QBE doubling down on climate change

It appears that QBE is still long climate change.  With its new downgrade of earnings due in part to weather events.  The rest of us call that climate change.

In fact, it has doubled down on climate change it would appear.  Earlier this year it announced a AU$1 billion share buyback.

Oh well, may you live a long life, and your children, and your grandchildren.  Good luck with that.

Cities and their environmental equivalents: People, bees and fish learning to adapt.

Not everything living thing exists only in the CBDs of the world.  Although if it read the world press, an alien would take that view. 

People are vastly outnumbered by the birds and the bees and of course, the inhabitants of our oceans.  Less able, or in some cases, more capable, of adapting to the peoples’ influence on climate change, there are significant adaptation projects afoot.

BUZZ

Australian native bees have been sweltering and dying in the record heatwaves in their natural habitat.  In droves.  Who knew? Not the front page of the global press.

These native sting-less bees cannot cool their hives as can European bees, say, through water retention and fanning the unit.  This counter-intuitive consequence of climate change would be catastrophic for Australia. From the agricultural economy (food security) to biodiversity.

This has led to the research and now development of the B Box, an upright, hexagonal-shaped hive made from high density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic. The B Box, recently approved for commercial use, is washable, impervious to diseases, light weight, tough, chemical resistant and does not absorb water – all things that regular hoop pine, say, boxes lack.  

HDPE is a recycled product made from things like milk bottles. No mention of its recycling capability.

Critical for all the reasons we love bees:  pollination (including commercial for farms) and honey.

BUILDINGS

Local governments in cities around the world have just received an improved tool to ensure they are more resilient to future climate and man-made risks.   The Global Platform for DisasterResilience Scorecard was announced at the Cancun, Mexico biennial United Nations Forum for disaster risk reduction (UNISDR).

It follows a pilot project undertaken by 35 cities that are members of the UNISDR Making Cities Resilient Campaign which comprises over 3,500 cities worldwide. These disasters cost an estimated US$300 billion per annum.  Plans are in place to have 200 cities using it by the end of the year.

It is targeting local governments and outlines a set of assessment criteria that cover policy and planning, engineering, organisational, financial, social and environmental aspects of disaster resilience. 

However, probably one of the most unusual adaptation consequences is that in Australia, where it is reported that by the end of this decade the household “norm” will be a childless couple.

BLUE

We move from GREEN to BLUE, with a major global meetings occurring in USA.  Summary of the Eighteenth Meeting of the United Nations Open-Ended Informal ConsultativeProcess on Oceans and the Law of the Sea, just ended, and the report covers almost every country on earth with respect to the current status of our oceans. 

And the 3^rd Blue Planet Symposium soon after on 31 May in Maryland, USA.

Another critical meeting has just reached near consensus that an international binding legal instrument regarding the open oceans / 64% beyond national jurisdictions / be ready to present to the UN General Assembly in July 2017.

The main concerns confronting our fishy friends are (i) acidification (ii) rising sea levels (iii) warming (iv) substantial changes to historical ocean flows (v) and last but not least, pollution.

And for the global human population it is also important.  Worldwide, three billion people (40%) rely on fish as their major source of protein. The industry provides a livelihood for about 12% of the population and earns approximately US$2.9 trillion pa, the WWF reports.

There have been numerous anecdotal and academic reports over the years, that show marine species have been migrating with the warmer water and change in flows. Recent report in Science Advances (10 May), provides the most confident proof of the increased warming. Before 1980 and after.  

Since then it has been increasing steadily, and involving deeper layers of the ocean.  All ocean basins examined have experienced significant warming since 1998, with the greatest warming in the southern oceans, the tropical/subtropical Pacific Ocean, and the tropical/subtropical Atlantic Ocean.

Adaptive migration on land has been occurring at a rate of ten miles per decade;  but by sea our salty friends are moving fourtimes faster.  

So with the macro providing non jurisdictional law to enable mitigation and adaption, and the fish themselves adapting through migration; where are the local projects. The Caribbean for one.

The Caribbean Community is putting all its efforts into preserving its Blue Economy, which the World Bank said earned the region US$407 billion in 2012.

Recent adaptation projects have included:

• ·         setting up an integrated network of climate and biological monitoring stations to strengthen the region’s early warning mechanism
• ·         ending the fishing of sea mammals (cultural legacy) by enforcement of current law
• ·         major supermarkets have stopped the capture and sale of parrot fish

This week they rolled out, among other things, a coastal adaptation project and a public education and awareness (PAE) programme launched on April 26 in Belize City. The PAE project, named Feel the Change, is funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Japan-Caribbean Climate Change Project (J-CCCP) public awareness programme.

CONCLUSIONS

Birds and the bees and the fish are adapting by migration.  If people do that we will all be balancing on one foot, on the island of Antarctica, or what is left of it when the ice has melted.  

When I say all, I mean the few remaining people who haven't been eaten by the others.