Climate Change and Adaptation

Neil Leary, James Adejuwon, Vicente Barros, Ian Burton, Jyoti Kulkarni, Rodel Lasco

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136569807
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Biological Sciences

?This book provides valuable lessons that will improve public policy and the quality of decisions that will affect generations to come.?
Richard Moss, Senior Director Climate and Energy, United Nations Foundation

?An excellent addition to the body of knowledge on adaptation to climate change from the developing world, which has been largely missing until now.?
Saleemul Huq, Director, Climate Change Programme, International Institute for Environment and Development

?This important volume is a valuable effort on adaptation to climate change that needs to be on the desks of those seeking coping strategies for longer term responses to evolving climate changes.?
Roger Kasperson, Emeritus, Clark University, USA

The IPCC, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007, makes clear that while climate change mitigation is vital, the world must also begin to adapt. But how best can this be achieved? This authoritative volume (along with its companion on vulnerability), resulting from the work of the Assessments of Impacts and Adaptations to Climate Change (AIACC) project launched with the IPCC in 2002, is the first to provide an in-depth investigation of the stakes in developing countries. It covers current practices for managing climate risks, deficits between current practices and needs, the changing nature of the risks due to human caused climate change, strategies for adapting to changing risks, and the need to integrate these strategies into development planning and resource management. The book also identifies obstacles to effective adaptation and explores measures needed to create conditions that are favourable to climate change adaptation.

Published with TWAS and START

1

A Stitch in Time: General Lessons from Specific Cases

Neil Leary, James Adejuwon, Vicente Barros, Punsalmaa Batima, Bonizella Biagini, Ian Burton, Suppakorn Chinvanno, Rex Cruz, Daniel Dabi, Alain de Comarmond, Bill Dougherty, Pauline Dube, Andrew Githeko, Ayman Abou Hadid, Molly Hellmuth, Richard Kangalawe, Jyoti Kulkarni, Mahendra Kumar, Rodel Lasco, Melchior Mataki, Mahmoud Medany, Mansour Mohsen, Gustavo Nagy, Momodou Njie, Jabavu Nkomo, Anthony Nyong, Balgis Osman-Elasha, El-Amin Sanjak, Roberto Seiler, Michael Taylor, Maria Travasso, Graham von Maltitz, Wandiga Shem and Mónica Wehbe

Introduction

We can adapt to climate change and limit the harm, or we can fail to adapt and risk much more severe consequences. How we respond to this challenge will shape the future in important ways.

The climate is already hazardous; indeed it always has been so. Variations and extremes of climate disrupt production of food and supplies of water, reduce incomes, damage homes and property, impact health and even take lives. Humans, in an unintended revenge, are getting back at the climate by adding to heat-trapping gases in the Earth’s atmosphere that are changing the climate. But the changes are amplifying the hazards. And we cannot in short order stop this. The physical and social processes of climate change have a momentum that will continue for decades and well beyond.

This undeniable momentum does not imply, however, that efforts to mitigate climate change, meaning to reduce or capture the emissions of greenhouse gases that drive climate change, are wasted. Nor is a call for adaptation a fatalistic surrender to this truth. The magnitude and pace of climate change will determine the severity of the stresses to which the world will be exposed. Slowing the pace of human caused climate change, with the aim of ultimately stopping it, will enable current and future generations to better cope with and adapt to the resulting hazards, thereby reducing the damages and danger. Mitigating climate change is necessary. Adapting to climate change is necessary too.

The challenges are substantial, particularly in the developing world. Developing countries have a high dependence on climate-sensitive natural resource sectors for livelihoods and incomes, and the changes in climate that are projected for the tropics and sub-tropics, where most developing countries are found, are generally adverse for agriculture (IPCC, 2001 and 2007a). Furthermore, the means and capacity in developing countries to adapt to changes in climate are scarce due to low levels of human and economic development and high rates of poverty. These conditions combine to create a state of high vulnerability to climate change in much of the developing world.

To better understand who and what are vulnerable to climate change, and to examine adaptation strategies, a group of case studies was undertaken as part of an international project, Assessments of Impacts and Adaptations to Climate Change (AIACC). The studies span Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and islands of the Caribbean, Indian and Pacific Oceans. They include assessments of agriculture, rural livelihoods, food security, water resources, coastal zones, human health and biodiversity conservation. Results from the studies about the nature, causes and distribution of climate change vulnerability are presented in a companion to this volume (Leary et al, 2008). In this volume, we collect together papers from the AIACC studies that explore the challenge of adaptation.

Comparison and synthesis of our individual contributions have yielded nine general lessons about adaptation, as well as many more lessons that are specific to particular places and contexts. The general lessons, formulated as recommendations, are as follows: (1) adapt now, (2) create conditions to enable adaptation, (3) integrate adaptation with development, (4) increase awareness and knowledge, (5) strengthen institutions, (6) protect natural resources, (7) provide financial assistance, (8) involve those at risk, and (9) use place-specific strategies. The lessons are briefly outlined below, followed by a more detailed examination of their nuances and supporting evidence from the case studies.

The Nine Adaptation Lessons

Adapt now!

The time-honoured proverb ‘a stitch in time saves nine’ means that immediate action to repair damage (to your clothing in the original context) can avoid the necessity to do much more later on. The expression captures one of the main findings of the AIACC’s programme of studies. It can simply be stated as the injunction to adapt now.

Climatic variations and extremes cause substantial damage to households, communities, natural resources and economies. In many places the damage is increasing, giving evidence of an adaptation deficit, meaning that practices in use to manage climate hazards are falling short of what can be done (Burton, 2004). We find evidence in all our case study sites of an adaptation deficit that climate change threatens to widen. Acting now to narrow the deficit can yield immediate benefits. It will also serve as a useful, even essential, first step in a longer-term process of adapting to a changing climate. Failure to tackle adaptation vigorously now is likely to mean that many more than nine stitches will be required in the future.

Create Conditions to Enable Adaptation

In contrast to reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases that drive climate change, a policy that, in the parlance of economists, generates benefits that are substantially external, adaptation generates benefits that are largely internal. This means that the individuals, organizations, communities and countries that take action to adapt will capture for themselves most of the benefits of their actions, creating a strong incentive to adapt. This explains why we can see a wide range of practices being used to manage and reduce climate risks. But why then do we nonetheless observe adaptation deficits? Why doesn’t self interest motivate people to do more to protect themselves from climate hazards?

Our case studies identify numerous obstacles that impede adaptation. Common obstacles include competing priorities that place demands on scarce resources, poverty that limits capacity to adapt, lack of knowledge, weak institutions, degraded natural resources, inadequate infrastructure, insufficient financial resources, distorted incentives and poor governance. Obstacles such as these severely constrain what people can do. Intervention by public sector entities, at levels from the local community to the provincial, national and international, can create conditions that better enable people to surmount the obstacles and take actions to help themselves. Enabling the process of adaptation is the most important adaptation that the public sector can make. Specific interventions to enable adaptation are addressed by some of the other lessons that follow.

Integrate Adaptation with Development

The goals and methods of climate change adaptation and development are strongly complementary. The impacts of current climate hazards and projected climate change threaten to undermine development achievements and stall progress towards important goals. Adaptation can reduce these threats. In turn, development, if appropriately planned, can help to enable climate change adaptation. Integrating adaptation with development planning and actions can exploit the complementarities to advance both adaptation and development goals. To be effective, integration needs to engage ministries that are responsible for development, finance, economic sectors, land and water management, and the provision of public health and other services. It is in agencies such as these that key decisions are taken about the allocation of financial and other resources. And it is within these agencies and among their stakeholders that much of the sector-specific expertise that must be engaged resides.

Increase Awareness and Knowledge

Nearly all the case studies highlighted knowledge as a critical constraint on adaptation and rank efforts to increase and communicate knowledge as a high adaptation priority. Stakeholders in many of the study areas complained of inadequate or lack of access to information about climate history, projections of future climate change and potential impacts, estimates of climate risks, causes of vulnerability, technologies and measures for managing climate risks, and know-how for implementing new technologies. Uncertainty about the future and about the effectiveness and costs of adaptation options are common obstacles to action. Examination of these and other information problems in the case studies demonstrates the need for programmes to help advance, communicate, interpret and apply knowledge for managing climate risks.

Strengthen Institutions

Institutions are found to play important roles in enabling adaptation. Local institutions, including community organizations, farmer cooperatives, trade associations, local government agencies, informal associations, kinship networks and traditional institutions, serve functions in communities that help to limit, hedge and spread risks. They do this by sharing knowledge, human and animal labour, equipment and food reserves; mobilizing local resources for community projects and public works; regulating use of land and water; and providing education, marketing, credit, insurance and other services. Provincial, national and international institutions aid by providing extension services, training, improved technologies, public health services, infrastructure to store and distribute water, credit, insurance, financial assistance, disaster relief, scientific information, market forecasts, weather forecasts, and other goods and services.

In many of our case study sites, key functions for managing risks are absent or are inadequate due to weak institutions that are poorly resourced, lacking in human capacity, overloaded with multiple responsibilities and overwhelmed by the demands of the communities that they serve. Strengthening institutions to fill strategic functions in support of adaptation is needed. In some instances, traditional institutions that have been diminished in role by socioeconomic changes and government policies provide a remnant framework that could be revitalized to facilitate adaptation and the management of climate risks.

Protect Natural Resources

Developing countries typically are dependent on climate sensitive natural resources for a high proportion of their livelihoods, economic activities and national incomes. Too often these resources are in a degraded state from a combination of pressures caused by human use and climatic and environmental variation and change. Their degraded state makes these resources, and the people who are dependent on them, highly vulnerable to damages from climate change. Rehabilitating and protecting natural resources such as farm lands, grazing lands, forests, watersheds, wetlands, fisheries and biodiversity are a central focus of adaptation strategies in places as varied as the African Sahel, southern Africa, central Asia, southeast Asia, and south-eastern South America. Progress in many of these settings will require changes in incentives, reforms of tenure to land, water and natural products, education, training, and more vigorous enforcement of regulations. These, in turn, are dependent on strong institutions and access to financial resources.

Provide Financial Assistance

Lack of financial resources is commonly cited as a major obstacle to adaptation. The constraint is particularly binding on the poor and the very poor, who typically are among the most vulnerable to climate change. Poor households and small-scale farmers and enterprise owners obtain finance through community and informal networks to recover from losses and make investments that reduce risks. But more adaptation could take place in impoverished localities and regions with greater financial assistance from provincial and national governments and international sources. Innovative ideas are needed to engage the private sector in financing adaptation. Internationally, some financial assistance is being provided and acts as a catalyst for raising awareness, building capacity and advancing understanding of risks and response options. But the magnitude of financial needs for adaptation is much greater than the current level of assistance. Increased financial assistance over and above normal development assistance is needed. Ultimately, however, financing will need to come from multiple sources, including those internal to developing countries.

Involve those at Risk

Involving persons at risk in the process of adaptation, the intended beneficiaries, can increase the effectiveness of adaptation to climate change. Many of our case studies involved at-risk groups in assessment activities. The experiences demonstrate the potential of participatory approaches to adaptation for focusing attention on risks that are priorities to the vulnerable, learning from risk management practices currently in use, identifying opportunities and obstacles, applying evaluation criteria that are relevant and credible to at-risk groups, and drawing on local knowledge and expertise for selecting and designing appropriate strategies, garnering support and mobilizing local resources to assist with implementation. A common result of involving those at risk is that it forces climate risks to be examined in context with other problems and gives emphasis to solutions that can be combined to attain multiple objectives.

Use Place-Specific Strategies

Adaptation is place-based and requires place-specific strategies. This fact has long been recognized in the climate impacts research literature. The general lessons outlined above conceal the much richer content of the case studies and risk presenting an oversimplified story. The ninth lesson is that there are many more lessons and that many are specific to particular contexts of particular places.

For example, in the lower Mekong river basin, rice farmers face similar risks from floods but rely on different strategies for managing the risks that reflect differences in the level of economic development of their surrounding community, strength of community institutions, locally available natural resources and seasonal rain patterns (Chinvanno et al, Chapter 13). Pastoralists in Mongolia, Sudan and Botswana share some strategies for coping with drought that have general characteristics in common, but there are significant differences too that derive from different traditions, resources and climates (Batima et al, Chapter 11; Dube et al, Chapter 4; Osman-Elasha et al, Chapter 5). People living in the Caribbean and the highlands surrounding Lake Victoria both face health risks from mosquito-borne diseases that vary with the climate, but differences in public health infrastructure and access to health care contribute to differences in responses to the diseases (Taylor et al, Chapter 16; Yanda et al, Chapter 6). General lessons can be applied in these different settings to help guide adaptive strategies, but details of the local context will determine the specific approaches and measures that will be most effective in each place.

Adaptation Now and in the Future

What is Adaptation?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines adaptation as adjustments in ecological, social or economic systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli and their effects (Smit et al, 2001). It includes adjustments to moderate harm from, or to benefit from, current climate variability as well as anticipated climate change. Adaptation can be a specific action, such as a farmer switching from one crop variety to another that is better suited to anticipated conditions. It can be a systemic change such as diversifying rural livelihoods as a hedge against risks from variability and extremes. It can be an institutional reform such as revising ownership and user rights for land and water to create incentives for better resource management. Adaptation is also a process. The process of adaptation includes learning about risks, evaluating response options, creating the conditions that enable adaptation, mobilizing resources, implementing adaptations and revising choices with new learning. We mean all these things by adaptation. But the conception of adaptation as a process is often the most important for formulating public interventions that will have lasting benefits.

Is Adaptation New?

Adaptation to climate is not new. People, property, economic activities and environmental resources have always been at risk from climate and people have continually sought ways of adapting, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. The long history of adapting to variations and extremes of climate includes construction of water reservoirs, irrigation, crop diversification, disaster management, insurance and even, on a limited basis, recent measures to adapt to climate change (Adger et al, 2007).

The AIACC case studies document a variety of adaptive practices in use that have reduced vulnerability to climate hazards. In most cases these have been adopted in response to multiple sources of risk and only rarely to climate risk alone. One strategy commonly in use is to increase the capacity to bear losses by accumulating food surpluses, livestock, financial assets and other assets. Risks are hedged by diversifying crops, income sources, food sources and locations of production activities. Exposures to hazards have been reduced by relocating, either temporarily or permanently. Variability of production and incomes derived from natural resources have been reduced by restoring degraded lands, using drought-resistant seed varieties, harvesting rainfall, adopting irrigation and using seasonal forecasts to optimize farm management. Prevention of climate impacts through flood control, building standards and early warning systems is practised. Risk spreading is accomplished through kinship networks, pooled community funds, insurance and disaster relief. In many cases the capacity to adapt is increased through public sector assistance such as extension services, education, community development projects and access to subsidized credit.

Is Adapting to Climate Change Different?

Is adapting to climate change different? Yes and no. Peopl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• 1. A stitch in time: General lessons from specific cases
• 2. Adapting conservation strategies to climate change in Southern Africa
• 3. Benefits and costs of adapting water planning and management to climate change and water demand growth in the Western Cape of South Africa
• 4. Indigenous knowledge, institutions and practices for coping with variable climate in the Limpopo basin of Botswana
• 5. Community development and coping with drought in rural Sudan
• 6. Climate, malaria and cholera in the Lake Victoria region: Adapting to changing risks
• 7. Making economic sense of adaptation in upland cereal production systems in The Gambia
• 8. Past, present and future adaptation by rural households of northern Nigeria
• 9. Using seasonal weather forecasts for adapting food production to climate variability and climate change in Nigeria
• 10. Adapting dryland and irrigated cereal farming to climate change in Tunisia and Egypt
• 11. Adapting to drought, zud and climate change in Mongolia’s rangelands
• 12. Evaluation of adaptation options for the Heihe river basin of China
• 13. Strategies for managing climate risks in the lower Mekong river basin: A place-based approach
• 14. Spillovers and trade-offs of adaptation in the Pantabangan–Carranglan watershed of the Philippines
• 15. Top–down, bottom–up: Mainstreaming adaptation in Pacific island townships
• 16. Adapting to dengue risk in the Caribbean
• 17. Adaptation to climate trends: Lessons from the Argentine experience
• 18. Local perspectives on adaptation to climate change: Lessons from Mexico and Argentina
• 19. Maize and soybean cultivation in southeastern South America: Adapting to climate change
• 20. Fishing strategies for managing climate variability and change in the estuarine front of the Río de la Plata
• Index