1. Environment Councellor Jaakko Ojala: Climate Change- world's problem no 1?
1.1. Identifying agents of change
1.1.1. Local level example: women
1.1.1.1. Key role in solving societal problems related to energy consumption, deforestation, burning of vegetation, population growth and economic growth
1.1.1.2. EQUAL ACCESS to knowledge, resources, technology, planning and decision-making --> effective mitigation of climate change at the local level
1.2. 20 20 20 by 2020
1.2.1. GHG emissions by 20%
1.2.1.1. EU prepared for 30 % emission reduction?
1.2.2. Increase renewable energy 20 %
1.2.3. Increase energy efficiency by 20 %
1.2.4. Share of biofuels to 10 %
1.3. Roadmap towards low carbon Europe 2050
1.3.1. Main target: 80 % EU-wide emission reduction by 2050
1.3.2. Intermediate targets
1.3.2.1. 40 % reduction by 2030
1.3.2.2. 60 % reduction by 2040
1.4. Emission reductions are possible! Case: Finland
1.4.1. But still below the Kyoto target!!
1.5. Be part of the solution!
1.6. Global, comprehensive climate regime is the answer!
1.7. "Ensuring that there are no free-riders in the system'
2. Comment to Jaakko Ojala's speech. Markku Kulmala, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences
2.1. There are not just three dimensions of sustainable development (society, economy, environment)
2.1.1. The fourth dimension is science, knowledge and innovations
2.2. The climate system is a system of interactions
2.2.1. The difficulty is that everything is related to everything in climate, and humans are now part of that system
2.3. Levels of cooperation
2.3.1. National
2.3.2. Nordic-Baltic
2.3.3. European
2.3.4. Global
2.4. Formula for facing challenges: U x V x C x F < R
2.4.1. U (understanding), V (vision), C (capacity to change), F (feasible
2.4.2. Human beings are resistant to change
2.4.3. Prof. Markku Kulmala: The sum of understanding, vision, capacity to change and feasible plans need to be larger than humans resistance to change.
3. Comment to Jaakko Ojala's speech. Prof. Jyri Seppälä
3.1. Local example of Carbon Neutral Municipalities project
3.1.1. Five Finnish municipalities act as laboratories by working to curb their GHGs ahead the EU schedule
3.1.2. Kuhmoinen, Mynämäki, Padasjoki, Parikkala, Uusikaupunki
3.1.3. These municipalities are small and have minor impact on Finland's GHGs
3.1.4. BUT: they can act as pilots of providing concrete solutions
3.1.5. Uusikaupunki is a forerunner
3.1.5.1. Improved the image of Uusikaupunki
3.1.5.2. Increased viability - new companies and residents
3.1.5.3. A new green business sector has created new jobs
3.1.5.4. Clear cost-benefits for the town - about 120 000 €/year due to energy savings
3.1.5.5. Children and young peoples are the most eager action groups!!
3.1.6. Why do these municipalities act?
3.1.6.1. Energy costs will be rising in the future
3.1.6.2. Local resources can be utilized in reducing energy costs (biomass, wind, geothermal heat, water)
3.1.6.3. Energy efficiency are good investments; payback is competitive with low risk
3.1.6.4. Environmentally friendly products can provide economic benefits
3.1.7. A big message for our society
3.1.7.1. The bottow-up approach !!!
3.1.7.2. Climate change mitigation can offer 'win-win-win' situations
3.1.8. How to put scientific results into practice?
3.1.8.1. This is the problem.
4. Professor Markku Ollikainen: Baltic Sea - challenges for science and politics
4.1. "The Baltic Sea countries provide an excellent example of international cooperation for marine environment in the world"
4.2. "The Baltic Sea is like an ill man suggeting from multiple diseases"
4.3. We have done much for the Baltic Sea; however, our policies are inefficient. Our scientific basis are still inadequate, and we do not currently make full use of existing knowledge.
4.4. Key problems of the Baltic Sea
4.4.1. Eutrophication
4.4.2. Decline of the marine biodiversity
4.4.3. Increasing oil accident risks
4.4.4. Increase in toxic pollutants
4.4.5. Important modiyinf factor: climate change
4.5. All these problems share the same features
4.5.1. Need for international cooperation
4.5.2. A great number of private polluting agents
4.5.3. Uncertainty about environmental impacts
4.5.4. Need for more scientific knowledge
4.5.5. Difficulties in formulating policies
4.6. The role of the hydrography of the Baltic Sea
4.6.1. Stratification of water, hypoxia; water ezxhange with Atlantic OCean
4.6.2. Transfer of surface water implies the transfer of nutriens
4.6.3. The vicious cycle of eutrophication
4.7. The role of social institutions
4.7.1. It is a common property resource; the sea is owned by nobody and everybody
4.7.2. Countries are free to pollute and no one can legally preevent them from doing so
4.7.3. Sovereign states have no supranational obligatory body; they reduce nutrient only if they want to
4.8. Asymmetries between countries
4.8.1. The loads of polluters (Poland, Russia) flows to other countries (Finland, Sweden)
4.8.1.1. Polluters do not find eutrophication a big problem
4.8.1.2. Polluters profit from not purifying nutrient loads
4.8.2. Policy challenge: How to overcome this asymmetry?
4.8.3. Science challenge: How to provide sensible knowledge for policy making?
4.9. Policy analysis framework of the Baltic Sea
4.9.1. Ecological model of the Baltic Sea
4.9.1.1. The basic block of analysis, is of UTMOST importance!!
4.9.2. Abatement costs of nutrients: minimum cost functions
4.9.3. Benefits from abatement: citizens' valuation of changes in the marine environment
4.9.4. Behavioural hypotheses
4.9.4.1. What happens in international negotiations?
4.10. Making the policy model work
4.10.1. Policy challenge: How do we make a binding, self-enforcing agreement?
4.10.2. We ask first: How well do the BSAP and alternative, hypothetical cost-efficient agreement account for the asymmetry?
4.10.3. We ask then: What sort of steps are needed to overcome asymmetries and to reach a binding agreement?
4.11. Nice table on transfer on nitrogen between countries. Ollikainen & Honkatukia 2001.!!!(Find original source!!!)
4.12. An illustration of nutrient transfer
4.12.1. Good case: Poland reduces 62400 tons N (BSAP)
4.12.2. Bad case: Polish agriculture expands and N loads increase by 159 000 tons making 96 000 N tons net increase
4.12.3. Lesson: countries are very much inderdependednt.
4.13. BSAP
4.13.1. Poland: 66 % of P reduction and 49 % N reduction
4.13.2. Poland, Russia and the Baltic states: 95 % of P and 66 % of N
4.13.3. Denmark & Sweden: high N reduction targets
4.13.4. Costs and fairness? total costs (€) vs. costs/capita in watershed (€) vs. costs as a % of GDP
4.13.4.1. e.g. Lithuania costs as a GDP: 1.86. A LOT! Since e.g. Nokia's share of Finnish GDP is 1.6 --> tells a lot about the importance
4.13.5. Improvements?
4.13.5.1. Share the costs more evenly. Use side payments to countries bearing high costs.
4.13.5.2. The benefits accreu from the resulting nutrien reductions in the sea water within each country
4.13.6. BSAP is NOT a cost-efficient solution
4.13.7. Proposals: 1) Description of the transfer of nutrients 2) Measurement of abatement costs 3) Policy responses of multiple private agents 4) value of the marine environment 5) understanding of international cooperation
5. Tarja Halonen : Sustainable development in the global politics with the reflection to local: An example of Baltic Sea
5.1. how to build bridges between different disciplines (science , policy)
5.2. we do not need to redefine the concept. Implementation is the problem
5.3. global panel on sustainability: seeking consensus between the three dimensions of sustainability
5.4. more emphasis on the social dimension: empowerment of women
5.5. 'global sustainability is not possible without sustainability on the nation-state level'
5.6. what will the leaders of the nation-states do?
5.7. partnerships between business sector and civil society organisations
5.8. the system is so fast; you cannot just wait for the initiatives from governmental organisations
5.9. The case of improving the state of the Baltic Sea: we need individuals, private sector, businesses, government, NGOs --> we cannot do it alone
5.10. Improvements have happened: St. Petersburg wastewater system
5.11. Biggest remaining challenge: agriculture
5.12. We do not need any more Baltic Sea organisations. Implementation is the problem
5.13. We must intensify our regional cooperation
5.14. Next Baltic Sea Action Summit meeting in Russia
5.15. www.bsag.fi
5.16. The role of science: connecting the dots - building bridges
6. Prof Don Wuebbles: The Science of Climate Change: The Challenges Facing Humanity
6.1. "The Science is Clear: Climate change is one of the most important issues facing humanity"
6.2. There is strong scientific agreement on this
6.3. Leadership is lacking
6.4. Scientific evidence: three independent analyses of temperature record 1961-1990 (trends in close agreement)
6.5. The warming is not uniform, not do we expect it to be
6.6. Conditions today appear to be unusual in the context of the last 2000 years
6.6.1. even when taking into account the Medieval warm period and Little Ice Age, the changes we see today are unlike anything before
6.7. Finland: the last decade was the warmest in history
6.8. Symptoms: sea-level rise, increase in heavy downpours, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening growing season, lengthening ice-free season in the ocean and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, changes in river flows, plants blooming earlier, animals, birds, fish moving northward
6.9. Natural factors affecting climate: variations in the Earth's orbit, variations in the energy received from the sun, stratospheric aerosols from energetic volcanic eruptions, chaotic interactions in the Earth's climate (e.g. El Nino)
6.9.1. They do not explain the changes we have seen recently
6.10. Human factors influencing climate: changes in atmospheric CO2, changes in aerosol particles from burning fossil fuels
6.11. Why does the earth warm?
6.11.1. Natural causes
6.11.1.1. The greenhouse effect
6.11.1.1.1. 100% natural
6.11.1.1.2. sustains life on earth
6.11.1.1.3. keeps average temperatures at 12.8 C instead of -29 C
6.11.2. Human causes
6.11.2.1. Enhanced greenhouse effect
6.12. Strong evidence that the current changes are human-induced
6.12.1. Natural processes do not account for observed 20th century warming after 1965
6.12.2. 'We have moved outside the range of historical variation' (referring to table: 800 000 year recorod of carbon dioxide concentration)
6.13. Future temperature rises expected to rise at an unprecented rate (estimates: 2.5-6 C)
6.14. Extreme weather events become more common
6.14.1. Heat waves
6.14.2. Floods
6.14.3. Warmer and dryer summers
6.14.4. Winter storm tracks
6.15. The impacts are vast on many sectors
6.15.1. Water resources
6.15.2. Energy supply and use
6.15.3. Transportation
6.15.4. Agriculture
6.15.5. Ecosystems
6.15.6. Human health
6.15.7. Society
6.16. Both mitigation and adaptation are important
6.17. We choose our future
6.17.1. A commonly heard myt: modern wealth is due to to subsidy of cheap fossil fuel.
7. Cecilia Lundholm: Environmental Learning: Insights from research (Stockholm Resilience Center)
7.1. Research on environmental learning
7.1.1. In the empirical part, the following parts were researched; what kind emotions/values, lissues for relevance, and what does it mean to be in the classroom
7.2. Increasingly, attention has been centred at emotions in emotional research
7.3. Different aspects of values
7.3.1. What is objectivity - what is subjectivity
7.3.2. What is an opinion - what are facts?
7.3.3. Solutions to environmental problems are political - how to deal with that?
7.4. The important of relevance in learning
7.4.1. Interest increases when the topic is relevant to the person involved
7.5. Negotiating viewpoints
7.5.1. What is topical, what is controversial
7.5.2. Situations of diferent viewpoints are very significant in learning processes
7.6. The role and purpose of environmental education
7.6.1. Individual, business, government
7.6.2. We need policy actions to achieve real action with individual choices
7.6.3. KAB K--> A--> B (knowledge, attitidunial change, behaviour)
7.6.4. The sum of individual actions = collective action & big change
7.6.5. No linear and causal links
7.6.6. Prisoners dilemma, sucker effect
7.7. Knowledge, values and behaviour
7.7.1. Knowledge of what?
7.7.2. Values (and altruistic goals)
7.7.3. Individual action or supporting collective change?
7.8. Projects
7.8.1. Price and environmental degradation
7.8.2. The environment and economics: ethical reasoning
7.9. Aspect of the individuals
7.9.1. What are norms and values are prevalent in society
7.9.1.1. How do they affect the way we do things
7.9.2. Behavioural sciences incorporated into environmental education
7.9.3. Take a case problem and think what tools are needed in socity/worldwide to address it
8. Professor Robert Frodeman: Making Environmental Research Sustainable
8.1. Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity
8.2. future institutional expressions of knolwedge
8.3. Knowledge vs. confusion. More knowledge might increase confusion
8.4. Aristoteles ethics: does not handle ethics
8.5. Problem of further scientific research: do we need more of the research? We end up arguing about research
8.5.1. We have increased our knowledge of climate change, at the same time we have increased our ignorance
8.6. Climate change has become a spiritual issue.
8.7. Do we have the will to make hard decisions?
8.8. The standard model (Pielke and Byerly, (1998)
8.9. Definition of post-modernity: separation of religion, culture, science, society
8.9.1. We never quite achieved modernity because of this
8.10. Is it possible of knowledge to have no particular outcome?
8.11. Are there facts beyond reasonable debate?
8.11.1. Are facts separate from values?
8.11.2. Do facts determine values, or drive behaviour?
8.11.3. Are values truly subjective?
8.12. Sustainability science
8.12.1. Contains a dilemma itself
8.12.2. There is an overproduction of science
8.12.2.1. 1 million articles published every year, 60 % of these papers are not cited in the first 5 years
8.12.2.2. Blogs
8.12.2.3. Loss of sense of the whole
8.12.2.4. Policy makers and the public overwhelmed
8.13. We have the assumption that more science will provide solutions rather than already existing knowledge or reasonable discussions
8.14. Interdisciplinary knowledge production is in a danger of falling into a trap
8.14.1. no one can become an expert in interdiscpilinary
8.14.2. this research should recognize its limits to research itself, to people's capacity for understanding, to time and money