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“Adaptation is not a specialist issue — it’s an issue of how decisions are made, and how to utilize the information provided by specialists in the process of decision making”.
– Workshop Participant, 2011 World Water Week
Water management institutions are tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that water is where we want it, when we want it, and how we want it (e.g. potable). This is an unquestionably difficult challenge considering that roughly 7 billion people and a multitude of diverse ecosystems rely on those institutions. However, while the problems associated with an ever increasing demand for freshwater resources are difficult, institutions must also become better equipped to deal with an increasing amount of uncertainty as a result of climate change.
The quality and quantity of water, as well as the timing of when water is available to us, are largely influenced by climate. As such, institutions that manage water are essentially responsible for managing the natural variations in climate. Luckily, as archeological records illustrate, humans have been managing water resources for centuries. Over time, we have become relatively good at this—and we have a number of tools that can help us to do it effectively.
With COP17-CM7 underway in Durban, agriculture has a high place on the agenda. The world’s population has just passed 7 billion people, and is due to reach 8 billion in 14 years’ time. As if the challenge of population growth is not enough, agriculture is having to adapt to a changing climate. Farmers have long been noticing the changes, and are attempting to respond accordingly. But they are often impeded by barriers that could be removed by effective policy and political commitment. Southern Africa is one region where climate change is projected to have substantial consequences for agriculture.
Variations in climate conditions are nothing new for farmers in southern Africa. The region has long been characterised by variations in temperature and rainfall from year to year (and often within years), punctuated by climate extremes, such as floods and droughts. But recent research by Oxfam and Kulima Integrated Development Solutions with over 200 farmers in southern Africa highlights how recent observed changes are different in magnitude to what they experienced in the past.
Farmers have widely kept observations of increased temperatures and greater rainfall variability, which are consistent with meteorological records, and in-keeping with what is expected under climate change. Hotter conditions year round and changes in the rainy season, such as the rains starting later and finishing earlier, as well as rain falling in more intense bursts, have implications for the growing season and increase the risks of poor yields or crop failure. This affects subsistence farmers and commercial farmers, as well as farm labourers, whose employment is often indirectly dependent upon weather conditions. Continue reading
Imagine you are walking down the street on your way to your favorite sandwich shop. You are dreaming about the amazing chicken sandwich you are about to order when all of a sudden an activist from Veggie Lovers Unite! hands you a flyer.On the front page it says “Switch now! Become a vegetarian!” Just underneath the headline is a citation from a very reputable scientific journal. It cites the statistic: “it takes 10 times more fossil fuel to produce one calorie of animal protein than it does to produce one calorie of plant protein.”
On the back page of the flyer, there are quotes from several well-known scientists, politicians, and celebrities about how happy they are now that they switched to vegetarianism. The flyer also outlines a five step plan for how to make the switch from die-hard, meat-devouring carnivore to tofu-marinating vegetarian.
You continue walking down the street to the sandwich shop. You’re not normally a vegetarian, but you were just presented with some credible scientific evidence that switching to vegetarianism would be good for the environment, and that’s something you care about. Are you going to make the switch? Are you going to order the vegetarian sandwich?
The answer is most likely: No. Even though you are a “science-type” and hold scientific evidence in high regard, the statistic on the flyer is just not enough to convince you to make a major life change. In fact, it isn’t even enough to convince you to order a vegetarian sandwich five minutes after reading the flyer.
Now imagine you are the head of a government agency, say the City Water Authority. An environmental scientist from the World Climate Organization comes to brief you on the impact that climate change will have on your water management systems. Are you going to take his or her word and start making changes tomorrow? Probably not.
What, then, is required to make a government official, or anyone for that matter, digest new evidence and take action?
For the past four years, the organization that I work for, The Resource Innovation Group (TRIG), has been running a series of Climate Futures Forums in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Forums are essentially based on the principles of Community Based Adaptation (CBA) and we have found them to be an effective means for bridging the gap between climate scientists and local decision-makers. In addition, the Forums demonstrate the value of bringing local experts into the community adaptation planning process: these “experts” are individuals that may not necessarily have academic training on climate change or adaptation, but who have observational and experiential expertise. They live, work and play in these communities and know them well. While the Forums have proven to be extremely instrumental for adaptation planning in the Pacific Northwest, I hope that by sharing the process and lessons learned here, other organizations may be interested in replication.
While mitigating the future rise in global temperature has received much attention worldwide, support to help those vulnerable adapt to the inevitable impacts of rising temperature has been limited. The estimated annual cost of adaptation is USD 100 bn, and bilateral and multilateral funding pledges form just a fraction of this amount. Given that donor and government funding is neither sufficient nor sustainable, there is an urgent need to engage private capital and enterprise in climate change adaptation.
Asian cities are expected to account for more than 60% of global population growth in the next 30 years. The bulk of this growth is expected to come from tier two and three cities and towns that are least equipped with the infrastructure to cope with increased population pressure. As a result, a large number of poor people in urban areas will be highly vulnerable to the changing climate; many already are. Efforts to build resilient cities are thus critical now, and through the development and provision of resilient and inclusive products and services the private sector can participate.
In order to explore business models with the potential to build the resilience of the urban poor, Intellecap, an inclusive business advisory firm, is partnering with the Rockefeller Foundation and the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN). The initial report based on a study of vulnerabilities and opportunities in four Asian cities identified nine key sectors with clear business opportunities in the area of climate adaptation and resilience: micro-insurance, affordable healthcare, waste management and sanitation, water management, affordable housing, off-grid renewable energy, microfinance, information and communication technology and livelihood promotion.
It can be challenging to find climate change adaptation resources that explain complex concepts to lay audiences in easy-to-understand language. Academic journal articles, project case studies, vulnerability assessments, and the like often speak to the experts rather than newcomers. Providing these types of documents to those new to the field is like asking them to watch a mystery movie one hour after it started – they might catch on eventually, but chances are they will leave the cinema confused and frustrated.
Thankfully there are a number of resources out there that are appropriate for those who are relatively new to adaptation. Here are a few that I have found particularly useful and always include in the bundle of pdf’s that I distribute to our workshop participants. All are available free of charge online.
Twin works in partnership with over 50 farmer organisations world wide, facilitating market access and helping to build business and organisational capacity. We are currently developing our strategy to support smallholder producer organisations to effectively plan adaptation interventions with their members; an initial project with Gumutindo Coffee Cooperative Enterprises in Uganda is already underway.
Gumutindo: Climate Change is Here Now.
Members of Gumutindo Cooperative live in the upland valleys of Mount Elgon, where they produce high quality organic and Fairtrade certified coffee. Climate change presents a serious threat to smallholder coffee farmers since coffee trees are highly vulnerable to changes in their environment and only thrive within a narrow temperature range and under the right rainfall conditions. In Uganda, coffee farmers are extremely worried about the future since they are already suffering from increased climate variability including longer drought periods and heavier rainfall leading to poor quality cherry, low yields and severe erosion. In March 2010 following extremely heavy rains, a devastating landslide killed over 300 people that live and farm on Mount Elgon. This season farmers suffered from an unusually long drought season and extremely late rains, threatening food security.
PRBO Conservation Science is a non-profit organization with a mission to conserve birds, other wildlife, and ecosystems through innovative scientific research and outreach. PRBO’s highest priority is to develop and promote conservation practices that address the challenges of rapid environmental change. Since the early 1980’s, we have focused a large amount of our work on riparian areas of California because relative to other habitats, these areas are disproportionately important for migratory birds, but also disproportionately degraded.
After initially working to describe the bird use of existing riparian areas, we quickly began working with restoration practitioners to document the recolonization of restored riparian areas by migratory birds. Subsequently, we have helped develop and test new restoration strategies that can generate higher quality habitat in the shortest amount of time. As a result, our work has expanded to include collaborations with hydrologists, geomorphologists, landscape ecologists, and vegetation ecologists.
Climate change means that the field of restoration is no longer simply concerned with regenerating what has been lost, but also with preparing for what is to come. We are now frequently asked if restoration can remain relevant in a future with warmer temperatures, more frequent extreme events, and novel species assemblages. As a result, it has become impossible for us not to ask, “What will climate change mean for riparian restoration?” We addressed this question by assembling a team of partners who have been involved with restoration projects from several different perspectives (hydrology, vegetation science, and wildlife management) and organizations (The Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund, University of California Davis, Bureau of Land Management, River Partners, and Audubon California).
The symptoms are familiar. You seem to hear about a new climate information portal or knowledge platform being launched every week. You check it out and it seems impressive at first glance. Nice graphics. Promising headings. Ambitious objectives. Cool tools.
But as you click further you start to wonder. How’s this different from that portal you heard about last week? Or that big World Bank one (or was it UN) that’s been around for a few years? Which one is more useful for me, and how are they different? How can I make sure I’m getting the best information? There’s so many out there, how can I make sense of them? And which one would I recommend to my developing country partner with a patchy internet connection and not a lot of time to play with?
Let’s call it Portal proliferation Syndrome or PPS, because along with this syndrome you tend to get APS (Acronym Proliferation Syndrome). It’s widespread, and it’s becoming increasingly global as more countries start thinking about how to get to grips with climate change, and more organisations and donors pick up on the climate issue.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond is a world-renowned expert on ancient societies. His now famous book, Collapse, is a study of the choices societies have made throughout history in the face of change – climate change, as well as others — and the consequences of such choices.
In early 2011, my colleague, John Matthews, and I had a chance to sit down with Diamond to talk about climate change, the challenges presented to conservation and development practitioners, and the opportunities he sees in confronting them.
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