PhD: Chapter 1

I've been slowly feeding my thesis chapters in wordle.net. It certainly makes it look more impressive in key word form

PhD: Abstract

What my abstract looks like according to wordle:

Another World Is Possible

"In the world we live in, the bad wolf of climate change has already ransacked the straw house and the house made of sticks, and the inhabitants of both are now knocking on the door of the brick house where the people of the developed world live” - Emeritus Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Climate Change, developement and energy problems in South Africa another world is possible is a report by Earthlife Africa Johannesburg (Oxfam International) is an interesting summary of the current state of South Africa in terms of CC. (Thanks go to Arame for pointing out this report)

South Africa is reported to be the highest emitter GHG in Africa. As it currently stands South Africa is under no legal obligation to cut emissions but they should be under a moral obligation, SA is on the edge with respect to Climate Change as it is.

The executive summary stated that SA reducing its emissions would send a clear message to the world that would increase its negotiating power. Given what happened in Copenhagen where SA was sidelined, can we say this?

I'm always curious as to how the international community views South Africa when discussing various conccepts like poverty, disadvantaged, third world, African, political power etc

An interesting experiment suggested by Nimi (the other SA YSSP):
Google: 'poverty' or 'township' or 'development' and see what images you get.

Then check out this Youtube ad.

Climate Change Negotiation Simulation

Today IIASA staged a Climate Change Negotiation Simulation as part of our YSSP. YSSP participants we assigned a country to represent one of: Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Grenada, India, Japan, Russian Federation, Sweden, Sudan, UK, USA, Australia, Poland, Hungary etc etc. Basically a mixture og G8, G20 and G77 countries.

My initial reason for taking part was to experience a negotiation situation as I am always frustrated by the reports in the newspapers of failure following these negotiations. I can now understand why. We were each assigned a country, or given NGO status to observe the proceedings. I was assigned Australia, an environmental activist of sorts that was campaigning for tough emissions targets and to introduce the concept of "climate change refugees". My simulation tip notes featured some countries I should negotiate with and some that needed more persuasion. I was told to criticise African countries (which goes against my personal feelings) and push for developing countries to accept that they are not exempt from the guilt just because they are still growing economically.

M&M Negotiations

Before the official negotiations began we played a simple negotiaton game where each person is given five pieces of paper in different colours, you have to negotiate to get 5 pieces of the same colour. It was hilarious as some people walked around talking your way into a colour while others just sat and waited for people to come to them. Quite interesting to try.

Negotiation Simulation

Throughout the negotiation process we discovered other's country mandates, game instructions and a few hidden agendas. Ariel as game master observed the proceedings and pushed forward negotiations with ad-hoc instructions for countries to carry out. Examples of these were criticising the chair for bias, not following due process, changing stance mid negotiation, stage a walk out, start forming a coalition. It made the process quite baffling at times.

There are few keys thing I have learnt from the experience. When negotiating, there must be a clear language for all parties, such as what emissions means vs emissions intensities, what does respected mean etc. I also learnt that one needs negotiators with technical know-how to negotiate, not political figures that do not understand the implications of the various proposals tabled for discussion.

Waving The African Flag Proudly

Africa Day was officially a great success. We ate, danced and drank...a typical African party.

YSSPers and a few staff slaved over stoves, watched ovens, shopped up a storm to bring African cuisine to the IIASA ignorants. Arame and I planned (or were told to plan) for 60 - 70 people and so with this in mind we made enough food for leftovers. The problem was (we don't consider it a problem really) that almost double that number attended, so much for Arame's and my plan to eat the leftovers for lunch. We have absolutely nothing left. There were queues for food! I've never such a thing, though to be fair I think that was because everyone required an explanation of the food which made the selection time a lot longer than normal.

The quiz Ben designed apparently taxed the minimal knowledge people had about Africa, including their flag knowledge. Highest score was 26/100!

























The menu for the evening included:

• Beef Bobotie (South Africa)
• Chicken Tajine (Morocco)
  
• Lentil and Brinjal Curry (South Africa)
• Yassa (Senegal)
• Thiou Guinar (Cote d’Ivoire)
• Ugali/Msima (Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia)
• White Jasmine Rice
• Pine nut couscous
• Malva Pudding (South Africa)
  
• Koeksisters (South Africa)

Drinks:

• Bouye (Baobab Tree fruit drink)
• Bissap (Sweet Hibiscus fruit drink)
• Springbokkies (South Africa)

We had a bit of a music problem, how to represent the entire continent's music in 3.5 hours? Make a playlist of 16 hours worth of all our favourites and put it on shuffle, the computer can be the unbiased selector :P Let the dancing begin!!


My mom posted me a few vuvuzelas which provided much entertainment as partygoers tried to out perform each other, talk about noise!

Overall I think it was a great success and the kitchens of Vienna can breathe a sigh of relief as they go back to being unused.

Africa Day!

Africa Day has arrived :) The food is all cooked (and there is lots of it) and we're getting into the party mood. The African YSSP participants and adopted African students are going to be frantically setting up for Africa Day this afternoon. If you see a stressed organiser, lend a hand!

Recreating the African experience

Recreating the African experience (or how not to shop). The organisers of Africa Day went shopping for ingredients on Friday afternoon in what should have been a fairly organised experience. People know I do not have the best of patiences at the best of times, but chaos grates on my nerves instantly.

We ended up in the chaotic landscape of communal decisions but distributed buying, a major mismatch of methodology. This was also done on African time, as in take your time. Those of you who don't know the idea behind African time, count yourself very lucky especially if you're a punctual person.

The elephant on the right is an old version of the poster I posted last week. I think its super cute but the rest of the Africa Day crowd didn't want to promote Africa that it is just about animals. I have nothing against promoting the richness of the natural resources in Africa, in fact I think we should celebrate it.

The Seeds of Time

"If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me." - William Shakespeare, Macbeth Act 1 Scene 3

What farmers want and what forecasters provide are two vastly different sets of information. I'm becoming increasing more frustrated with researchers who say 'but its not possible'. Well then why did you give the farmer the chance to ask for it in the first place, you're creating false expectations of the capabilities of science.

With this in mind, what can we the forecasters offer? Tailored forecasts for one. Industry specific? Individual time frames? Spatial resolution? These products seem to be lacking in South Africa and to some respect the rest of Africa.

Pop quiz: Would you trust the mean of the data below to tell what is going to happen in the next 3 months?

The trouble with (weather) forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it. - Patrick Young

We as a scientific community are improving our climate models to accurately reflect the climate conditions but they are not so accurate that we can rely on them completely. Would you place a bet based on your forecast?

There must be a way to create a robust solution that can cater for the inconsistencies in model skill. What is it? I'm not sure, that is part of the reason I came to IIASA, to discover, to explore. Its turning into a long path to an even more distant discovery but when have I ever chosen the easy path in the past.

Africa Day Announced

Africa Day preparations are well under way, the recipes decided, the music coming together and soon the vuvuzelas will arrive all the way from South Africa. Aapo made the coolest poster to promote the event, one that truly embraces the colour of Africa. I'll be sure to post the recipes after the event, its going to tour of our favourite African cuisine.

What makes us African?

The YSSP social program has financed various cultural days (Scandinavia, American, Canadian, Asian) over the Summer. This year we have enough students to create an African day. We were very enthusiastic but then I started thinking of South Africa and my cultural heritage. I'm African, I've lived in Africa all my life but to the Europeans I'm not really considered African, I don't speak an African language, don't wear traditional/tribal dress and don't have a traditional dance...so what makes me African?

Any thoughts?

So far for South African things I got: braai, koeksisters, babootie, springbokkies and wine (though I don't think the budget stretches that far).

Science on Global Problem Area: Poverty & Equity

Today's seminar on Science on Global Problem Areas focuses on Poverty and Equity. This topic relates specifically to southern Africa and there are many questions and few answers. There are a few strategic research questions and themes presented by HGC, POP and ENE:

Understanding Poverty:

• Systems analytical approaches to poverty (different dimensions of poverty and their linkages)
  
• Implications of population and social dynamics on risk and vulnerabilities
• Welfare benefits of improved access to basic good, services and technologies

Understanding Equity:

• Analysing distributions;schemes for allocating scarce resources
• Impact of drivers of global change on distributions, risks and vulnerabilities
• Competing normative principles of fairness

Translating to Effective Policy:

• Circumstances under which policies achieve development goals
• Translating results from systems models
• Fairness of setting policy
  

POP presented a research area that looks at correlation between education and health care as a means to alleviate poverty. This is an interesting question: Can Education help solve poverty?
Africa (and South East Asia) features heavily in the worst end of the scale for mortality across the indices. It is well known (or is it?) that as your education level increases generally your income increases and hence your health. There is literature to back this up that a higher education makes more of a difference than higher income (examples: India, Indonesia) however there are a few countries where this correlation does not hold (example: Cuba). Many WHO survey graphs from 2004 were presented as a motivation but bizarrely South Africa did not show up on a single graph (Infant mortality, Mothers seeking pre-natal care etc). I asked and it seems SA is somewhere in the middle and hence frequently overlooked.

This seminar is especially interesting in light of a Poverty and Equity workshop to be held in South Africa in September. IIASA NMOs are being given an opportunity to listen to developing countries wish-lists. Why then South Africa if its not featured on the graphs? Because South Africa is going to be the nominated voice of the masses (i.e. SADC region). Does this make sense?

Something I have discovered is the POPNET newsletter published by the Population group at IIASA. The picture is from the latest newsletter that population growth to 2050 and the global education levels.

Applying Climate Information in Africa

I'm currently making my way through what seems to be a literature bible for applications of climate information in various African countries across sectors and scales: "Applying Climate Information in Africa, An assessment of current knowledge". The report was written by Anthony Patt of IIASA for NOAA. I would highly recommend it for anyone doing climate work in South Africa.

Wicked Problem

Today's presentation on the Science on Global Problem Area: Energy & Climate Change by IIASA highlighted their second strategic research plan stream. Climate change was described as a "wicked problem": messy problem with different definitions, no single solution. Officially a "wicked problem" is a phrase used in social planning to describe a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems. I think its appropriate.

ENE (Energy Program) presented the current energy challenges. There is a growing demand for energy services (globally) that are reliable and has a secure supply. There are currently 2 billion people with access to energy sources. IIASA is looking at energy policies, savings and options available. There is a Global Energy Assessment will be released next year of which IIASA is a coordinator and author. Should be an interesting coffee table book :) The slide comes from the presentation given and highlights just how many factors one needs to consider and all the complexity of integrated assessments.

APD (Atmospheric Pollution and Economic Development Program) reviewed how costly/ambitious the Annex I Mitigation Pledges are and are they comparable between Parties? The costs of these pledges range from -0.3% to 0.1% of the GDP of each country at 2020. It seems the Ukraine has the highest cost saving but New Zealand seem to be losing out.

RAV (Risk and Vulnerability)
Anthony Patt of the Decisions and Governance Group within RAV revealed the two paths within RAV, adaptation and mitigation. One study of interest to me was done on Mozambique and its disasters. Using two different techniques; linear extrapolation of current trends and coupled-model ensemble projections they looked at disaster frequency. Interestingly enough the ensemble model projections show that Mozambique isn't going to have an increase in disaster frequency but the statistical models do show an increase...what/who do you believe? The picture on the left is taken from the cover of Options Magazine, a presentation of IIASA and its research to a non-specialist audience. The last issue talks about looking beyond Copenhagen and the current issue explores Green growth.

Science on Global Problems Area: Food & Water

IIASA has defined three new strategic research areas: Food & Water, Energy & Climate Change and Poverty & Equity.

Food & Water has been shared by a few groups within IIASA's research groups; Forestry, Ecology and Land Use Change. They reviewed current research activities and highlighted a few key challenges in this global problem area. These include:

• Widespread hunger and rising global food demands
• Agriculture needs to increase 70% globally and 100% in the developing world
• Agriculture currently uses 70% of all anthropogenic water use.
• Fishing currently feeds 1 billion people but won't be sustainable with the current overfishing
• A need for robust expansion of food and bioenergy production with sustainable regulating ecosystem functions protecting the global gene pool.
• Strategies for copying with climate change needs to be location specific.

Each group expounded on possible research avenues. Its quite fascinating what some of the proposed solutions entail. One worrying fact is that the capacity for rain-fed agriculture in Africa is decreasing by 2050, which given that 95% of the crop-land in Africa is rain-fed and contributes 35% to the GDP and 70% of the employment and 40% of the exports (according to FAO in 2000), maybe that should be a major focus on the African agenda.

Journal Club MTG4: Atmospheric Feedbacks

The article today was "Atmospheric / vegetation feedbacks: A mechanism for abrupt climate change over northern Africa" by CM Patricola and KH Cook. The paper discusses the sensitivity to the latitude of the desert border in the Sahara and the atmospheric feedbacks in the African easterly jet (AEJ). The idea is that if the desert border is located below 17.9N the climate becomes sensitive and the summer precipitation and a weakening in the AEJ. There are a few concerns with the paper as they use prescribed soil moisture and do not discuss the land cover model used.