The impacts of climate change on nature

L. R. Carrasco
Department of Biological Sciences
National University of Singapore
 Index
• Global warming.
• Impacts on nature.
• Impacts beyond nature.
• Impacts on Singapore’s ecosystem services.
• Can we stop climate change?
 Global warming
• Humans have caused already 1◦C global warming above pre-industrial
levels (0.8-1.2 ◦C uncertainty range).
• At current emission rates it will reach 1.5◦C latest by 2052.

IPCC report 2018

1885– 1894 NASA
1895– 1904
1905– 1914
1915– 1924
1925– 1934
1935– 1944
1945– 1954
1955– 1964
1965– 1974
1975– 1984
1985– 1994
1995– 2004
 Singapore has warmed 0.25 degrees per decade for the last 50 years.
Helped by urban heat island effect.

2005– 2014
Projections for the future
Impacts on nature
IPCC 2018
 Marine
species
richness to
decrease in
the tropics
and increase
at higher
absolute
latitudes

Molinos et al. 2016

Nature Climate Change
Ecoregional global concentrations of terrestrial and marine climate change
vulnerable species.

Pacifici et al (2015) Nature Climate Change

Most
biological
processes
affected
by climate
change

Scheffers et al
2016 Science
 What can species do?
• Acclimatize: very little evidence whether they
can do that.
• Evolve: not enough time for most species with
longer generation times.
• Escape: depends how fast they can move.
• Die.
 Can tropical plants scape climate
change before 2100?
• Most plants need
animals to help
them disperse.

Seeds in elephant dung

ready to germinate

Big birds needed to

disperse large seeds
R. T. Corlett
R. T. Corlett
Seeds for most species can move 100-1000m
per generation. Can they make it?

R. T. Corlett
 Can they make it?
• Seeds for most plant species can disperse 100-
1000 m per generation. They cannot make it
moving across latitudes.
• They can make it if they climb mountains though.
For every 500 m climb temperature drops by 3°C.
• There they will find other species to compete
with, soils that could not be suitable and
increasingly more crowded space.
• Mobile animals may on the other hand benefit
from latitudinal poleward movement.
Impacts beyond nature
It is not only about biodiversity shifting its range…

Pecl et al. 2017 Science

 Feedbacks between
climate change,
biodiversity range
shifts, human
impacts and climate
feedbacks.

Pecl et al. 2017 Science

Pecl et al. 2017 Science
Impacts of climate change on ecosystem services in
Singapore
 Ecosystem services supply and demand framework

Nature Ecosystem services People

e.g. physical and
mental health
from exercising in
BTNR

Co-production,
Supply suitable conditions
Demand
Trails,
accessibility Willingness to
e.g. parks exercise in nature
and reserves Supply
meets Happy, physically
Supply =
demand and mentally
benefits healthy
population
Ecosystem services supply and demand under climate change

Climate change

Unsuitable thermal
Decrease quality, conditions for Too hot, low
collapsed ecosystem exercising, barriers greenspace quality

Co-production,
Supply suitable conditions Demand

Trails,
accessibility Willingness to
e.g. parks exercise in nature
Supply
and reserves meets
Supply
demand = Less happy,
benefits physically and
mentally healthy
population
 Which ecosystem services are perceived as important for Singapore?

Demand
affected

Demand
affected

Supply
affected

Supply
affected

1.00

Proportion of Respondents
Shaikh et al. (in prep.)
Ecosystem services supply and demand under climate change

Climate change

Decrease quality, Barriers to meet

collapsed ecosystem supply and demand Decreased demand

Co-production,
Supply suitable conditions Demand

↓ COASTAL PROTECTION ↓ FOREIGN INVESTMENT

↓ FLOOD CONTROL ↓ BRANDING
↓ WATER QUALITY ↓ ↓ benefits ↓ TOURISM
↓ TEMPERATURE ↓ RECREATION
REDUCTION ↓ MENTAL HEALTH
↓ POLLUTION CONTROL ↓ PHYSICAL HEALTH
Can temperature affect park
visitation?
Jaung et al. (under review)
Hotter means more park
visits until a threshold of
31.7◦C where there is no
effect.

Jaung et al. (under review)

Hotter below 31.7◦C
means less time at the
park, unless they are far
from home.

Jaung et al. (under review)

Can temperature affect the value of
parks?
Mixed logit model results from the analysis of neighborhood green spaces
(e.g. roadside green space, parks, gardens, or green walls)

Attributes

Jaung et al. (under review)

4 Mixed logit model results from the analysis of parks
(for a modelling purpose)

Attributes

Jaung et al. (under review)

 Impacts on Singapore
• Climate change will affect the supply and demand of
the most important ecosystem services in Singapore.
• Ecosystem services related to use of green and blue
spaces will be affected by temperature and droughts.
• This would have implications for life satisfaction,
physical and mental health.
• Singapore potentially a less attractive place when
attracting and retaining human capital.
Can we stop it?

Reich 2011 Nat Clim Change

 The tragedy of the commons
–Elinor Ostrom questions the generality of Hardin’s argument.
–Government intervention may perform worse than traditional
self-organized systems, e.g. pastoralists in Mongolia versus
China and Russia.
–For millennia people have self-organized to manage common
pool resources.
–At a small-scale, the tragedy can be avoided through nested
institutional cooperation: individuals can sanction, set rules,
communicate.
–Two key factors are needed: restricting access and creating
incentives (e.g. assign individual rights).
–Shift from open access to group or individual property rights.
–People can be categorized as: (1) free riders, (2) willing to
cooperate if assured that no free riders will take advantage, (3)
offer cooperation hoping it is returned, (4) pure altruists.

(Ostrom et al. 1999, Science)

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 The tragedy of the commons
–As long as there are not too many free riders, solutions can be found.
–Cooperators get known in the community. Others follow. Need to
identify people, not be strangers, develop trust, e.g. irrigation systems
in Nepal.
–Users need to perceive the usefulness of creating monitoring and
enforcement systems, understand resource dynamics.
–However, we do not know how to solve global commons yet:
biodiversity, climate change, ecosystem services. The reasons:
•Scaling-up problems: too many participants, difficult to agree on rules.
•Cultural diversity challenge: north-south conflicts.
•Interlinked common pool resources: we are distant from the effects of
our actions.
•Rapid rates of change.
•Internatinoal agreements are voluntary.
•Only one planet to experiment with.
(Ostrom et al. 1999, Science)

–Social media can help bring together distant groups to control one
another. This was impossible before. Hope?

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Thank you!