China’s Antarctic Treaty on Ruins Try to Grant Special Protective Status to Emperor Penguins – Do You Support That?
Dr. Susan Crockford,
China obstructed an effort by members of Antarctic Treaty organization to issue special protection status to Emperor penguins, which would create a ‘Species Action Plan’. Obviously, such a proposal requires consensus on all sides and China will not follow through.
But as we know from previous activities of the IUCN Polar Bear Expert Group against former member Mitch TaylorSuch obstacles are easily overlooked when a consensus decision doesn’t go your way.
Hyping the Demise of Emperor Penguins
Over the past few years, some scientists – see here and here–Used completely unthinkable climate models (those using ‘worst case’ or ‘no adjustment’ scenarios, see figure below) to predict the near future extinction of emperor penguins due to loss of sea ice. I commented on this issue details two years ago (with references).
“I suggest that using far-fetched ‘worse-case’ predictions to suggest an unlikely but scary-sounding future disaster won’t work for emperor penguins any better. compared to polar bears, especially as they continue to be healthyg. ” Crockford, 2020.
These ‘worst-case’ scenario models for predicting future climate have been deemed entirely inappropriate by reputable scientists (e.g. Burgess et al. 2021; Hausfather and Peters 2020). ; O’Neil et al. 2020; Spencer 2021) but research conservation experts polar bears and penguins continue to use them to press for special protection status for their beloved species. In recent years, both polar bears (Crockford 2022) and Emperor Penguins (Fretwell et al. 2012; Fretwell and Trathan 2020; Trathan et al. 2020) recorded a slight increase in overall population size.
Pointing this out has got me labeled ‘climate’ by the scientific community – check it out my response length to 2018 BioScience attack on my reputation and integrity – and canceled by the academic community (Laframboise and Crockford 2020). But I digress…
The Antarctic Treaty is thwarted
With China stubbornly standing in their way, the other members of the Antarctic Treaty organization intend to do what they want regardless, according to one report of PBS (June 3, 2022):
“The majority of parties are of the opinion that there is sufficient scientific evidence that this species is in need of special protection,” said the German government, which held the meeting from May 22 to June 2, said in a statement on Friday.
While a formal decision is “blocked by one party”, it states that However, most of the countries attending the meeting planned to adopt national measures to protect emperor penguins.
PBS, June 3, 2022
However, the lack of consensus means they didn’t get the ‘Species Action Plan’ they really wanted: not achieving the goal, they were trying to turn it into a positive outcome.
Background: Antarctic Sea Ice
The minimum level for sea ice in Antarctica since 1979 is very different which does not show a meaningful long-term downtrend, which is below average for the last few years but still good years above medium. The the graph below based on data from NSIDC for February 2022:
The maximum level Overall seems to be on the rise:
Presenter
Burgess, MG, Ritchie, J., Shapland, J. and Pielke Jr., R. 2021. The IPCC baseline scenarios have CO2 emissions and economic growth that exceed expectations. Environmental Research Letter 16:014016. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abcdd2
Crockford, SJ 2019. The polar bear disaster has never happened. Global Warming Policy Fund, London. Available in paperback and eBooks formats.
Crockford, SJ 2020. Report on the status of polar bears 2019. Global Warming Policy Foundation Report 39, London. pdf here.
Crockford, SJ in 2021. Polar Bear Status Report 2020. Global Warming Policy Foundation 48, London. pdf here.
Crockford, SJ 2022. Status of Polar Bears in 2021. Note 29 of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, London. pdf here.
Fretwell, PT, LaRue, MA, Morin, P., Kooyman, GL, Wienecke, B., Ratcliffe, N., Fox, AJ, Fleming, AH, Porter, C. and Trathan, PN 2012. Emperor penguin population estimates: the first global overview of a species from space. PLoS one 7: e33751 [open access] doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0033751.
Fretwell, PT and Trathan, PN 2021. Exploring new Sentinel2 colonies reveals good and bad news for emperor penguins. Remote Sensing in Ecosystems and Conservation 7 (2): 139-153. https://doi.org/10.1002/rse2.176
Hausfather, Z. and Peters, GP 2020. Emissions – misleading ‘business as usual’ story [“Stop using the worst-case scenario for climate warming as the most likely outcome — more-realistic baselines make for better policy”]. Nature 577: 618-620. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00177-3
Laframboise, D. and Crockford, SJ 2020. The walrus, the polar bear, and the professor are fired. In: Climate change: The truth 2020, J. Marohasy (ed.), pp. 21-34. Institute of Public Affairs, Melbourne, Australia.
O’Neil, BC, Carter, TR, Ebi, K., et al. 2020. Achievements and needs for climate change scenario framework. Natural climate change 10:1074-1084. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00952-0
Spencer, RW in 2021. ‘Earth Day Reminder: ‘Global Warming’ is only ~50% of what the models predict. Dr. Roy Spencer Blog, April 22. https://www.drroyspencer.com/2021/04/an-earth-day-reminder-global-warming-is-only-50-of-what-models-p Predict/
Trathan, PN, and others, including Fretwell, PT 2020. Emperor Penguins – Vulnerable to expected rates of sea ice warming and loss. Biological conservation 241: 108216. [open access] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.108216
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