Climate Change on the Front Lines with Poudel

Ref: Amir Poudel (2020). Climate Change on the Front Lines: The Study of Adaptation in Developing Countries. JHU MS-ESP Course of Instruction (420.665.81). Email: apoudel1@jhu.edu

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Summary

• An overview of climate change, its associated terminology, and the mitigation and adaptation resources available to developing nations.

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Climate Change

• Climate: The regular pattern of weather conditions of a particular place (Oxford); typically, 30y (IPCC).

• Climate Change: A change in the state of the climate that can be identified by changes that persists for an extended period, usually decades or longer. It refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity (IPCC).

  • A change in climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activities that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable periods (UNFCC).

• Extreme Weather Events: Drought, flooding, forest Fires, hurricanes, storms, etc.

• Agriculture/Farming/Water: Drought, reduced water availability, water pollution, pollinator loss, soil degradation, glacial retreat, glacier/snowcover decline, heavier precipitation events, etc.

  • High Lat increase by 10-40% in river runoff and water availability. 

  • Mid Lat decrease by 10-30% in river runoff and water availability. 

  • High Lat production increases with 1-3 C rise in local mean T and then decreases above 3 C. 

  • Low Lat production decreases with 1-2 C rise in local mean T. 

• GHG Increase

• Global Temperature Increase

  • Arctic increase of 6-8 C by 2100 (A1B). 

  • Continental increases of 2-5 C by 2100 (A1B). 

  • Southern Ocean increases of .5-2 C by 2100 (A1B). 

  • Antarctic Increases of 2-3.5 C by 2100 (A1B). 

• Human Health

  • Spread of Vector Borne Disease: Malaria, Dengue, Yellow Fever, Encephalitis, JEV, Kalazar. 

  • Spread of Water Borne Disease: Typhoid, Diarrhea, Dysentery, Cryptosporidiosis, Giardiasis, Hep. 

  • Increase in Malnutrition due to decrease in agricultural yield output. 

  • Increase in death due to extreme weather events: Heat Waves, Hurricanes (cyclones, typhoons). 

  • Increase in cardio-respiratory diseases from changes in air quality. 

  • Increased in diarrheal diseases. 

  • Increases in Malnutrition

  • Increased Frequency of Cardio-respiratory diseases. 

  • Changes in Air Quality

  • Altered Spatial Distribution of some infectious diseases. 

• “The Asia and Pacific regions are more vulnerable to the risks of CC than other regions, given their dependence on the natural resources and agricultural sectors, densely populated coastal areas, week institutions, and the poverty of a considerable proportion of its populations (Saravanan et al, 2014).”

• “The populations who rely on agriculture as their main source of livelihood are impacted the most by climate change (Regami & Bhandari, 2003).”

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Climate Change Strategies

Energy

• Increase share of Renewable Energy Systems- Solar, Wind, Hydro and promote Low- C innovation.

• Energy Saving measures, emissions reduction, smart energy metering.

• Energy Resource Management including energy efficiency and household-based C pricing.

• Home: Smart Meters, low-energy fixtures, enable sleep features on computers/monitors, use AC and thermostat less, use energy star model appliances and windows.

Transportation: Vehicle based C emission taxes, charge for road users reflecting wear and tear on transport/infrastructure, congestion charging, and ambition standards for vehicle emissions including EV grants.

Water: Integrated water resource management- nationally and transnationally.

Agriculture: End factory farming, use of drought/flood tolerant crops, development of paster lands, afforestation, improved N usage, sustainable management of grassland, rangelands, scrublands, forests, and protected areas, and the establishment of diverse agricultural systems.

Education/Academia/Assessments: Awareness, involving the public in the environmental debate, R&D, green tech, assessments, weather-based farming models, academia, effective communication to government officials.

• Assessments: Vulnerability research, drought impact assessments, flood impact assessments, vulnerability and adaptation standard assessments for comparison.

• Academia: Provide Sci Data and Information and sci-tech know-how that policymakers need in domestic policymaking.

Policy: Community mobilization, livelihood intervention, policy dialogue and advocacy, linking local institutions with government, community-based solutions, investment in R&D, introduction of annual CC risk assessments, NAPs, Climate resilience toolkits for businesses, C/Energy taxation, &c.

• Long term strategies for energy production, GHG reduction, and cessation of Nitric Acid production.

• Establish a committee to monitor climate deficit: the committee is to assess the socio-economic, state-financial, environmental, distributional and competition related consequences of implementing various measures and of various measures and initiatives.

• Cross-Scale Adaptation Governance using the IMAC centers.  

• For mitigation, quantitative national targets should be defined with concrete measures to ensure their achievement.

• Local governments, as the level of governance closest to human activity, can play a crucial role in educating, mobilizing and responding to the public to make grassroots changes in human behavior.

• Ecosystem Based Adaptation (EbA): integrates the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services into an overall strategy to help people adapt to the adverse impacts of CC. It includes the sustainable management, conservation and restoration of ecosystems to provide services that help people adapt to both current climate variability, and CC. EbA contributes to reducing vulnerability and increasing resilience to both climate and non-climate risks and provides multiple benefits to society and the environment. EbA includes integrated water resources management, community based forest resource management, and farm soil, water, and vegetation management.

  • The main aim of this intervention is to empower local people and community groups to understand, plan and execute EbA approaches on their own land and the communal resources they share.

Lessons Learned

• Decreasing GHG emissions from Agriculture return only marginal improvements. 

• Focus on reducing non-climate stresses: Reducing ecosystem degradation is a no regrets, win-win approach. 

• Involve Local Communities in both awareness, planning, and implementation.

• Multi-Party Strategy Development by aligning conservation, development, and poverty alleviation interests. 

• Build upon existing good practices in natural resource management.

• Communicating, Education, and Awareness to integrate science with local knowledge. 

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Development Taxonomy

Development Taxonomy: A classification system ordering countries based on their level of development.

• Development Threshold: The criteria used to assess a countries stage of development.

• Human Development Index (HDI): A UNDP composite index measuring 1) a countries longevity (life expectancy at birth), 2) education, and 3) income (GNI/n, with currency converted to USD using PPP). The aggregate HDI is a straightforward geometric averaging of the three sub-indices bounded between 0 and 1.

  • X = (Xactual - Xmin) / (Xmax - Xmin); max values are set to actual observed max values over the 1980-2010 period. The min value for education is set at zero, for longevity at 20 years and for income at US$163.

• World Bank’s Country Classification System: Divides countries into 1) developing, 2) industrialized, and 3) capital-surplus oil-exporting countries.

  • The worlds bank International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) has a statutory obligation to lend only to credit-worthy member countries that cannot otherwise obtain external financing on reasonable terms. This obligation requires the IBRD to designate a subset of its membership as eligible borrowers.

  • World Bank considers GNI/n to be the best single indicator of economic capacity and progress.

• International Monetary Fund (IMF): A conglomerate of member countries that are obligated to provide economic and financial data to the fund, which in turn is charged with acting as a center for the collection and exchange of information. The IMF determines eligibility based on per capita income, market access, and vulnerability.

• Development Comparison

  • Developed Countries: IMF- Advanced; UNDP- Developed; World Bank- High Income.

  • Developing Countries: IMG- Emerging & Developing; UNDP- Developing; World Bank- Low & Middle Income.

• Development Threshold: IMF- Unknown; UN- 75% HDI; World Bank- USD $6000 GNI/n (1987).

  • Threshold Type: IMF- Absolute; UN- Relative; World Bank- Absolute.

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Emerging, Developing, Low Income Countries

Developing Countries: Countries characterized by low per-capita income, low human capital, high levels of poverty and under-nutrition, high population growth, predominance of agriculture as an economic sector, low levels of industrialization, low levels of urbanization.

• “A poor agricultural country that is seeking to become more advanced economically and socially (Oxford).”

• “Nations with a low living standard, undeveloped industrial base, and low HDI relative to other countries (UN).”

• Low life expectancy at birth, a higher rate of under-5 mortality, high crude birth rate.

• Lack of proper housing, low levels of education, excessive working hours, no job guarantee, limited to no health care, limited family planning, poor technology, lack of labor, limited credit availability, rapid rural-urban migration, and a dominant informal sector.

• Agriculturally driven economies and religious factors and social taboos tend to increase family size for labor and other work.

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Livelihood

Livelihood: A means of securing the necessities of life. Comprised of the capabilities, assets, and activities requisite for a means of living.

• Livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stress and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural resource base.

• Livelihood Assets

  • Natural Capital: Forest, Water, Land, Fisheries.

  • Social Capital: Networking, Membership in Group, Institutional Affiliations, Public Relations.

  • Physical Capital: Land, House, Equipment’s, Road, Infrastructure.

  • Financial Capital: Access to banks, credit, income, remittance.

  • Human Capital: Health condition, training, knowledge, skills.

• Livelihood Vulnerabilities: Shocks including natural disasters, wars, economic downturns, resource availability, price fluctuation, climate change.

  • People must adapt existing strategies or develop new strategies to survive.

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Vulnerability

Vulnerability: The propensity or predisposition of a system to be adversely affected. Key factors determining vulnerability include gender, age, health, social status, ethnicity, and class.

• Vulnerability (CC): The degree to which a system (or a household or a community) is susceptible to, and unable to cope with, adverse effects of CC.

• Vulnerability (IPCC): Function of character, magnitude and rate of climate variation to which a system is exposed, its sensitivity and its adaptive capacity.

  • Vulnerability to climate change is the degree to which a system is susceptible to, and unable to cope with the adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes (IPCC, 2007).

• Vulnerability at the national and subnational levels is affected by geographic location, biophysical conditions, institutional and governance arrangements, and resource availability, including access to technology and economic stability. At the macro-level, two broad classes of determinants of vulnerability are recognized; biophysical determinants and socioeconomic determinants.

• CC is expected to have a relatively greater impact on the poor as a consequence of their lack of financial resources, poor quality of shelter, reliance on local ecosystem services, exposure to the elements, and limited provision of basic services and their limited resources to recover from an increasing frequency of losses through climate events.

• Most businesses interviewed appear to be unsure of the scale of the threat and opportunities for their businesses or are awaiting further guidance and action by governments. They have trouble in accessing and applying information on the extent of the threats and impacts from climate change and have yet to engage in the detailed cost-benefit analysis of adaptive actions or inaction. While companies are well used to managing business risk, they have yet to integrate the long-term risks of climate change into these systems.

• Identify vulnerable populations/communities by a) vulnerability to climate hazards, b) social organization at the village level, c) presence of local partners and service providers.

• Equation for Vulnerability: V = R - A where R= H x V (UNDP Adaptation Policy Framework- APF)

  • R= risk= probability of hazard occurrence, H= climactic Hazard- potential threat to humans and welfare. 

  • V= vulnerability- exposure and susceptibility to losses.

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Adaptation

Adaptation: Adjustment in natural or human systems to a new or changing environment and its effects.

• Adaptation (CC): Initiatives and measures to reduce the vulnerability of natural and human systems to actual or expected CC effects. They can be spontaneous or planned responses to actual or expected conditions. 

• Anticipatory Adaptation: Response that takes place before impacts are perceived.

• Reactive Adaptation: Response after the initial impacts are already evident.

• Planned Adaptation: Response done through a detailed strategy to mitigate impacts.

• Autonomous Adaptation: Adaptation that does not constitute a conscious response to climatic stimuli, but is triggered by ecological changes in natural systems and by market or welfare changes in human systems.

• Adaptation Deficit: The gap between the current state of a system and a state that would minimize adverse impacts from existing climate conditions and variability that is, it is essentially inadequate adaptation to the current climate conditions.

• Adaptation Needs: The gap between what might happen as the climate changes and what we would desire to happen, requires information, resources, and action to ensure safety of populations and security of assets in response to climate impacts.

• Maladaptation: An action or intervention that increases vulnerability to CC. 

Incremental v. Transformational Adaption

• Incremental Adaptation: Refers to actions where the central aim is to maintain the essence and integrity of the existing technological, institutional, governance, and value systems, such as through adjustments.

• Transformational Adaptation: Seeks to change the fundamental attributes of systems in response to actual or expected climate and its effects, often at a scale and ambition greater than incremental activities (Green New Deal).

Natural v. Human Adaptation

• Natural System Adaptation: The potential of natural systems to adapt through autonomous processes  including phenology, migration, compositional changes, phenotypic acclimation, and genetic change. Humans may intervene to promote particular adjustments such as reducing non-climate stresses or managed migration.

• Human Adaptation: Involves reducing risk and vulnerability; seeking opportunities and building the capacity of nations, regions, cities, the private sectors, communities, individuals, and natural systems to cope with climate impacts, as well as mobilizing that capacity by implementing decisions and actions.

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Resilience

• Resilience: The amount of change a system can undergo and maintain the same function and structure while retaining options to develop in desired directions. Communities are resilient to CC if they can withstand climate hazards and rebuild themselves. Resilience can be enhanced by anticipating and planning for the future.

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Adaptation/Resilience Obstacles

• Knowledge

  • Inability of scientists to explain difficult concepts to the general public.

  • Ignorance of the general public that deters from consensus.

  • 85% of the articles are not read by the general public (Christ, 2008).

  • No scientific journals in all 5 nations were written in Hindi and only 76/7065 in Chinese- almost zero in worlds biggest nations Language Barrier for the majority of research (Christ, 2008).

• Technology

  • People are waiting for silver bullet solutions; the idea that “technology will save us all.”

• Money

  • Inability of vulnerable people to migrate in face of disaster. 

  • Money= resilience and most people do not have money. 

  • Difficulty in addressing climate change while maintaining high economic growth. 

• Timescale

  • Slow change/pace leaves people less amicable towards excepting costly adaptation strategies. 

  • There is no long-term solution in place. Only short term, Crisis Action Planning type solutions. 

  • Response in the past has been ad hoc and not well organized. Communities only responded when the disasters happened.

  • Today’s action plans aim at reducing the vulnerability as opposed to addressing risk.

• Species

  • Right now, the conversation is only on human adaptation. What about species adaptation? Is this every species for themselves?

• Government

  • Trans-boundary governance of resources such as water.

  • Lack of Integrated Governance: Cohesive, parallel policy with strong leadership among groups. 

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Mitigation

• Mitigation (CC): Strategies and policies that reduce the concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere either by reducing their emissions or by increasing their capture. 

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Sustainability

• Sustainability: The likelihood that the solution will continue to work as long as it is needed.

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Climate Change Assessments and Tools

• Assessing the Effectiveness of Coping and Adaptation Strategies: Analysis of the effectiveness of existing coping and adaptation strategies against the severity of climatic hazards. 

• Assessing Climatic Hazard Impacts on Livelihoods: Compares and contrasts the impacts of major climatic hazards on livelihoods of the community. 

• Climatic Hazard Impact Assessment: Identification of the most likely impacts of local climate hazards. 

• Climatic Hazard Mapping: Mapping of local climactic hazards and an assessment of associated risks.  

• Climatic Hazard Ranking: Comparison and prioritization of the most critical local climate hazards. 

• Climactic Hazard Trend Analysis: Insight into past climactic hazards and identification of trends in their nature, intensity, and impacts. 

• Community Based Adaptation Planning: Development of urgent and immediate short term and long-term adaptation priorities for district, regional, and national level planning. Develops community level plans of action which will help them become more resilient to effects of CC. 

• Coping and Adaptation Strategies Assessment: Identification and assessment of the effectiveness of the current coping mechanisms practiced by communities to secure and improve their livelihoods and conserve ecosystem bio-diversity in the context of CC. 

• Livelihood Resources Assessment: Identification and categorization of livelihood assets and resources. 

• Livelihood Resource Vulnerability Assessment: Assesses the intensity of impact of climatic hazards on livelihood resources. 

• Local Adaptation Plan of Actions (LAPAs): Intended to enable communities to understand the uncertainty of future climatic conditions and engage effectively in a process of developing adaptation programmes. They will implement climate resilient plans that are flexible enough to respond to changing climate and vulnerability conditions. They will also inform sectoral programmes and catalyze an integrated response to CC between sectors. Local level adaptation planning begins at community level, contributes to Village Development Committee level plans, which in turn inform district and national level plans.

• Logical Framework (Log-Frame): An approach used for designing, monitoring, and evaluating international development projects. Includes 1) introduction, 2) project context (background, objectives, policy, key stakeholders), 3) approach (overview, challenges and issues, management, QA), 4) methodology (intro, principles, adaptation process), 5) work plan (schedule with timing and milestones, outputs), and 6) organization and personnel.

• Mapping Adaptation Partnerships: Exploration of the institutional context in which the community operates and identify appropriate institutional partners for adaptation. 

• National Adaptation Programmes of Actions (NAPAs): Documents currently being prepared by LDCs to communicate priority activities addressing their urgent and immediate needs and concerns relating to adaptation to the adverse effects of CC.

• Pair Wise Rankings Tool: A tool used by social scientists and community development workers to rank and prioritize CC hurdles and goals within a community.

• Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA).

• Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR)

• Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA).

• Vulnerability Assessment: Differentiates vulnerability to climatic hazards across different sectors and social groups and identifies the most vulnerable people, groups, and sectors within a community.

• Vulnerability Matrix: Overview and quantification of climatic hazard risk and resilience capacity of local communities. 

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Climate Change Funding

• Adaptation Fund (UN): Finances concrete adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that are parties to the Kyoto Protocol. The fund is financed with a share from the proceeds of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project activities. A concrete adaptation project is defined as a set of activities aimed at addressing the adverse impacts of and risks posed by climate change. The activities shall aim at producing visible and tangible results on the ground by reducing vulnerability and increasing the adaptive capacity of human and natural systems to respond to the impacts of climate change, including climate variability. Adaptation projects/programmes can be implemented at the community, national, regional and transboundary level. Projects/programmes concern activities with a specific objective(s) and concrete outcome(s) and output(s) that are measurable, monitorable, and verifiable.

• Climate Investment Funds (CIF): World Banks clean technology fund and the Strategic Climate Fund, which support various programs.

• Envirotrade: A company that helps businesses go C positive, generally though offsetting; l;ocal farmers and forest communities, who have largely been excluded from the complex mechanisms developed to deal with climate change, manage the planting and growth of trees in return for proceeds from the sale of CO2 offsets to customers in the developed world

• Global Climate Change Alliance (of the European Commission): Focused on integrating adaptation plans into poverty reduction and development strategies.

• Global Environment Facility (GEF): An independent financial organization that provides grants to developing countries for projects that benefit the global environment and promote sustainable livelihoods in local communities.

• Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF): Provides support to LDCs as they prepare NAPAs.

• Plan Vivo: A performance-based payment system for compliance with CO2 emissions reduction; provides a framework for the management of the supply of verifiable emission reductions from rural communities in a way that promotes sustainable livelihood. Issues Carbon Credits iaw a set of standards. 

• Reducing Emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD): Payments from Industrialized countries for nations to reduce deforestation, nations who prioritize afforestation, etc. The major objective of REDD policy is to encourage countries which would undertake measures to minimize existing rates of deforestation and forest degradation through a mechanism of reward (by making payment). This is a major policy shift as it recognizes the role of the forestry sector, which contributes nearly 20% of the total global emissions.

• Spanish MDG Fund: Funds for mainstreaming climate into development as a means of adaptation.

• Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF): A fund concerned primarily with activities, programmes and measures in the development sectors most affected by CC. The SCCF was established in 2001 to finance projects relating to adaptation; technology transfer and capacity building; energy, transport, industry, agriculture, forestry and waste management; and economic diversification.

• Strategic Climate Fund: Focused on mainstreaming climate change into development planning and budgeting, through technical assistance and investment programmes.

• Strategic Priority on Adaptation (SPA): An ecosystem-focused fund ensuring that CC concerns are incorporated in the management of ecosystems through GEF focal area projects. The aim is to increase the resilience and adaptive capacity of ecosystems and communities vulnerable to the adverse effects of CC. Projects must focus on reducing vulnerability to climate change impacts as their primary objective.

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Misc Quotes

“Classical economists have been mostly preoccupied with what is now termed economic development in the sense of sustained increases in per capita real income.”-IMF.

“Experimental and field research has consistently found that individuals overtly facing the same situation vary substantially in their behavior.”-Elinor Ostrom.

“Think Like a Mountain: The importance of stepping back to better understand Nature's big picture.”-J.A. Ginsburg.

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”-J.A. Ginsburg.

Mangroves dissipate the energy and size of waves as a result of the drag forces exerted by their multiple roots and stems. The extent to which wave energy is reduced depends on many factors including coastal profile, water depth and bottom configuration. One study found mangrove forests reduce wave heights 5 – 7.5x more than unvegetated beach surfaces (Quartel et al., 2007). 

“The final goal of effective institutions is to achieve grassroots behavioral change.”

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Terminology

• Adult Literacy Rate: The percentage of the population 15yo and over that is able to read and write.

• Bio-Indicators: Species that are especially sensitive to CC used to assess the climate sensitivity of whole ecosystems based on six criteria: climate sensitivity, habitat constraints, position within distribution range, dispersal capacity, functional position in the ecosystem and suitability for monitoring.

• Bt Crops: Named for the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a bacteria that naturally produces a crystal protein that is toxic to many pest insects. Bt crops are crops that are genetically engineered to produce the same toxin as Bt in every cell of the plant, with the goal of protecting the crop from pests.

• Carbon Conservation: Halting or slowing down deforestation by preserving current carbon reservoirs.

• Carbon Sequestration: Increasing vegetation cover through afforestation so that it can hold C for a longer time.

• Carbon Substitution: Converting vegetation into timber products, which store C or which substitute bio-energy for fossil fuel so that less C is emitted into the atmosphere.

• Culture: The expression of humankind within society.

• Crude Birth Rate: The number of children born alive each year per 1000 population.

• Equitability: The extent to which a solution is “fair” and accessible to all who face the problem: e.g. a solution that can only be afforded by the fewest richest families is not equitable.

• Ex Ante: Occurs in advance of disaster.

• Ex Post: Occurs following disaster.

• Externalities: The costs of clean water, air, soil, and a stable climate that must be accounted for.

• Framing: The way a particular problem is presented or viewed. Frames are shaped by knowledge of and underlying views of the world. It is related to the organization of knowledge that people have about their world in the light of their underlying attitudes toward key social values (i.e. nature, peace, freedom). Their notions of agency and responsibility (i.e. individual autonomy, corporate responsibility), and their judgements about reliability, relevance, and weight of competing knowledge claims.

• Informal Sector: Jobs that are low skill, low productivity, self-employment, lack of complementary inputs particularly capital, small scale measured in terms of sales, assets, employments, favored by recent migrants, ease of entry for employers and workers, and lack of formal contractual agreements.

• Purchasing Power Parity (PPP): The number of units of a foreign country’s currency required to purchase the identical quantity of goods and services in the local markets as $1 would buy in the US.

• Scientometrics: The study dealing with the quantification of written communication which helps in the measurement of the published knowledge by analyzing literature, inter-relationship among different branches of knowledge by analyzing literature, inter-relationship among different branches of knowledge, productivity, authorship patters, degree of collaboration, pattern of collection building, and their use.

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Resources

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): Founded by the UNEP and WMO and tasked to evaluate the science, assess social and economic impacts, and recommend response strategies to global warming.

• Practical Action and Rural Development Policy Institute (RDPI)

• World Wildlife Foundation (WWF)

• Swiss Agency for Development and Co-Operations (SDC)

• Climate, Community, and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA): A global partnership of leading companies, NGOs and research institutes. It seeks to “leverage policies and markets” to promote forest protection/restoration and agro-forestry projects through multiple-benefit land-based forest carbon projects. To achieve this goal, the CCBA has developed voluntary standards to help design and identify land management projects that simultaneously minimize climate change, support sustainable development and conserve biodiversity. 

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Chronology

• 2009: Copenhagen Climate Summit; parties pledge to provide $30B for CC mitigation and adaptation in developing countries between 2010 and 2012 and to mobilize $100B per year by 2020 (Betzold & Weiler, 2016).

• May, 2008: Cyclone Nargis strikes the Irrawaddy Delta Region in Myanmar (WomenWatch).

• 2006: The Global Water Initiative East Africa is established as an effort to ensure that vulnerable populations have reliable access to clean water.

• May, 1980: The IMF first publishes the World Economic Outlook (WEO).

• 1978: The World Bank launches the World Development Report (WDI), an analytical country classification system. WDI divides countries into three categories: 1) developing countries, 2) industrialized countries, and 3) capital-surplus oil-exporting countries. Developing countries were categorized as low-income (with GNI/n of < US$250) and middle-income (with GNI/n > US$250).-IMF Classification by Nielsen.

• 1947: Kenya opens its first national park.-The Impact of CC by Uchengu.

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---Articles---

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Sustainable Social-Ecological Systems (SES): An Impossibility? by Ostrom

Ref: Elinor Ostrom (unk). Sustainable Social-Ecological Systems: An Impossibility?

• I hope to counteract the sense that it is impossible to achieve sustainability as well as the presumption that scholars have the tools to make simple, predictive models of linked SES and deduce the universal solutions- a panacea- to problems of overuse or destruction of resources. 

• Panacea proneness is a diluted form of fundamentalism. 

• Von Weizsaecker (2005) challenges the view that privatization is always the best option for delivering public services and present 50 case studies on best-case vs. worst-case experiences of efforts to privatize water, transport, and energy as they potentially impact CC. 

• Avoid adopting standardized blueprint solutions and search to find the appropriate types of solutions for specific niches and help to adapt these to articular situations. 

• Humans have a preference for simple solutions to complex problems. We should stop thriving for simple answers to solve all complex problems. 

• Problems tend to be systems problems, where aspects of behavior are complex and unpredictable and where causes, while at times simple (when finally understood), are always multiple. They are non-linear in nature, cross-scale in time and in space, and have an evolutionary character. 

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Livelihood by UNDP ISDR

Ref: UNDP ISDR (unk). Livelihood.

• Summary: The importance of prioritizing the rebuilding of livelihood vice infrastructure (following a disaster, people want to get back to their order as quickly as possible). 

• Livelihoods are also shaped by the changing natural environment. The quality of soil, air, and water; the climatic and geographic conditions; the availability of fauna and flora; and the frequency and intensity of natural hazards all influence livelihood decisions. 

• In the wake of disaster, people constantly emphasized the need to restore livelihoods rather than receive relief and expressed some frustration that outsiders did not listen to them on this point. 

• After disasters, it’s important to address not only the replacement of physical assets, but the restoration of crucial social networks, the provision of financial services, and the development of markets. 

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Glaciers, Snowmelt, and Runoff in the Himalayas by ICIMOD

Ref: ICIMOD (Feb, 2012). Glaciers, Snowmelt, and Runoff in the Himalayas. Conference Report.

• Hindu-Kush Himalayas (HKH).

• Planners are missing substantial knowledge on glacier dynamics, their evolution and related downstream processes for many regions of the HKH region.

• The data available is biased towards certain locations and lacks long-term observations.

• The Karakoram and Hindu-Kush regions have a relative lack of any data of modeling studies yet the consequences of continued glacier melt and reduced meltwater contribution is higher than other regions.

• Seasonality and inter-annual variability is poorly understood.

• What’s needed are sustainable monitoring programs, comprehensive studies on HKH glaciers, longer term observations of cryospheric changes and runoff, climate/glacier/snow/permafrost/runoff data and modeling, improved data sharing, coverage, and coordination, and implementation of a long-term, transboundary observation network on climate, glaciers, and hydrology.

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Climate Change: The Physical Science Basis by IPCC

Ref: IPCC (2007). Climate Change: The Physical Science Basis. Summary for Policy Makers.

• Global atmospheric concentrations of CO2, CH4 and N2O have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values determined from ice cores spanning many thousands of years. The global increases in CO2 concentration are due primarily to fossil fuel use and land-use change, while those of CH4 and N2O are primarily due to agriculture.

• The atmospheric concentration of CO2 in 2005 exceeds by far the natural range over the last 650,000 years (180 to 300 ppm) as determined from ice cores.

• The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global CC of the past fifty years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that it is not due to known natural causes alone.

• Past and future anthropogenic CO2 emissions will continue to contribute to warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium, due to the timescales required for removal of this gas from the atmosphere.

GHGs

• 300 ppm: 300 molecules of a GHG per million molecules of dry air.

• Methanol’s (CH4): Global atmospheric concentration of CH4 has increased from a pre-industrial value of about 715 ppb to 1732 ppb in the early 1990s, and is 1774 ppb in 2005.

• Nitrous Oxide (N2O): Global atmospheric N2O concentration increased from a pre-industrial value of about 270 ppb to 319 ppb in 2005. The growth rate has been approximately constant since 1980. More than a third of all N2O emissions are anthropogenic and are primarily due to agriculture.

• Water Vapor (H2O): Global atmospheric concentration of H2O has increased due to warming temperatures.

Radiative Forcing: A measure of the influence that a factor has in altering the balance of incoming and outgoing energy in the Earth-atmosphere system and is an index of the importance of the factor as a potential CC mechanism. Positive forcing tends to warm the surface while negative forcing tends to cool it.

• The combined radiative forcing due to increases in CO2, CH4, and N2O is +2.30 [+2.07 to +2.53] W m-2, and its rate of increase during the industrial era is very likely to have been unprecedented in more than 10,000 years. The CO2 radiative forcing increased by 20% from 1995 to 2005, the largest change for any decade in at least the last 200 years.

• Anthropogenic contributions to aerosols (primarily sulphate, organic carbon, black carbon, nitrate and dust) together produce a cooling effect, with a total direct radiative forcing of -0.5 [-0.9 to -0.1] W m-2 and an indirect cloud albedo forcing of -0.7 [-1.8 to -0.3] W m-2.

• Ozone changes due to emissions of ozone-forming chemicals (nitrogen oxides, CO, and hydrocarbons) contribute +0.35 [+0.25 to +0.65] W m-2. The direct radiative forcing due to changes in halocarbons is +0.34 [+0.31 to +0.37] W m-2. Changes in surface albedo, due to land-cover changes and deposition of black carbon aerosols on snow, exert respective forcings of -0.2 [-0.4 to 0.0] and +0.1 [0.0 to +0.2] W m-2.

• Model experiments show that even if all radiative forcing agents are held constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming trend would occur in the next two decades at a rate of about 0.1°C per decade, due mainly to the slow response of the oceans.

• Model studies suggest that to stabilize at 450 ppm carbon dioxide, could require that cumulative emissions over the 21st century be reduced from an average of approximately 670 [630 to 710] GtC (2460 [2310 to 2600] GtCO2) to approximately 490 [375 to 600] GtC (1800 [1370 to 2200] GtCO2)

• If radiative forcing were to be stabilized in 2100 at B1 or A1B levels a further increase in global average temperature of about 0.5°C would still be expected, mostly by 2200.

Major Observed Changes

• Observations since 1961 show that the average temperature of the global ocean has increased to depths of at least 3000 m and that the ocean has been absorbing more than 80% of the heat added to the climate system. Such warming causes seawater to expand, contributing to sea level rise.

• Average Arctic Temperature Increase and average Sea Ice Extent has shrunk by 2.7% per decade since 1978.

• Global increases in Precipitation

• Increased salinity in low latitude waters.

• Increase in Frequency of heavy precipitation events.

• Evidence of an increase in intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic since about 1970.

• Increase in Mid-Latitude westerly winds since 1960s.

• Seasonally Frozen Ground has decreased by ~7% in the NH since 1900.

• More Intense and longer droughts, particularly in the tropics and subtropics. Since the 1970s.

• Widespread in extreme temperature events over the last 50 years.

• The last time the polar regions were significantly warmer than present for an extended period (about 125,000 years ago), reductions in polar ice volume led to 4 to 6 meters of sea level rise.

• Average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely higher than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely the highest in at least the past 1300 years.

• Anthropogenic forcing is likely to have contributed to changes in wind patterns, affecting extra-tropical storm tracks and temperature patterns in both hemispheres.

• Water vapor changes represent the largest feedback affecting climate sensitivity and are now better understood than in the TAR. Cloud feedbacks remain the largest source of uncertainty.

• A significant fraction of the reconstructed Northern Hemisphere interdecadal temperature variability over those centuries is very likely attributable to volcanic eruptions and changes in solar irradiance, and it is likely that anthropogenic forcing contributed to the early 20c warming evident in these records.

• Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations leads to increasing acidification of the ocean. Projections based on SRES scenarios give reductions in average global surface ocean pH16 of between 0.14 and 0.35 units over the 21st century, adding to the present decrease of 0.1 units since pre-industrial times.

• Decrease in Snow Cover.

• Decrease in Sea Ice.

• Extreme Heat, Heat Waves, and Heavy precipitation events will increase.

• Higher intensity tropical cyclones with larger peak wind speeds and heavier precipitation.

• Increase in High-Lat Rain with decrease in sub-tropical rain.

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The Primer by Ginsburg

Ref: J.A. Ginsburg (unk). The Primer.

• “Think Like a Mountain: The importance of stepping back to better understand Nature's big picture.”-J.A. Ginsburg.

• Series of interconnected, existential crises all coming to a head at the same time: Climate change (carbon pollution), ocean acidification (carbon pollution), air pollution (chemical, particulate pollution), water pollution (plastic, chemical, and biological), soil degradation (chemical- dependent farming), system collapse (pathogens; biodiversity and habitat loss).

• All anyone really needs to know is that warm air holds more moisture than cold air. For every 1 C rise in temperature, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more moisture.

• Nine Planetary Boundaries released by a team of scientists at the Stockholm Resilience Center.

• Collectively all the ecosystems on Earth operate as a single, synergistic, self-regulating, complex system: Gaia.

• Integrative Design: The whole is often cheaper- and is always better- than the sum of its parts.

• How can we engineer a building to optimize for natural light, heat, and cooling, while minimizing its footprint for energy and water, and reduce overall costs?

• Recognize the environmental externalities; the economy as a subset of the living world, ultimately dependent on it....if we start there, it's an utterly different mindset.

• Biodiversity Domestic Product (BDP): The tally of the variety of species, their populations, and the value of ecosystem services in an area over a given period of time.

• GDP does not account for Infrastructure repair.

• Until there is a C tax on CO2 emissions, there is no direct way to factor in the cost of CC.

• Externalities: The costs of clean water, air, soil, and a stable climate that must be accounted for.

• C in the atmosphere, the planet heats up. Too much in the oceans and water turns acid. Too much in the ground can trigger an ice age.

• Regenerative Agriculture: Involves three core practices: 1) no till planting which involves drilling tiny holes in the ground into which seeds are placed as land-tilling is actually quite destructive, releasing tons of C into the air; 2) complex crop rotations; 3) cover crops to protect the land- to keep it covered- between commercial plantings.

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A Climatological-Dynamical Analysis in the Southern Himalayas by Bhatt & Nakamura

Ref: Bhatt & Nakamura (unk). A Climatological-Dynamical Analysis Associated with Precipitation around the Southern Part of the Himalayas.

• The Himalayas tend to block flow causing convergence.

• Pre-Monsoon (Apr-May): Characterized by a low-level westerly/southwesterly flow regime with weak warm air advection, SW winds from arid regions with bring in hot and dry air, and nighttime high RH and cooling of air temperature that produces rainfall.

• Monsoon (Jun-Sep): Characterized by strong warm air advection, strong upwards motion (lift), and strong SE winds from wet regions that produces larger rain totals over the N. Indian subcontinent and S. slopes of the Himalayas; developed from W. propagating monsoon depressions that originate in the Bay of Bengal.

  • During daytime, the southern slopes are presumed to be more exposed to solar radiation than the foothills, though the frequency of cloudy days is high over the Himalayas in the summer monsoon season. After sunrise, precipitable water vapor increases over the mountain slope because of surface evaporation as a result of solar radiation.

  • The collision of the up-valley wind by general monsoon flow and the down valley wind likely forces precipitation systems in the midnight–early morning.

Mission/Sensor Data

• Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM): Emits pulses of microwave radiation, which is reflected by precipitation.

• Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX).

• Asian Monsoon Experiment (GAME).

• Mesoscale numerical weather prediction models; the most sophisticated modeling tool used in the study of orographic precipitation; use schemes that simulate the interactions occurring on the microphysical scale between vapor, clouds, and precipitation.

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Orographic Precipitation by Minder & Roe

Ref: Minder & Roe (unk). Orographic Precipitation.

Orographic Precipitation: Rainfall generated or modified by topography, typically through the forcing of vertical atmospheric motions. Almost all orographic influences on precipitation occur due to rising and descending atmospheric motions forced by topography.

• These motions can be forced mechanically, as air impinging on a mountain is lifted over it, or thermally, as heated mountain slopes trigger buoyancy-driven circulations the amount of water that may exist as vapor in air is an approximately exponential function of temperature (described by the Clausius Clayperon equation).

• If cooling is sufficient, air saturates and the water vapor condenses into cloud droplets or forms cloud ice crystals. These droplets and crystals grow by various processes until they become large enough to fall as rain and snow “upslope” model (Smith, 1979; Smith, 2006). This idealized and physically-based model predicts the water condensed when flow with given surface specific humidity (qv, expressed as a mixing ratio), density (ρ), and uniform wind velocity ( ), impinges upon topography (with height: h(x,y)). The model assumes saturated air, an idealized temperature profile, and flow that parallels the topography at all heights. Under these assumptions the vertically-integrated source of condensed water per unit time is:

  • Air rises and moisture condenses latent heat is released. This heating effectively reduces the stratification. As a result, many flows that would be blocked are able to flow over mountains when condensation occurs.

• Conversion of water from vapor to cloud to precipitation is a substantial task. Typical cloud particles must grow about 1 billion-fold in volume before they are large enough to fall as precipitation.

• Melting Level: The elevation at which snow turns to rain as it falls

• While precipitation increases with the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere, these increases are buffered since orographic precipitation becomes less efficient at extracting moisture from the flow, due both to thermodynamic and microphysical effects (Kirshbaum & Smith, 2008).

• Almost all orographic influences are fundamentally caused by topographically driven ascending and descending atmospheric motions that force condensation and evaporation.

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National Climate Change Impact Survey, Nepal

Ref: Nepal (2016). National Climate Change Impact Survey.

Nepalese Household Reporting

• 60.25% report the emergence of new crop diseases; Sheath Blight was extremely prevalent- it’s not just human diseases that are a problem, it’s agricultural diseases.

• 66.09% report the appearance of new insects/pests in crops including snails, white grubs, sting bugs, hairy caterpillar, ants, &c.

• 45.98% report the appearance of new disease in livestock including mites, mange, cheruwa.

• 40.12% report that the incidence of human disease is increasing in the last 25 years including cough (38.6%), fever (35%), diarrhea (21.5%), skin disease.

• 18.6% report an increase in vector borne disease.

• 20.7% report an increase in waterborne disease.

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Climate Change and Developing Country Agriculture by Keane

Ref: Jodie Keane (unk). Climate Change and Developing Country Agriculture.

• For the most part, countries in the tropics and subtropical zones, mostly developing economies, are expected to lose in terms of agricultural production whereas countries in temperate zones, mostly developed economies, are expected to gain. Many of these developing countries are highly dependent on the production and exports of agricultural goods, CC will therefore cause considerable losses of growth and export opportunities. In addition, most of the worst affected countries are characterized by current crippling infrastructure, feeble rural and agricultural markets and, weak integration to the global economy.

• Some of the economies most dependent on agriculture face an estimated loss of more than 50% of their total agricultural output by 2080, even when including C fertilization effects (where an increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere acts as a stimulus to crop productivity).

• For the most part, the more southern and equatorial developing countries are expected to lose in terms of agricultural production, whilst developed countries based in the north are likely to gain.

• Biggest Agricultural Exports: Coffee, Tea, Mate, Spices, Cereals, Edible Fruits and nuts, Cotton, Tobacco.

The Impact of CC on the Agricultural Sector can influence agricultural production in a number of ways:

• Temperature Alterations: Affects plants, animals, pests, and water supplies. Temperature alterations directly affect crop growth rates, livestock performance and appetite, pest incidence, and water supplies in soil and reservoirs.

• Precipitation Alterations: Affects the water directly available to crops, the drought-stress that crops are placed under, the supply of forage for animals, animal production conditions, irrigation water supplies, aquaculture production conditions, and river flows supporting barge transport.

• Atmospheric CO2 Alterations: Changes in atmospheric CO2 as it influences the growth of crop plants and weeds by altering one of the basic inputs for photosynthesis.

• Extreme Events: Influence production conditions, destroy trees or crops, drown livestock, alter water supplies, and influence waterborne transport and ports.

• Sea Level Rise: Influences the suitability of ports and waterborne transport, inundates producing lands, and may alter aquaculture production conditions.

• Reduction Efforts: CC-motivated GHG net-emissions reduction efforts as they would influence the desirability of production processes and the costs of inputs, plus add new opportunities.

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Ref: Various (unk). Impacts of Climate Change: Voices of the People by Practical Action in Nepal.

CC Impacts in Nepal

• The impacts of climate change on agriculture are both direct and indirect. Rise in temperature and temporal and spatial change in rainfall pattern have direct impacts while disturbances in water resources for irrigation and incidences of pests and diseases are the indirect impacts of climate change on agriculture.

• Rice is the most affected crop as it needs plenty of water compared to other crops (Gautam et al. 2007).

• In high mountains the small glaciers are disappearing resulting into drying up of water for irrigation. The amount of snowfall has diminished with precipitation occurring in the form of rain that does not enhance deposition of snow and glaciers which supplies water during winter and dry seasons. So, there is a reduction in the formation of glaciers as the existing glaciers are melting faster with no additional accumulation.

• Extension of agricultural lands into new areas has encroached the forest and pasture lands leading to degradation of environment and biodiversity, soil erosion, landslides and floods.

• Earlier Harvesting, decline in water availability, drier soil, extreme weather event destruction, increase in plant disease, lack of rainfall during planting times (shifting seasons), growth of new species of plants, habitat location shift of plant species, decrease in mammals, birds, increase in insects like arthropods, trees exhibit dying back syndrome.

• Early and late flowering and sprouting depends on temperature and moisture. Increase in temperature might enhance or delay flowering. Erratic rainfall pattern might enhance or delay sprouting of plants.

CC Benefits in Nepal

• Temperature increases will increase the area of cultivable land and extend the growing season.

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Measuring the Effect of CC on Developing Country Agriculture by Mendelsohn.

Ref: Robert Mendelsohn (unk). Measuring the Effect of CC on Developing Country Agriculture.

The CC Process

1. Accumulating GHGs allow shortwave solar radiation to enter the atmosphere but block longwave IR heat from leaving the planet's surface. This GHG effect leads to a slight warming.

2. As the atmosphere warms, evaporation increases, raising the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere (creating a positive feedback loop as H2O is a GHG). This increase in clouds increases the GHG effect. The magnitude of this cloud effect, however, depends upon which clouds are formed, complicating this calculation.

3. The gradually increasing concentrations of GHGs will lead to gradually increasing global temperatures and more precipitation. The global temperature increases, however, are not likely to be uniform across the planet. Most climate models agree that the temperature increases will be larger in the higher latitudes and that they will be greater at night than during the day.

4. The oceans capture much of the excess C, leading to ocean acidification & ocean warming.

5. The agricultural sector is impacted due to increased CO2 and increased temperature.

Three methods have been developed which can measure the climate sensitivity of agriculture:

1. Cross-Sectional Method (aka Ricardian Method): Compares current farm performance across climate zones

2. Agronomic-Economic Models: Simulations which have been developed from agronomic experiments on major crops. Crops are grown in field or laboratory settings under different possible future climates and CO2 levels

3. Agro-Ecological Zone (AEZ): Uses detailed ecophysiological relationships to predict plant performance. No changes are permitted to farming methods across experimental conditions so that all differences in outcomes can be assigned to the variables of interest (temperature, precipitation, or CO2)

   1. Various factors that explain plant growth are inputs to the model, such as length of growing cycle, yield formation period, leaf area index, and harvest index. Existing technology, soil, and climate are combined to predict Land Utilization Types (LUT). Combining these variables, the model determines which crops are suitable for each cell. The impact of changes in temperature and precipitation on potential agricultural output and cropping patterns on a global scale can thus be simulated.

• Results suggest that developing country agricultural systems are vulnerable to CC because they tend to be less capital and technology intensive and because they tend to be in climate zones which already border on being too hot and will likely get hotter. The international community should help developing countries study these effects, identify adaptation strategies, and prepare programs for low latitude locations to help the rural poor most vulnerable to CC.

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Impact of Climate Change on Forests and Livelihoods by LFP

Ref: LFP (unk). Impact of Climate Change on Forests and Livelihoods.

• Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are important for their ability to trap heat from the sun and create an atmosphere that supports life on Earth. However, increasing levels of these gases is the cause of rising global temperatures resulting in the most severe ecological crisis that the earth has witnessed in the whole of human history. Since the industrial revolution, our energy use has grown and this has resulted in more and more fossil fuels being burnt, which releases GHGs into the atmosphere. We have already seen a 0.6°C increase in world temperatures since 1700 and there is consensus that a rise over 2°C would cause runaway CC with huge impacts on our weather systems and biodiversity. The most likely impacts of CC that will be experienced will be more severe water stress and overheating. Rainfall is expected to become less frequent but heavier, and summers will become hotter

• Warming has manifold impacts on ecosystem and biological behavior including snow melt, glacier retreat, shift in weather patterns, intensification of droughts and desertification, flooding, fires, species shift, rise of disease incidence and sea level rise.

• Tropical forests cover about 15% of the world's land surface and contain about 25% of the C in the terrestrial biosphere. However, they are being rapidly degraded and deforested resulting in the emission of heattrapping CO2 to the atmosphere. Roughly, 13M hA are converted to other land uses each year. This loss accounts for a fifth of global C emissions, making land cover change the second largest contributor to global warming.

• The agricultural sector is likely to suffer the most due to warming, climatic extremes and disease outbreaks resulting in reduced yields, and nutrition, rise of food prices and political instability (Epstein & Mills, 2005).

• Climatologists believe that a rise in global temperatures of 3.25°C would be equivalent to an ecological shift upwards of about 500 m in altitude.

• Over the next 10 years 80% of British Columbia's mature pine forest is expected to be lost due to infestation by the mountain pine beetle.

• The most common impacts include shifts in rainfall with higher uncertainty and leading to water crises at all scales (macro and micro).

• Carbon Conservation: Halting or slowing down deforestation by preserving current carbon reservoirs.

• Carbon Sequestration: Increasing vegetation cover through afforestation so that it can hold C for a longer time.

• Carbon Substitution: Converting vegetation into timber products, which store C or which substitute bio-energy for fossil fuel so that less C is emitted into the atmosphere.

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Effects of CC on Biodiversity by Kappelle & Vuuren

Ref: Kappelle & Vuuren (unk). Effects of Climate Change on Biodiversity.

• Shifts of major vegetation zones (biomes) and species towards higher latitudes and higher altitudes.

• Habitat Fragmentation: Results in isolation of species populations and may locally lead to a reduction of genetic variation. Fragmentation may also prevent species migration and dispersal towards more suitable habitats in response to climate change.

  • Rain forest remnants surrounded by cleared agricultural lands are exposed to markedly different solar radiation, wind, water and nutrient regimes than continuously forested regions.

  • Establishing corridors between fragments is an often-suggested management response to CC, though much is still unknown about their potential effectiveness. Knowledge is lacking on the required spatial configuration of corridors, e.g., optimal width, edge to area ratios and orientation in different environments (Halpin, 1997)

• Bio-Indicators: Species that are especially sensitive to CC used to assess the climate sensitivity of whole ecosystems based on six criteria: climate sensitivity, habitat constraints, position within distribution range, dispersal capacity, functional position in the ecosystem and suitability for monitoring.

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Impacts of CC on Biodiversity and Community Livelihoods in the Katavi Ecosystem

Ref: Unk (2011). Impacts of Climate Change on Biodiversity and Community Livelihoods in the Katavi Ecosystem.

• Climatic Stressors

  • Increased rainfall variability and below average rainfall contribute to drying up of rivers; the subsequent decrease in water flow can increase pollution loads.

• Non-Climatic Stressors: Pollution (Airborne, N deposition, Acid Rain), Agriculture (GW poisoning from chemical use, erosion, increased water extraction), poaching, rapid population growth, water resource mismanagement, deforestation.

  • There is necessity for a species-based management approach

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Assessing Climate Change Vulnerability in East Africa

Ref: Unk. Assessing Climate Change Vulnerability in East Africa.

• Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (CVCA): A tool developed by care to delineate the socio-economic aspects of vulnerability to CC, particularly those factors that make women and other marginalized groups especially vulnerable. CVCA is an engaging, logical process that guides the participants through a thought process that allowed them to frame CC in a context-specific manner.

  • Identify sites to be assessed and identify those most vulnerable to the impacts of CC within a community or project area.

  • Training on use of adaptation tools and analysis for field personnel.

  • Community consultations using specific analytical tools as elaborated in the CVCA Handbook.

  • Data analysis using the community-based risk screening tool for adaptation and livelihoods (CRiSTAL) tool.

  • Prioritize adaptation activities.

  • Budgeting Process with estimates for prioritized adaptation activities.

  • Implement and monitor adaptation activities.

  • Communicate results and process with decision makers at different levels.

Climate Change Impacts

• It’s been generally observed that during the last 30 years, the frequency, intensity, and severity of droughts have increased.

• Future climatic projections points toward increasing mean temperature and an incrase in overall average annual rainfall while equatorial E. Africa is expected to experience reduced rainfall.

• Cascading impacts include deforestation, overgrazing, contaminated water sources, lack of urban water and sewage systems, deforestation, flooding, crop destruction, increased disease transmission, over-extraction, lack of knowledge, lack of finance, lack of healthcare, lack of sanitation

• Impacts on the hydrologic cycle and the subsequent impacts to water availability at the local level. Community livelihoods depend heavily on the ability to obtain regular, sufficient, safe sources of water for personal health, livestock husbandry and successful crop production.

• Less Frequent, more intense episodes of rainfall impact a community’s livelihood by limiting the ability to properly plan for crop production as well as by causing damage to crops and homes alike through flooding.

• An increasing number of hot days and nights results in increased ET, which more rapidly reduces the quantity of surface water sources. In some instances, such as Kenya, this is causing more frequent migration and an increased amount of time spent collecting water.

• More frequent and intense drought periods are causing an increase in desertification and land degradation, reducing the amount of viable land for crop production.

• Increases in infectious diseases to both humans and livestock have been noted as well as decreases in both the number of working days (due to human illness), and the number of livestock individuals and families are able to maintain.

• Decreases in both surface water availability and springs result in conflicts over access for both human and livestock consumption.

• CC Solutions: Community knowledge, construction and installation of water harvesting infrastructure including rainwater harvesting.

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Determinants of Risk by Cardona & Aalst

Ref: Cardona & Aalst (unk). Determinants of Risk: Exposure and Vulnerability. 

• Hazards: Possible, future occurrence of natural or human-induced physical events that may have adverse effects on vulnerable and exposed elements.

Vulnerability: The propensity of exposed elements such as human beings, their livelihoods, and assets to suffer adverse effects when impacted by hazard events.

• Vulnerability and exposure are dynamic, varying across temporal and spatial scales, and depend on economic, social, geographic, demographic, cultural, institutional, governance, and environmental factors.

• Vulnerability reduction is a core common element of adaptation and disaster risk management.

• Women, the gender often made vulnerable by patriarchal structures worldwide.

• Health Vulnerability: The sum of all the risk and protective factors that determine the degree to which individuals or communities could experience adverse impacts from extreme weather events.

• Economic Vulnerability: The susceptibility of an economic system, including public and private sectors, to potential (direct) disaster damage and loss.

• Windows of Vulnerability: Periods in which the hazards are greater because of the conjunction of circumstances.

• There is high agreement and robust evidence that high vulnerability and exposure are mainly an outcome of skewed development processes, including those associated with environmental mismanagement, demographic changes, rapid and unplanned urbanization, and the scarcity of livelihood options for the poor.

• Physical Vulnerability: Comprises aspects of geography, location, and place.

• There is a significant difference in exposure and vulnerability between developing and developed countries. While a similar (average) number of people in low and high human development countries may be exposed to hazards each year (11 & 15% respectively), the average numbers killed is very different (53 and 1% respectively).

• Prevalent Vulnerability Index (PVI): Depicts predominant vulnerability conditions of countries over time to identify progresses and regressions. It provides a measure of direct effects as well as indirect and intangible effects of hazard events.

• Cities and Vulnerability: Eight contexts of cities that increase/contribute to disaster risk and vulnerability in regards CC (Lavell, 1996).

  • The synergic nature of the city and the interdependency of its parts.

  • The lack of redundancy in its transport, energy, and drainage systems.

  • Territorial concentration of key functions and density of building and population.

  • Dislocation

  • Social-Spatial Segregation

  • Environmental degradation

  • Lack of institutional coordination

  • Contrast between the city as a unified functioning system and its administrative boundaries that many times impede coordination of actions.

Risk: A decision by an individual or a group to act in such a way that the outcome of a decision(s) can be harmful. In contrast, the disaster risk research community views risk as the product of the interaction of a potentially damaging event and the vulnerable conditions of a society or element exposed.

• Displacement Risks: Landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, marginalization, food insecurity, increased morbidity, loss of access to common property resources, social disarticulation.

Capacity: Positive features of people’s characteristics that may reduce the risk posed by a certain hazard. Improving capacity is often identified as the target of policies and projects based on the notion that strengthening capacity will eventually lead to reduced risk.

• Coping Capacity: The ability to react to and reduce the adverse effects of experienced hazards.

• Adaptive Capacity: The ability of a system or individual to anticipate and transform structure, functioning, or organization to better survive hazards. Adaptive capacity has been at the forefront of thinking regarding how to respond to the impacts of CC.

• Reducing Risk means that people do not have to devote substantial resources to dealing with a hazard as it occurs, but instead have the capacity to anticipate this sort of event.

• Drivers of Capacity: An integrated economy, urbanization, information technology, attention to human rights, agricultural capacity, strong International institutions, access to insurance, class structure, life expectancy, health and well-being, degree of urbanization, access to public health facilities, community organizations, existing planning regulations at national and local levels, institutional and decision making frameworks, existing warning and protection from natural hazards, and good governance.

Disaster

• Disaster Risk Management: Typically involves four distinct policies or components (objectives).

  • Risk ID (involving individual perception, evaluation of risk, and social interpretation).

  • Risk Reduction (involving prevention and mitigation of hazard or vulnerability)

  • Risk Transfer (related to financial protection and in public investment)

  • Disaster Management across the phases of preparedness, warnings, response, rehabilitation, and reconstruction after disasters.

• Disaster Deficit Index (DDI): Provides an estimation of the extreme impacts (due to hurricane, floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc) during a given exposure time and the financial ability to cope with such a situation. The DDI captures the relationship between the loss that the country could experience when an extreme impact occurs (demand for contingent resources) and the publics economic resilience- that is, the availability of funds to address the situation (restoring affected inventories).

  • DDI>1: inability to cope with extreme disasters, even if it would go into extreme debt. The greater the DDI, the greater the gap between the potential losses and the country’s ability to face them.

• Disaster Risk research has paid more attention to sudden-onset hazards and disasters such as floods, storms, tsunamis, etc and less on the measurement of creeping chang and integrating the issue of tipping points into these assessments.

• Risk Accumulation: The gradual buildup of disaster risk in specific locations, often due to a combination of processes, some persistent and/or gradual, others more erratic, often in a combination of exacerbation of inequality, marginalization, and disaster risk over time.

• One of the most effective methods to address urban disaster risk in Africa is to support community processes among the most vulnerable groups so they can identify risk and set priorities- both for community action and for action by external agencies (including local governments).

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The Changing Himalayas by Eriksson et al

Ref: Eriksson et al (2009). The Changing Himalayas: Impact of CC on Water Resources and Livelihoods in the Greater Himalayas.

• Glacier retreat in the Himalayas results from precipitation decrease in combination with temperature increase.

• Mountain regions provide >50% of the global river runoff, and more than one-sixth of the Earth’s population relies on glaciers and seasonal snow for their water supply.

• As the far-away and high-altitude reservoirs of snow and ice continue to decrease, eventually disappearing, the variability of downstream runoff will increase, potentially dramatically, and progressively reflect direct rainfall-runoff, which in turn will mirror precipitation and ET rates.

• In S. Asia, hundreds of millions of people depend on perennial rivers such as the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra – all fed by the unique water reservoir formed by the 16,000 Himalayan glaciers.

• Some of the most populated areas of the world may “run out of water during the dry season if the current warming and glacial melting trends continue.

• The extent of permafrost is shrinking and the active layer thickness (the upper portion of soil that thaws each summer) is increasing, and, further, this has altered the hydrological cycle, vegetation composition, and CO2 and CH4 fluxes that appear linked to permafrost degradation.

• Increase in frequency of high intensity rainfall and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs).

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Linkage between Tourism and Climate Change by Rayamajhi

Ref: Shraddha Rayamajhi (2012). Linkage Between Tourism and Climate Change: A Study of the Perceptions of Stakeholders Along the Annapurna Trekking Trail.

• In contrast to the “eagle’s eye view”, the local people provide a “toad’s eye view” rooted in the civic science of traditional knowledge and on-the-ground observation regarding the impacts of climate change (NCVST, 2009).

• When it comes to adaptation, local observations and perceptions are crucial as they motivate behavior. This behavior, in turn, shapes livelihood systems, infrastructure decisions and economic activity in ways that centralized, top-down strategies cannot. As a result, understanding the observations and perceptions emerging at the grassroots level has fundamental importance for developing systems that are adaptive and resilient to CC.

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Climate Change and Water by Bates

Ref: Bates et al (2008). Climate Change and Water. IPCC Technical Paper VI.

• By 2025, water availability in nine countries, mainly in E & S Africa, is projected to be less than 1,000 m3 /person/yr. 12 countries would be limited to 1,000–1,700 m3 /person/yr, and the population at risk of water stress could be up to 460M people, mainly in western Africa (UNEP/GRID-Arendal, 2002).

• The African continent is characterized by a high dependency on fuelwood as a major source of energy in rural areas – representing about 70% of total energy consumption in the continent.

• GW is most commonly the primary source of drinking water in Africa.

• A study of the impacts of a 1°C temperature increase in one watershed in the Maghreb region projects a runoff deficit of some 10% (Agoumi, 2003), assuming precipitation levels remain constant.

• A recent study based on three scenarios indicates that crop net revenues would be likely to fall by as much as 90% by 2100, with small-scale farms being the most affected. However, there is the possibility that adaptation could reduce these negative effects (Benhin, 2006).

• CC Problems: Rapid urbanization and industrialization, population growth, inefficient water usage, desertification, decrease in agricultural yield, increased ET, increased flooding during the wet season, increased drought during the dry season, rising sea levels with saltwater intrusions, eutrophication with increasing NO3’s and Red Tides, increase in surface air temperatures including extreme heat events, decline in per capita water availability, resurgence of cholera (Africa), intense rain over short time frames including increased flooding and reduced GW recharge, glacial retreat, permafrost thaw and increased active layer depth.

• The gross per capita water availability in India is projected to decline from about 1,820 m3 /yr in 2001 to as little as 1,140 m3 /yr in 2050, as a result of population growth (Gupta & Deshpande, 2004).

• It is estimated that, under the full range of SRES scenarios, from 120M – 1.2B, and from 185M - 981M people will experience increased water stress by the 2020s and the 2050s, respectively (Arnell, 2004).

• Annual average runoff is projected to increase in northern Europe (north of 47°N) by approximately 5–15% up to the 2020s and by 9–22% up to the 2070s, for the A2 and B2 scenarios and climate scenarios from two different climate models (Alcamo et al., 2007). Meanwhile, in southern Europe (south of 47°N), runoff is projected to decrease by 0–23% up to the 2020s and by 6–36% up to the 2070s (for the same set of assumptions).

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Ground water and farm incomes at risk from climate change in Tamil Nadu, India by Sandee

Ref: Sandee (2015). Groundwater and Farm Incomes at Risk from CC in Tamil Nadu, India.

• Any increase in temperature above a threshold of 34.3 C, in particular, will have a negative effect on farm incomes. This threshold level of temperature has already been breached some 60x in the last ~40y.

• India is the largest user of GW in the world. >60% of India’s irrigated farmland is dependent on groundwater and about 85% of rural India’s drinking water requirements are met from underground water supplies.

• A temperature increase of 1 C will likely reduce the region’s water table by about 0.60 m, requiring an increase in 100 cm of rainfall to offset this effect.

• CC Solutions in Tamil Nadu, India: Reduce ET, micro-irrigation, soil mulching, zero tillage practices, water saving crops, percolation ponds, recharge wells, farm ponds, regulation of sinking and deep bore wells, pro-rata electricity pricing.

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The Impact of CC on tourism in Africa by Uchegbu

Ref: Uchegbu et al (unk). The Impact of CC on Tourism on Africa.

• CC Impacts: Beach erosion, saline intrusion, drought, flash floods, landslides, ocean acidification, decrease in productive fisheries, decrease in productive agricultural systems, changes in tourists preferences, rising sea levels, flooding, desertification, erosion, health related problems, increased storm intensity, increase in vector borne disease, wildlife migration, decrease in snow cover, glacial retreat, reduction in surface water including lakes, rivers, ponds.

  • Nutrients coming from sewage or from fertilizers encourage the growth of algae and plankton, which can either out-compete the corals or smother them by blocking out sunlight (Beatley, 1998) – thereby denying people a wide variety of benefits from reefs.

  • Coral Bleaching: Occurs due to increased water temperature or pollutant levels, causing stress on the zooxanthellae algae that live inside coral animals and provide them with food in a symbiotic relationship.

• Tourism: A primary source of foreign exchange earnings in 46 out of 50 of the world’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs) (Pickering & Owen, 1995).

• CC Tourism Solutions: Support Low-C holiday options, C-labeling, travel less often and/or stay longer, minimize air travel, reward air lines that have sound environmental mgmt, green building, eco-tourism, educational awareness.

• CC Solution: Rainwater storage, green building, use of water saving devices, wastewater recycling, drainage and watershed mgmt., proper land use planning, reduce, reuse, recycle.

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Public Health Impacts of CC in Nepal by Joshi HD

Ref: Joshi HD et al (2011). Public Health Impacts of CC in Nepal.

• The anthropogenic emission of GHGs are responsible for global warming and therefore CC.

• The IPCC has grouped the implication of CC into six broad categories

  • Cardio-Respiratory: According to a study about 47% rural and 39% urban women and 31% rural and 45% urban men are suffering from respiratory disorders. The main cause for it was rural women and urban men are more exposed to polluted environment whereas urban women are less exposed to such pollution.

  • Injuries

  • Malnutrition

  • Vector-borne diseases including the spread of Malaria and the introduction and spread of Dengue.

  • Psychological stress.

• Potential CC Solutions: Introduction of the community forest concept to reduce the rate of deforestation, advanced water treatment plants, city planning, and effective communication with farmers.

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Women, Gender Equality and Climate Change by UN WomenWatch

Ref: WomenWatch (unk). Women, Gender Equality, and CC. UN

• Women are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than men—primarily as they constitute the majority of the world’s poor and are more dependent for their livelihood on natural resources that are threatened by climate change. Furthermore, they face social, economic and political barriers that limit their coping capacity.

• Access to water, food, and fuel (biomass such as wood) is further and further away and takes longer to obtain. As a result, women have less time to fulfil their domestic responsibilities, earn money, engage in politics or other public activities, learn to read or acquire other skills, or simply rest.

• Warmth accelerates the biting rate of mosquitoes and speeds up the maturation process of the parasites they carry.

• Ramifications of CC across 4D: Food availability, accessibility, utilization, and system stability.

  • Food Availability: As traditional food sources become more unpredictable and scarcer, women face income loss as well as harvests- often their sole sources of food and income.

  • Food Accessibility: Related increases in food prices make food more inaccessible to poor people.

• Critical Building Blocks in Response to CC: Mitigation, Adaptation, Technology Transfer, and financing.

  • Mitigation: The process of curbing GHG emissions from human activities.

  • Adaptation: The range of activities to reduce vulnerability and build resilience in key sectors, such as water, agriculture and human settlements.

  • Technology Transfer.

  • Financing.

CC and Agriculture

• Agriculture is the main occupation in developing countries.

• CC is forcing a shift in cropping patterns, altering sow/harvest times, reducing water availability for irrigation, and reducing sunlight availability (in some places). CC is contributing to pest and disease infestation, decreasing hatching time (due to increased heat), increasing heat stress, and increases the arrival and surge of diseases.

• In forests, CC is changing vegetation, increasing the volume and type of pests and diseases (which are both able to autonomously adapt much faster than host trees), changing flowering and fruiting times, and reducing forest area. 

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China’s Climate Change Policy: From Zero to Hero? by Stensdal

Ref: Iselin Stensdal (2010). China’s Climate Change Policy: From Zero to Hero? FNI.

• (At the UNCED in Rio de Janeiro) When the goal of environmental protection comes into conflict with the goal of economic growth, priority goes to the economy.”-Chinese Premier Li Peng (1992).

• Scientific Outlook on Development: A 2003 principle introduced in China; the future development of China is to be guided by science and scientific advice.

• China’s view of climate-change policy was explained as follows: ‘Address climate change in the context of sustainable development. Climate change arises out of development, and should thus be solved along with development’.

• Earlier reduction measures in China had been measured in terms of energy saved, not in terms of emissions as such.  

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GMOs Don’t Feed the World by Green America

Ref: Green America (unk). GMOs Don’t Feed the World. From: https://www.greenamerica.org/gmos-stop-ge-wheat/genetic-engineering-gmos/gmos-dont-feed-world

• The vast majority of GE crop production does not go towards direct food consumption; rather, it is used for the production of animal feed and ethanol. These are crops engineered to withstand, work in partnership with, and self-generate pesticides. They are not engineered to increase yield or face climate-related challenges to growth, such as drought tolerance. There is one variety of corn has been bred for drought resistance, but it is likely to only be effective in 15% of US corn fields and is not effective in severe or extreme drought, which we are expected to have more of in the coming years.

• GMOs come with major externalities, including water pollution, pollinator loss, and soil degradation.

• A recent report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) documented that 75% of the land-based environment and about 66% of the marine environment have been significantly altered by human actions. More than a third of the world’s land surface and nearly 75% of freshwater resources are now devoted to crop or livestock production. ~25% of the globe’s GHG emissions come from land clearing, crop production and fertilization, with animal-based food contributing 75% of that.

• Urbanization has generated serious environmental issues. In many places there are problems with the provision of basic services such as housing, water, and sanitation, as well as with waste disposal and the maintenance of essential infrastructure. The increasing mechanization of modern agriculture has reduced the availability of rural employment and forced more people into cities.

• Intensive Agriculture: Farmers today produce more from each acre of land than was ever possible in former times. This increase in food production has been achieved by the use of new crops varieties, fertilizers, and pesticides that reduce crop losses.

• Salinity: A measure of the amount of dissolved particles and ions in water; includes many different ions; however, relatively few make up most of the dissolved salts/minerals in water. The most common are: chloride, sodium, nitrate, calcium, magnesium, bicarbonate, and sulfate. The concentration of boron, bromide, iron, and other trace ions can be locally important. There are several different ways to measure salinity; the two most frequently used are Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and Electrical Conductivity (EC).

  • Total Dissolved Solids (TDS): A measure of all dissolved substances in water, including organic and suspended particles that can pass through a very small filter. TDS is measured in a laboratory and reported as milligrams per liter (mg/L).

  • Electrical Conductivity (EC): The ability of an electric current to pass through water is proportional to the amount of dissolved salts in the water – specifically, the amount of charged (ionic) particles. EC is a measure of the concentration of dissolved ions in water, and is reported in micromhos per centimeter (µmhos/cm) or microSiemens per centimeter (µS/cm) ( µmho is equivalent to a µS). EC is measured in a laboratory or with an inexpensive field meter. It also is referred to as specific conductance and specific conductivity.

• High concentrations of salts can damage crops, affect plant growth, degrade drinking water, damage home or industrial equipment and can be a health threat. Most salts do not naturally degrade, and can be persistent in groundwater. The economic impact of increased salinity in groundwater and surface water can result in fallowed farmland, unsuitable drinking water, and other environmental issues.

• The concentration of salts in surface and groundwater can increase in several ways. Increased dissolution can increase salinity levels. Evaporative enrichment is the process of increasing salinity levels in surface or groundwater by removing water via evaporation.

• Evaporative Enrichment: As water evaporates, salts will remain behind. As a result, the concentration of salts in water with a relatively low starting salinity (TDS) can increase due to evaporation. Irrigation can result in increases in salinity through the evaporative process.

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Framework Convention on Climate Change by the UN

Ref: UN (1992). Framework Convention on Climate Change.

• The Parties to this Convention, Acknowledging that change in the Earth's climate and its adverse effects are a common concern of humankind, Concerned that human activities have been substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, that these increases enhance the natural greenhouse effect, and that this will result on average in an additional warming of the Earth's surface and atmosphere and may adversely affect natural ecosystems and humankind.

• Acknowledging that the global nature of climate change calls for the widest possible cooperation by all countries and their participation in an effective and appropriate international response, in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and economic conditions.

• Recognizing that states should enact effective environmental legislation, that environmental standards, management objectives and priorities should reflect the environmental and developmental context to which they apply, and that standards applied by some countries may be inappropriate and of unwarranted economic and social cost to other countries, in particular developing countries.

• Taking into full account the legitimate priority needs of developing countries for the achievement of sustained economic growth and the eradication of poverty.

• Article 1: Definitions

  • Climate Change: A change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate.

  • Greenhouse Gases: Those gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, that absorb and re-emit infrared radiation.

• Article 2: Objective; Stabilization of GHG concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to CC, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.

• Article 3: Principles

  • Protect the Climate System for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind. Developed countries should take the lead.

  • Take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of CC and mitigate its adverse effects. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures.

  • Promote Sustainable Development taking into account that economic development is essential for adopting measures to address climate change.

• Article 4: Commitments

  • Develop, periodically update, publish, and make available national inventories of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of all GHGs not controlled by the Montreal Protocol using comparable methodologies.

  • Formulate, implement, publish, and regularly update national and regional programs containing measures to mitigate cc.

  • Promote and cooperate in the development, application and diffusion, including transfer, of technologies, practices, and processes that control, reduce or prevent anthropogenic emissions of GHGs including the energy, transport, industry, agriculture, forestry, and waste management sectors.

  • Promote sustainable management, and promote and cooperate in the conservation and enhancement of sinks and reservoirs of all GHGs including biomass, forests, and oceans as well as other terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems.

  • Cooperate in preparing for adaptation to the impacts of CC.

  • Take CC considerations into account, to the extent feasible, in their relevant social, economic and environmental policies and actions, and employ appropriate methods, for example impact assessments, formulated and determined nationally, with a view to minimizing adverse effects on the economy, on public health and on the quality of the environment, of projects or measures undertaken by them to mitigate or adapt to climate change.

  • Each party shall adopt national policies and take corresponding measures on the mitigation of cc, by limiting its anthropogenic emissions of GHGs and protecting and enhancing its GHG sinks and reservoirs.

  • Return GHGs to 1990 levels.

  • Developed Nations shall provide new and additional financial resources to meet the agreed full costs incurred by developing country parties in complying with their obligations…Assist developing nations in meeting costs of adaptation to those adverse effects.

  • Economic and social development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of the developing country Parties

• Article 5: Research and Systematic Observation; Develop international and intergovernmental programs and networks or organizations aimed at defining, conducting, m assessing, and financing research, data collection and systematic observations, taking into account the need to minimize duplication of effort.

• Article 6: Education, Training, and Public Awareness; Vertical and Horizontal, academic, governmental, non-governmental transparent exchange of information.

• Article 12: Communication of Information Related to Implementation; Parties will communicate National Inventories of Anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of all GHGs.

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Mainstreaming Climate Change into Development Planning by UNDP-UNEP.

Ref: UNDP-UNEP (2011). Mainstreaming Climate Change Adaptation into Development Planning. Poverty-Environment Initiative.

Three Levels of Intervention Pyramid

• Base Tier: Strengthening the development base; consciously aim at reducing vulnerability and avoiding maladaptation. 

• Middle Tier: Promoting mainstream adaptation measures; ensure CC is considered in the decision making of relevant government agencies so that mainstream policy measures catering to cc are developed. 

• Top Tier: Promoting specific adaptation measures.

Challenges

• Raising awareness and building knowledge.

• Making the Issue central in the government.

• Involving sectors and subnational bodies; requires active participation of most sectors of the economy.

• Linking local-level impacts with national-level responses. 

• Meeting the implementation challenge: words to action. 

• Ensuring political will, particularly in the long term. 

• Uncertainties surrounding cc impacts, indirect effects, and the long-term nature of CC.

• Measures designed to reduce vulnerability to infrequent extreme events can be evaluated only if the foreseen event occurs.

Goal: Full Integration of CC adaptation as a standard development practice.

• Awareness: Understand the linkages between CC, development, and poverty as well as governmental, political, and institutional contexts relevant to adaptation. 

• Integration: Integrate issues into an ongoing policy process, based on country-specific evidence. These include impact, vulnerability, and adaptation assessments and socio-economic analysis of the costs and benefits of adaptation options. Policy needs to be Climate proofed. 

• Mainstream.

Strategies

• Any discussion on CC should include who the vulnerable population will be.

• Monitoring should include: climate data, temperature, extreme events, seasonal precipitation, start/end of rainy season, agricultural yields, water salinity, erosion, health, livelihoods, job and income generation, GDP, etc.

• Creation of an academic, private sector, NGO, public sector, civil society and government partnership for developing, implementing and up-scaling adaptation efforts (e.g. establishment of inter-institutional committees).

• Use public expenditure reviews.

  • Participatory Budgeting: Inhabitants of a locality are able to make proposals for how to allocate part of a public budget.

• Incorporate CC risks in the screening criteria used to assess project proposals before their inclusion in investment programmes (OECD, 2009)

• Foster longer time scales in decision-making. 

• Importance of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA)

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Allocation of Aid for Adaptation to CC: Do Vulnerable countries receive more support? by Betzold & Weier.

Ref: Betzold & Weiler (2016). Allocation of Aid for Adaptation to CC: Do Vulnerable countries receive more support?

Period of Study: 2011-2014. 

• 2009: Copenhagen Climate Summit; parties pledge to provide $30B for CC mitigation and adaptation in developing countries between 2010 and 2012 and to mobilize $100B per year by 2020.

• Most scholars agree that vulnerability has two dimensions: physical exposure and sensitivity to natural hazard on the one hand, and adaptive capacity on the other. The two factors should drive Aid:

  • H1: The more exposed a country is to the adverse effects of CC, the more adaptation aid it will receive. H1 standards include increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events (using the Global Climate Risk Index- CRI), Environmental Vulnerability (EVI).

  • H2: The lower the adaptive capacity of a recipient country, the more adaptation aid it will receive. H2 standards include information, awareness, social cohesion, technology, resource, GDP per capita.

    • Most Vulnerable: LDCs, Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and African countries.

• Donors also use their aid to reward recipient merit—typically understood as good governance and democratic institutions—as well as to promote their own political, economic, and security interests.  

Controls on Aid

• Freedom Index: The Sum of Freedom House’s measures of political rights and civil liberties.

• Corruption Variable from Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI).

• Amount of Aid.

• Population of Nation.

Results

• The top 10 per capita recipients were all SIDS: Niue, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, Nauru, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Dominica, Cape Verde, Palau, Tonga, followed by India, Vietnam, Philippines, Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia. 

• Overall, the regression models suggest that countries that are more vulnerable to extreme weather events, as measured by the CRI, receive significantly more adaptation aid, both per capita and as a percentage of all adaptation aid.

  • $3 per capita more for particularly vulnerable nations, $3 per capita more by EVI Climate Sub-Index, $2 per capita more for <5m, $2 per capita more for SIDS, $4.5 more per capita for not being corrupt. 

• Our evidence indicates that vulnerability matters for the allocation of adaptation aid, in terms of both exposure to climate change impacts and adaptive capacity.

• We only consider allocation among different developing countries, but not distribution within recipient countries; we therefore cannot be sure that adaptation aid reaches those most vulnerable communities and individuals within a country.

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Cultivating REDD in Nepal’s Community Forestry by Dahal

Ref: Dahal et al (8 Feb, 2009). Cultivating REDD in Nepal’s Community Forestry. Journal: Forest and Livelihood, Vol 8. ISSN: 1684-0186. 

• 1 Cord of Hardwood= 128ft3= 2 tons= 1-2,000lbs of Paper ~8 trees. Average Tree ~ 15,000 sheets of paper. (Sierra Club, https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2014-4-july-august/ask-mr-green/how-much-paper-does-one-tree-produce). 

• Average Cost of 500 pieces of paper on Amazon: ~$8. 

• A tree producing 15000 sheets of paper would be 30 bundles of 500 pages worth ~$240. 

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Climate Adaptation in Asia: Knowledge Gaps in Research Issues in SE Asia by Resurreccion.

Ref: Resurreccion et al (2008). Climate Adaptation in Asia: Knowledge Gaps in Research Issues in SE Asia.

Major Gaps in Knowledge and Action

• Lack of understanding of autonomous strategies at individual and household levels. 

• Extremely limited attention has been paid to social networks and informal institutions on which people rely to facilitate adaptive measures, and how these may be further strengthened and supported.

• Striking absence of analysis of social equity, fairness and gender equality issues in the adaptation context, and in particular how both mitigation and planned adaptation strategies could exacerbate poverty and social inequities.

• Disjuncture of CC knowledge, information and adaptation planning between national and local level actors, and sectoral segmentation of knowledge that exists within these levels.

• Social security mechanisms; there is limited research on formal and informal access to credit, insurance, or micro-finance institutions, particularly in climate-vulnerability places in the region.

• Livelihood Security of small-scale farmers and fishers.

  • The poorest marginal farmers live and depend on forests and subsistence agriculture, climatic variability are already limiting productivity. Linking Scientific information on climate and weather patterns to local levels, and enhancing accessibility of this information by those most affected by such occurrences.

• Governance of Adaptation across scales

  • An important step to develop learning communities is institutionalizing co-ownership of action and policy research between universities, local government units and NGOs from the early stages of research design towards exploring action strategies.

  • Critical is the need for inter- and multi-disciplinary teams to conduct research, as well as networks that link researchers, governments, and civil society as partners in research efforts.

  • Trans-boundary governance of water resources. 

  • National level governments are critical partners for engagement in ensuring the results of any research programme may be implemented at scale. This includes economic and planning ministries and sectoral ministries (environment, natural resources, agriculture, fisheries, health and social welfare agencies). As highlighted repeatedly in the consultations, of equal importance are local government bodies that play a significant role in facilitating adaptation planning at local levels.

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The Role of Local Institutions in Adaptation to Climate Change by Agrawal

Ref: Arun Agrawal (2008). The Role of Local Institutions in Adaptation to Climate Change.

Institutional Roles

• Private (Market): Generate profits. 

• Public (Government): Regulate socioeconomic interactions.

• Civic (Community): Promote voluntary/social relationships.

Adaptation Strategies

• Reactive/Targeted: Post hazard support for recovery, emergency coping.

• Reactive/Integrated: Integrated hazard management. 

• Proactive/Targeted: Specific classes of adaptation practices.

• Proactive/Integrated: Integrated development interventions, integrated territorial development. 

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