, working on the ocean chapter. I have since worked on reports for the European Commission on food from the ocean. I volunteered for this cycle with the expectation of working with WGI but I was assigned work on WGII, which was challenging because it was way out of my comfort zone. Working on this report has changed the way I will conduct research in the future, and has taught me to be more open to the complexities of life”

What’s one key point you’d like to get across from the WGII report?

“The official key strapline from AR6 is that the evidence is clear, climate change is real and happening right now. It’s a rapidly closing window of opportunity to do something about it.”

“One of the main things I like to communicate is that if we don’t hit 1.5 degrees C targets, then 1.7 degrees C is still better than for 2 degrees C example. The point is that every increment matters and that we can’t give up if we miss targets. I think it’s important to tell people that if we are overshooting 1.5 degrees C, yes, there will be consequences, some of which are irreversible, but we can still come back.”

“I also try not just to talk about climate change. Much of the adaptation action for climate change incidentally will, in my view, help to make the world a better place – providing clean drinking water, clean energy, habitable homes and ensuring there is nature surrounding them”

———————-

We recommend taking a look at the IPCC’s full reports and report summaries for yourself if you seek to further understand the evidence and reasoning behind their headline statements.

Going further, potential solutions and climate change mitigations will be covered in greater detail in our summary of WG3’s report titled “Mitigation of Climate Change”, will be the next blog in this series, featuring a chat with IPCC AR6 Lead Author Dr. Jo House and contributor Viola Heinrich.

————————–

Andy Lyford

This blog was written by Cabot Communications Assistant Andy Lyford, an MScR Student studying Paleoclimates and Climate modelling on the Cabot Institute Master’s by Research in Global Environmental Challenges at the University of Bristol.

Mock COP26: Convincing, Cooperating and Collaborating

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

Glasgow COP26 presentation, preliminary discussion, and negotiation rounds 1 & 2

On 11th November at 10am around 60 A-level students from schools across Bristol gathered to participate in this year’s Mock COP26, hosted by Jack Nicholls, Emilia Melville, and Camille Straatman from the Cabot Institute for the Environment. After a resounding success from the first Mock COP, which took place online in March 2021, there was real excitement and anticipation building for the in-person event which would be held in the Great Hall of the Wills Memorial Building.

The morning kicked off with an engaging presentation by Jack, Emilia, and Camille, outlining the objectives of the upcoming COP26 in Glasgow. There had been much discussion surrounding the COP in the public sphere in the prior weeks, so it was interesting to see a summary of where things stand in the time since the Paris Agreement and what the potential outcomes of this COP may be.

The negotiations began with preliminary intra-group discussions, facilitated by a group of 12 postgraduate students. Each group defined their stance on each of the COP resolutions, ranging from option A, the most radical response, to C, the most conservative. It was evident from the off that these students were highly knowledgeable and passionate about the environmental, sociological, and economic impacts of each resolution, and as a result, each group wasted no time in prioritising the resolutions that would benefit their actor the most. Brazil factored in its current economic and development situation, as well as the Amazon’s critical role in the ecosystem balance, choosing to prioritise climate finance, natural protection and conservation and protecting climate refugees. For the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIFPCC), giving protected status to 50% of Earth’s natural areas by 2050 was defined as the most important resolution, whereas Shell chose to focus on phasing out coal, with the understanding that this would take the onus off the oil industry. Each group presented their ideal resolutions in a clear and concise manner.

The atmosphere really started to build in the hall when the first round of negotiations began. China faced Greenpeace in a heated discussion on coal usage while the IIFPCC negotiated with the USA on protecting indigenous populations. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees found alignment with Brazil on many of the resolutions, namely achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, natural protection and conservation to 30% of Earth’s natural areas and protecting climate refugees. In round two of negotiations, we saw Shell and the International Monetary Fund categorically disagree on the timeline for transition to Zero Emissions Vehicles, eventually compromising on a B resolution to have all new vehicle sales as zero-emission by 2040. Brazil was happy in supporting the IIPFCC in resolution 7a. (All countries must allow people fleeing from natural disasters, environmental degradation, and sea level rise to enter their countries and make their new homes there). Brazil and IIPFCC made an alliance to encourage USA toward resolution 7a, instead of their preferred 7b (Countries at risk of extinction from sea level rise should be provided with new land to settle and move their people to OR be provided with financial help to buy land in other nations). China and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) clash on coal usage, with AOSIS pushing back with a suggestion of image control, but ultimately China held strong on their decision.

Negotiation rounds 3 & 4, voting, and deputy mayor’s speech

The UK showed their tactical abilities and their knowledge in the negotiations with Greenpeace, but Greenpeace did not cede to their demands and manage to agree to a deal.  The IIPFCC was determined to protect indigenous land and communities, but their quest was heavily challenged by Shell. There was no common ground in the negotiation with this petrol giant, so the IIPFCC had to ensure an allyship with Brazil if they wanted to ensure the protection of the indigenous. On round four, Shell tried to sway some votes from China and Sweden, but while agreements were found with the former, the latter country was not going to let Shell influence their values. The tête-à-tête became lively as neither Shell nor Sweden were willing to compromise, resulting in a rather unsuccessful attempt of finding complicity.

After four intense rounds of negotiating, the voting began. Were all parties going to remain faithful to the agreements established during the negotiations? Or would some throw a curve ball, changing their minds at the last minute? The pondered tactics of the IIPFCC were successful, as they managed to lock Brazil’s and the USA’s support on their most valued resolutions. All parties pondered thoroughly on how to best use their votes, and it seemed that this meant that some agreements had been silently retracted, when some astonished reactions followed the raise of hands here and there.

The conference was finally over and many parties, including Brazil and Greenpeace, could celebrate the victory of the resolutions agreed upon. Yet, it was clear that a bittersweet aftertaste was left in the mouths of some parties, who did not manage to persuade enough. The heated debate had ended, and what was done was done, but one more surprise was awaiting our participants. Deputy Mayor Asher Craig had been sitting on the sidelines for a few instances already, assisting in the final yet most heated rounds of the conference. She was there, observing our pupils in awe as they got into character and avidly fought for their beliefs. The Deputy Mayor was impressed by the passion of these young minds and how much they are invested in the cause; she was proud to see that young generations care about the environment and our planet, as they came up with ideas for change that they would like to see more in the Bristol. The innovativeness and creativity of the students was remarkable in her eyes, as she proceeded to give an inspiring and uplifting speech on the efforts currently being made by the City Council to respond to the climate emergency. The mock COP26 was a more than a successful event, and as everyone waited for the results of the conference in Glasgow, we all wished that our simulation had been real.

Watch the students in action in this short video created by Particle Productions and funded by Bristol City Council.

————————————–

This blog is written by Sonia Pighini and Jennifer Malone, who are students on the Cabot Institute for the Environment Master’s by Research.

Jennifer Malone
Currently studying for a Master’s by Research in Global  Environmental Challenges from the Cabot Institute for the Environment, Jennifer’s research is centred on food system decarbonisation within the scope of UK food policy and community practice.
Sonia Pigini

Sonia is an international student in the MscR programme Global Environmental Challenges. Their research focuses on people-centred sustainable food system transitions in Bristol. They are particularly interested in exploring the potential for a more decentralised food system in the city, which empowers local producers, engages consumers and that keeps aspects such as justice and inclusion at its heart.

Image credit (image at top of blog): Jack Pitts

Migration, mobilities and the ecological context

Posted on by janet.crompton

In this special blog series, Migration Mobilities Bristol (MMB) and the Cabot Institute for the Environment bring together researchers from across the University of Bristol to explore connections between movement and the environment from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Their diverse approaches highlight the importance of developing frames that incorporate both migration and environment, and in so doing benefit our understandings of both. 

————————————-

Migration can make you happy. When I see the first swifts arrive in the spring, I stop in my tracks and smile broadly at all and everyone. I have to restrain myself from telling people walking down the street that ‘they’ are back. Swifts are one of the wonders of the world – they make Concorde look clunky, they hurtle down streets in towns screaming wildly at dusk seemingly just for the fun of it, and scientists have calculated that the distance they fly over their lifetime is equivalent to flying to the moon and back seven times!

Dahlia (Bishop of Llandaff). Image credit: Jane Memmott

Migratory species like swifts have two homes and they are generally well regarded in both places. It’s a bit more touch and go whether alien species are welcome or not, and highly context dependent. For example, we deliberately introduce species from all around the world into our gardens without qualm – looking out the window onto my front garden, I’ve got honey bush and pineapple lilies from South Africa, Dahlias from Mexico, a Hebe from New Zealand, devil’s tobacco from Chile and foxgloves from seed collected down the road! In contrast, my local nature reserves are doing their best to remove Rhododendron, Cotoneaster and Himalayan balsam.

Context really is key here. Thus, gardens are grown for colour, relaxation, fruit, vegetables, and art (and I consider gardening as much of an art as a science) and they are highly managed and artificial habitats. In fact, they are increasingly considered as outdoor rooms in the media, and no one worries what countries their botanical furniture is from. In contrast, nature reserves are usually more natural settings where we want to capture natural patterns and processes, so there is an expectation that the species present should be native. And there is good evidence that while most alien species are harmless, some species (approximately 1%) can be very damaging to the environment and the economy.

Honey bush leaves (Melianthus major). Image credit: Jane Memmott

Migration is about mobility, and mobility is a key part of the scientific process. Thus, universities are ecosystems which provide intellectual homes to academics from all over the world. My own department is home to scientists from Africa, Germany, Brazil, Switzerland, Brazil, Italy and China and those are just the people I’ve bumped into over the last few days. COVID has put a bit of a spanner in the works on the mobility front, but mobility is so key to business that academics have quickly found other ways to be mobile. For example, in my own research group, we have been running a large project in a remote part of Nepal entirely by Zoom for the last two years. But, by dint of the internet and some incredible UK staff and amazing project partners in Nepal, we have trained field staff in ten remote villages in the Himalayas to collect diet data for both bees and villagers, using protocols that would have been very new to them. The data is then uploaded by the field staff to the internet and arrives on the computers the other side of the world as if by magic.

Mobility is such a large part of a scientist’s life that when it goes wrong it can feel shocking. I’ve had two encounters with mobility of scientists being blocked, one involving myself, another a visiting scientist. Mine was, I suspect, a straightforward random immigration check, but it did leave me rather shaken. I was travelling to Canada for the first time and got taken out of the queue and then grilled for 30 minutes on the nature of my visit. I was giving a plenary talk at a conference and had fortunately remembered to print out my letter of invitation. Unfortunately, I hadn’t actually read it for six months and so I probably did sound a bit suspicious. They did eventually let me in and it was an excellent trip thereafter. The second time was when a restoration ecologist from Latin America, who was visiting my research group for six months, went to Spain with his family for a weekend and upon return his whole family was issued with deportation papers. There is something deeply shocking about seeing the hostile environment process in action, especially when mobility is simply part of normal academic interchange. After some high-level work by an international lawyer this too was fixed. Restoration ecology is much more of a long-term process, but the restoration of mobility was much faster in this instance, if a lot more stressful.

Swift (Apus apus). Image credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Migration and mobility are everyday events in the environment. They can be natural such as the return of swifts each year, or they can be assisted such as the reintroduction programmes for species that have become extinct in the UK. One of the biggest reintroduction success stories is the red kite, a bird that you are almost guaranteed to see now if you drive down the M4 motorway or look out of the train window from Didcot to London. These are big and very beautiful predatory birds – imagine a paprika coloured swallow with a 6ft wingspan! My last few Saturdays have been spent driving from Bristol to a hospital in Hampshire to visit a sick relative and one of the things that has made this less stressful is counting the red kites along the motorway. Last Saturday was a 12-kite day, my highest count yet.

To end, migration, mobility and the environment are inextricably linked. There is both natural and human assisted movement of species in the environment. Species can be both welcome and unwelcome depending on the context. It’s complicated, but it’s the everyday bread and butter of ecologists around the world. With alien plants bringing colour and bizazz to our gardens and swifts bringing happiness as they return to their second homes in the UK, there is a lot to like about migration and mobility in the environment.

—————————-

This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member, Jane Memmott, Professor of Community Ecology in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol. Her research interests include pollination ecology, invasion ecology, biological control and restoration ecology. In each case she considers how ecological networks can be used as a tool to answer environmental questions.

Professor Jane Memmott

Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptations and Vulnerability – an IPCC lead author report summary

Posted on by janet.crompton

Professor Daniela Schmidt, a lead author of the recently published IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)  report, Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptations and Vulnerability, recently gave an internal presentation to University of Bristol staff to summarise the report’s findings.

Recent geo-political events have meant that this report has understandably been overlooked in comparison to its predecessor, however, at 3500 pages and being the product of analysis of 34,000 papers since 2014, it is certainly not light reading. This writing aims to pinpoint and amplify the key messages from Daniela’s summary of Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptations and Vulnerability, as the Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change report has been released this week.

Solutions

The key take home message, was that the report offers solutions, but they are needed now. Daniela explained that it is not all doom and gloom, and it is important for our survival not to take it that way. From the report itself, the key quote, which you have perhaps seen shared elsewhere, is

The science is clear. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a livable future. This report offers solutions to the world.

Nature

One of the key solutions proposed in the report is nature, both in terms of its conservation and restoration and that it offers promising solutions to many of the threats we face. For example, the potential of natural carbon sinks, coastal protection, water management and urban cooling systems has been repeatedly evidenced, as well as the importance of integrating nature and natural solutions into urban spaces.

The report stresses that humans are part of ecosystems, not separate from them, and nature is crucial to our survival because of the essential and irreplaceable ecosystem services it provides. Fragmented, polluted and overexploited ecosystems are much more vulnerable to climate change, therefore, the report stresses it is therefore important to take a coordinated approach, with their protection and restoration in mind.

Interconnection

As well as the interconnectedness of humans and nature, the report evidences previously unrealised interconnections of climate risks. Risks are becoming more complex and there are compound and cascading risks through systems. For example, in terms of food scarcity, we need to consider that heat stress will not only reduce crop yields, but also the well-being and productivity of farm workers, further exacerbating the situation. There is an increased recognition of the interconnections between people, regions, society, ecosystems, biodiversity. This means that climate change cannot be seen as an individual problem, but as one intrinsically linked with natural resource depletion, ecosystem destruction, and growing urbanisation and inequity across the world.

Equality

Another key focus of the report was the importance of but lack of global equality, which will continue to be exacerbated in the face of climate change. 3.3  – 3.6 billion live in hotspots of high vulnerability to climate change, due to high levels of poverty, limited access to water, sanitation and health services, climate sensitive livelihoods and lack of funding and accountability in government. I would like to point out, that in the vast majority of cases, it is these communities whose carbon contributions are the least, which in my opinion strongly evidences to the fact that climate change is a political problem as well as a scientific one.

Due to inequality being a big problem, the report places an emphasis on the importance of promoting equality in the solutions and with this the need to listen to marginalised voices. Daniela explained that of global climate funding, 80% goes to mitigation, or reduction of emissions, while only 20% goes to adaptation, which is likely to be what is most consequential to more vulnerable communities.

After lack of action on deals made at COP26, which scientists have already argued at best would not be sufficient to solve the problem, a continued lack of action following these urgent messages will be deeply concerning for the fate of the planet, and especially for its most vulnerable communities.

Watch Daniela’s presentation to University of Bristol staff.

 

——————————
This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Hilary McCarthy, University of Bristol.
Hilary McCarthy

 

Sign up to our weekly newsletter for all the latest news, events and opportunities at https://bristol.ac.uk/cabot/news/subscribe. Find out more about our unique Master's by Research in Global Environmental Challenges at https://bristol.ac.uk/cabot-masters.