COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan: U-M experts available to comment

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EXPERTS ADVISORY

Negotiators from nearly 200 countries have gathered in Baku, Azerbaijan for the two-week COP29 conference in an effort to advance global climate solutions, with climate finance being a priority of this year's U.N. meeting. University of Michigan experts are available to comment.

Jonathan Overpeck is an interdisciplinary climate scientist and dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability. He is an expert on climate and weather extremes, sea-level rise, the impacts of climate change and options for dealing with it. He served as a lead author on the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 and 2014 reports.

"COP29 needs to continue the acceleration of climate action globally in several key ways," he said. "The first is to be clear that the goal of global decarbonization is more important than ever, and that every country needs to increase their climate-action ambition. The second is to cement agreement on a goal to phase out the global use of fossil fuels by a set date in the future. The third is to strengthen efforts by wealthy countries who have contributed the most to climate change to help low- and middle-income countries decarbonize their energy systems and mobility. And the fourth is for the same wealthy countries to increase their 'loss and damage' funding to help low- and middle-income countries recover from the increasing rate of disasters due to the global climate change they did little to cause.

"The dawn of a new federal administration in the United States is no excuse for slowing the pace of climate action around the globe. Climate change is wreaking more havoc globally than ever before, and fossil fuels are the reason. COP29 needs to make it clear that the nations of the world are committed to halting climate change and helping those who need assistance in dealing with the climate change that cannot be halted. Climate action must accelerate even more starting with COP29."

Contact: [email protected]

Jennifer Haverkamp, a veteran of seven U.N. climate summits, is a former ambassador and special representative in the Obama State Department, where she led U.S. negotiating teams to successful climate agreements under the Montreal Protocol and the U.N. International Civil Aviation Agreement. She is the director of the Graham Sustainability Institute and a professor of practice at the Law School and Ford School of Public Policy, teaching the law of international climate change.

Her areas of expertise include United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change diplomacy and negotiating dynamics, short-lived climate pollutants such as methane and hydrofluorocarbons, and issues at the intersection of climate change and international trade and competitiveness.

"The key deliverable for this COP is an ambitious new climate finance goal to replace the $100 billion per year target set in 2009," she said. "The U.S. election results throw a huge wrench in that process, with troubling implications not only for the generosity of other countries but also for the level of ambition nations will bring to next year's round of climate action pledge-setting. That said, the U.N. climate community has navigated U.S. policy shifts before and will continue to do so."

Contact: [email protected], 202-316-4914

Richard Rood is a professor emeritus of climate and space sciences and engineering at the College of Engineering, an expert in climate change modeling and a co-principal investigator for GLISA, one of 12 NOAA Climate Adaptation Partnerships teams that focus on helping the nation prepare for and adapt to climate variability and change. Prior to 2005, he held several leadership positions at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

"We need targeted research on tipping points, such as when we will pass the point of no return with the melting of ice sheets. We need far more research on ocean circulation and how quickly it might change. Because we are increasingly talking about geoengineering as a treatment for our inability to manage carbon dioxide and methane, we need to know much more about the consequences of such decisions," Rood said.

"But because of the emergence of the oil industry as a manager of the messaging, I have been discouraged by the outcomes of the Conference of the Parties since COP26 in Glasgow. I expect this influence to continue and advance in COP29. The COPs are important meetings that keep us talking and synthesizing what we know, but there is limited ability to move things forward in the COPs because actions are mostly voluntary and there is the requirement for consensus on all statements. Oil companies and oil producing nations are investing and expanding, in many cases with market-distorting government support. The outcome of the U.S. election reinforces that the U.S. is not a reliable partner in the global community. We are increasingly reliant on market forces to address climate change mitigation, and too much policy is focused on keeping fossil fuels profitable and plentiful."

Contact: [email protected]

Liesl Eichler Clark of the School for Environment and Sustainability is U-M's first director of climate action engagement. She leads a new initiative aimed at linking the university's expanding sustainability research, collaborations and engagement with external partners to accelerate climate action across the state of Michigan and beyond.

Previously, Clark served as director of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy. She is an entrepreneur in the clean energy and sustainability space and co-founded the clean energy consulting firm 5 Lakes Energy. She was instrumental in the creation of the Michigan Energy Innovation Business Council and served as its president for three years.

"The gathering at COP29 looks different in some ways after the U.S. election, but in other ways, the work is still the same," she said. "After another hottest year on record and record-setting weather disasters, people are feeling the urgency of our response. Michigan has set a path for the manufacturing Midwest and the U.S. to transition our grid safely and quickly to clean energy resources, which is also resulting in job creation and economic opportunity for Michiganders. Our focus remains on greening the grid, driving clean innovation in industry, electrifying vehicles and increasing public transit, repairing and decarbonizing homes and businesses, and protecting Michigan's land and water.

"Michigan's new initiative to accelerate clean industry investment in people and projects will leverage federal dollars and expand their impact, making people's lives better by increasing jobs, updating homes and lowering energy bills. The future is always changing. In Michigan, instead of predicting the future, we work to enable it."

Contact: [email protected]

Jeremy Bassis is a professor of climate and space sciences and engineering at the College of Engineering who studies ice sheet and glacier dynamics and sea level rise. He is also a co-principal investigator of a GLISA-funded project developing plans for more resilient flooding infrastructure in Detroit's Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood.

"At this point we are seeing accelerating sea level rise, tragically damaging global warming-fueled hurricanes, floods, heat and drought. All of these are only going to get worse with devastating impacts on our cities and communities that were designed for a climate very different from today," he said. "At the same time we are heading toward several climate tipping points, like the arrest of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (the global conveyor belt that moves ocean water across the globe) and irreversible ice sheet collapse that will irrevocably change climate in ways that models struggle to predict. We used to talk about rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels, but today we continue to dawdle on those efforts.

"The COP meetings have been increasingly discouraging, and with the oil industry taking a greater role managing these meetings and the recent presidential election, it feels like the COP meetings are on life support. Although the international meetings attract a lot of media attention, most of the progress is going to take place in local communities, where the real work is going to be done. Scientists, engineers and the public shouldn't underestimate the opportunities at the local level to work together to reduce emissions and start to adapt."

Contact: [email protected]

Todd Allen is the chair of nuclear engineering radiological sciences at the College of Engineering, director of the Fastest Path to Zero Initiative and co-director of MI Hydrogen.

"In the United States, electrical utilities are increasingly recognizing that the demand for electricity is growing rapidly due to the needs of data centers, the onshoring of manufacturing centers and the growth of electrification for needs like transportation," he said. "To support this requires an increased production of firm, always-on, zero-carbon electricity such as nuclear power. Growing on the COP28 pledge to triple nuclear production by 2050, the COP29 process is expected to further define the pathway towards zero carbon systems that likely include an increasing amount of nuclear energy."

Contact: [email protected]

Mosharaf Chowdhury is an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the College of Engineering. His lab designs tools to measure and optimize AI's electricity consumption, which is becoming an increasingly larger contributor to climate change.

"Generative Artificial Intelligence adoption and its energy consumption are skyrocketing," he said. "For instance, training GPT-3, a precursor to ChatGPT, consumed an estimated 1.3 GWh of electricity in 2020. By 2022, Amazon trained a single large language model that consumed 11.9 GWh, enough to power over a thousand U.S. households for a year. AI inference consumes even more energy because a model trained once serves millions.

"This surge will not only inflate carbon emissions and curtail efforts to reduce future carbon emissions, but also hinder the deployment of AI services in places without high-capacity electricity grids, widening inequality gaps across communities. COP29 events will discuss many facets of AI's energy consumption, and we need a concerted effort to curtail AI's runaway power and energy demands without sacrificing the benefits it can bring."

Contact: [email protected]

Greg Keoleian, professor of sustainable systems at the School for Environment and Sustainability, is co-founder and co-director of the Center for Sustainable Systems and co-director of MI Hydrogen, U-M's hydrogen initiative.

Keoleian develops life-cycle models to analyze decarbonization pathways and accelerate sustainability solutions for clean energy transitions, alternative vehicle technologies, buildings and infrastructure, and food systems. He was named to the Reuters Hot List of the world's top climate scientists in 2021.

"The nation and world are already experiencing the devastating impacts and costs of climate change through flooding, wildfires, heat stress and droughts. Billion-dollar weather and climate disaster events in the U.S. and around the world are intensifying and increasing in frequency," he said. "Climate finance, a COP29 theme, is critical for funding climate action to reduce carbon emissions and climate impacts. Financing is needed in both developing and developed countries to accelerate solutions that will reduce the future damages and yield benefits, such as energy and cost savings and job creation.

"Large-scale climate financing by the public and private sector is dependent on government, business and industry leadership. Leadership needs to better prioritize the longer-term climate crisis that will disproportionately impact vulnerable populations and future generations. At the federal level, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act are exemplary policies that are achieving multiple goals. Both are helping drive down greenhouse gas emissions while revitalizing U.S. energy industry competitiveness, creating jobs and benefiting under-resourced communities. Such bold clean energy and climate action commitments are essential but highly uncertain given recent election results. Delaying greater investment in climate action means higher costs of living, greater future property damages and insurance costs, and irreversible biosphere impacts that threaten all populations."

Contact: [email protected]

Barry Rabe is a professor of environmental policy at the Ford School of Public Policy and a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, with courtesy appointments in the Program in the Environment, Department of Political Science and School for Environment and Sustainability.

"COP28 saw some major advances in international climate policy addressing so-called 'super pollutants,' including methane, nitrous oxides and hydrofluorocarbons, that have short-lived but intensive climate impacts. These advances were prompted in part by expanding American domestic efforts and global outreach," he said. "COP29 launches in the aftermath of the American election and will represent an initial test of how other nations respond to the return of Donald Trump to the presidency in terms of their own ongoing engagement in this area."

Contact: [email protected]

Sue Anne Bell is an associate professor at the School of Nursing. Her research focuses on the long-term impact of disasters on health and public health emergencies, particularly among older adults. She is clinically active in disaster response through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Disaster Medical System with over a dozen recent deployments including to the COVID-19 response, Hurricane Maria and Irma and the California wildfires.

She will attend the COP29 conference.

"This year's COP will see health have a bigger spotlight than in years past. The timing could not be more urgent," she said. "Risk for more frequent and severe extreme weather events-with record-breaking extreme heat, devastating wildfires with smoke covering large portions of the United States and unprecedented hurricanes-is expected to increase globally without aggressive action to stall or reverse some of the effects of climate change. Extreme weather events disproportionately affect countries, communities and individuals that have less resources, and the reasons why certain groups are disadvantaged on a daily basis will play out in greater force during these events.

"Investments in supporting communities globally to withstand and recover from extreme weather events-and focusing on people most at risk-are critically needed and are the springboard for efforts meant to curb and prepare communities for the effects of climate change.

"Communities will need years of support to be able to see positive impacts, however, and any investments into climate resilience must be in for the long haul. At COP29, we will see a greater focus on centering climate change and health initiatives, focusing on climate action that prioritizes health as a driver for building climate resilience."

Contact: [email protected]

Aimée Classen is the director of the University of Michigan Biological Station and a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Founded in 1909, the U-M Biological Station is one of the nation's largest and longest continuously operating field research stations. Laboratories, classrooms and cabins are tucked into more than 11,000 acres along Douglas Lake in northern Michigan to support long-term science research and education.

Classen is an ecosystem and global change ecologist who explores how ecological interactions influence the atmosphere's carbon cycling process. Her research uses a combination of observations, experiments and models to explore the influence of climate change on biodiversity in ecosystems spanning northern Michigan forests and wetlands to mountain tops around the world. Recently the Classen group has been exploring how changes in winter impact terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

"We need to include into our carbon, conservation and health discussions how changing winters are influencing natural-human landscapes," she said. "Declining snowpack accompanies more freeze-thaw and rain-on-snow events, and that is leading to increased flooding and nutrient transport out of ecosystems during winters with cascading impacts on forest productivity, water quality, and human health in the summer and year round."

Contact: [email protected]

Kai Zhu is an associate professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability. His research examines the ecological responses to climate change, with a particular focus on biodiversity. Zhu's recent paper highlights the rapid shifts in grassland communities driven by climate change, offering crucial insights for restoration strategies and conservation efforts in these ecosystems.

"The importance of COP29 cannot be overstated as the urgency to address climate change accelerates. Our ecosystems, such as grasslands, are responding to climate changes almost in real time, making it critical to implement effective global strategies sooner rather than later. This conference represents a pivotal moment for the international community to come together and commit to actionable steps that can mitigate the severe impacts we are already witnessing," he said. "It's time to prioritize climate change mitigation at the forefront of global policy to ensure a sustainable future for our planet."

Contact: [email protected]

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