Local level climate justice? Adaptation finance and vulnerability reduction

Climate change creates a double inequality through the inverse distribution of risk and responsibility. Developed states are responsible, but are forecast to confront only moderate adverse effects; least developed states are not culpable and yet experience significant threats to livelihoods, assets and security. Adaptation finance addresses inequity by developed states facilitating/funding behaviour adjustments necessary for exposed communities to lessen climate risk. This article investigates the ground-level effectiveness of adaptation finance in climate vulnerable villages across Malawi, while controlling for disparities in vulnerability. Malawi and selected districts are both climate vulnerable and significant recipients of adaptation finance. This concludes a larger top–down multi-scalar analysis of climate justice, which applies the distribution and effectiveness of adaptation finance as a proxy. The study avails of participatory assessments to compare actions of villages receiving adaptation finance with those engaging in autonomous and informal adaptations. Adaptation finance villages: (a) address more climate related risks; and (b) enhance agency, security and sustainably lessen climate vulnerability. Conversely, informal practice villages attend to a lower proportion of climate risks and often develop short-term strategies with less enduring vulnerability reduction. Vulnerable communities receiving adaptation finance do change behaviours to reduce climate risk and thus secure local level climate justice.     

An approach to adaptation to climate changes in Poland

Adopted by COP 10 (Dec 1/CP.10) and approved by the MOP1, the Buenos Aires programme of adaptation and response measures opens doors to intensify preparations for expected climate change. By this decision the COP, requested the SBSTA to develop a structured 5-year programme of work of the SBSTA on the scientific, technical and socio-economic aspects of impacts of, and vulnerability and adaptation to, climate change. Consequently, the COP, by its decision 2/CP.11, adopted the “Five-year programme of work of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change” Finally during COP12 this programme was approved as “Nairobi Work Programme on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change”. This programme has fundamental significance not only for developing countries, but also for industrialized nations in which some sectors of the or social life are particularly vulnerable to climate change, specifically, inter alia EIT countries and new EU Member States. Further development of this adaptation programme economy should contain steps that provide optimum economic and social effectiveness, risk management, identification of vulnerable sectors and gaps in knowledge, preparation of a list of policy options, including an analysis of cost effectiveness, selection of the most effective policies, and a preparedness implementation plan. In Poland the preliminary adaptation programme covered agriculture, water management, and coastal zone management. For the time being, gaps in knowledge and preparedness measures have been identified. An estimation of possible impact on these areas was based on chosen GCMs, and sea level rise IPCC scenarios. In conclusion, it was stated that the results achieved should be seen as a first step forward and a more comprehensive study is necessary to update the results and cover other sectors of the economy, such as health protection, spatial planning, ecosystems and forestry, and to develop specific guidelines and recommendations for policy-makers.     

Views from the vulnerable: Understanding climatic and other stressors in the Sahel

In much of sub-Saharan Africa, considerable research exists on the impacts of climate change on social-ecological systems. Recent adaptation studies emphasize sectoral vulnerability and largely physical adaptation strategies that mirror anti-desertification plans. The adaptive role of subsistence farmers, the vulnerable ‘target’ population, is largely overlooked. This article aims to fill this gap by putting the views from the vulnerable in the center of the analysis. Drawing from participatory risk ranking and scoring among smallholders in central Senegal, data on multiple hazards indicate that farmers’ adaptive capacity to climate change is undermined by poor health, rural unemployment, and inadequate village infrastructure. Results from conceptual mapping reveal incomplete understanding of causes and consequences of climate change. Yet, shared knowledge and lessons learned from previous climatic stresses provide vital entry points for social learning and enhanced adaptive capacity to both wetter and drier periods now and in the future.     

Identifying thresholds and barriers to adaptation through measuring climate sensitivity and capacity to change in an Australian primary industry

Primary producers, including graziers, crop farmers and commercial fishers are especially vulnerable to climate change because they depend on highly climate-sensitive natural resources. Adaptation to climate change will make a major difference to the severity of the impacts experienced. However, individuals (resource users) can erect sometimes seemingly peculiar barriers to potential adaptation options that need to be addressed if adaptation is to be effective. Our aim was to understand the nature of barriers to change for cattle graziers in the northern Australian rangelands. We conceptualised barriers as adverse reactions where resource users are unlikely to contemplate adaptations that threaten core values or perceptions about themselves. We assumed that resource users that were more sensitive to climate change impacts—or more dependent on the resource—were more proximate to thresholds of coping and thus more likely to erect barriers, especially people with little adaptive capacity. Given that climate sensitivity and adaptive capacity are important components of vulnerability, our approach was to conduct a vulnerability assessment to identify potential but important barriers to change. Data from 240 graziers suggest that graziers in northern Australia might be especially vulnerable to climate change because their identity, place attachment, low employability, weak networks and dependents can make them sensitive to change, and their sensitivity can be compounded by a low adaptive capacity. We argue that greater attention needs to be placed on the social context of climate change impacts and on the processes shaping vulnerability and adaptation, especially at the scale of the individual.     

Vulnerable or Resilient? A Multi-Scale Assessment of Climate Impacts and Vulnerability in Norway

This paper explores the issue of climate vulnerability in Norway, an affluent country that is generally considered to be resilient to the impacts of climate change. In presenting a multi-scale assessment of climate change impacts and vulnerability in Norway, we show that the concept of vulnerability depends on the scale of analysis. Both exposure and the distribution of climate sensitive sectors vary greatly across scale. So do the underlying social and economic conditions that influence adaptive capacity. These findings question the common notion that climate change may be beneficial for Norway, and that the country can readily adapt to climate change. As scale differences are brought into consideration, vulnerability emerges within some regions, localities, and social groups. To cope with actual and potential changes in climate and climate variability, it will be necessary to acknowledge climate vulnerabilities at the regional and local levels, and to address them accordingly. This multi-scale assessment of impacts and vulnerability in Norway reinforces the importance of scale in global change research.     

Climate change impacts on Namibia's natural resources and economy

Climate change is likely to exacerbate the dry conditions already experienced in southern Africa. When rainfall does come, it is likely to be in bursts of greater intensity, leading to erosion and flood damage. However, these predictions have had very little influence on policy in southern African countries. Computable general equilibrium (CGE) model simulations for Namibia indicate that over 20 years, annual losses to the Namibian economy could be up to 5% of GDP, due to the impact that climate change will have on its natural resources alone. This will affect the poorest people the most, with resulting constraints on employment opportunities and declining wages, especially for unskilled labour in rural areas. Namibia must take steps to ensure that all its policies and activities are ‘climate proofed’ and that it has a strategy to deal with displaced farmers and farm workers. The need to mainstream climate change into policies and planning is clear, and it is the responsibility of industrialized nations, who have largely created the problem of climate change, to help Namibia and other vulnerable countries cope with climate change impacts and plan for a climate-constrained future.     

Are we adapting to climate change?

Human systems will have to adapt to climate change. Understanding of the magnitude of the adaptation challenge at a global scale, however, is incomplete, constrained by a limited understanding of if and how adaptation is taking place. Here we develop and apply a methodology to track and characterize adaptation action; we apply these methods to the peer-reviewed, English-language literature. Our results challenge a number of common assumptions about adaptation while supporting others: (1) Considerable research on adaptation has been conducted yet the majority of studies report on vulnerability assessments and natural systems (or intentions to act), not adaptation actions. (2) Climate change is rarely the sole or primary motivator for adaptation action. (3) Extreme events are important adaptation stimuli across regions. (4) Proactive adaptation is the most commonly reported adaptive response, particularly in developed nations. (5) Adaptation action is more frequently reported in developed nations, with middle income countries underrepresented and low-income regions dominated by reports from a small number of countries. (6) There is limited reporting on adaptations being developed to take advantage of climate change or focusing on women, elderly, or children.     

Does public policy support or undermine climate change adaptation? Exploring policy interplay across different scales of governance

Policy makers have now recognised the need to integrate thinking about climate change into all areas of public policy making. However, the discussion of ‘climate policy integration’ has tended to focus on mitigation decisions mostly taken at international and national levels. Clearly, there is also a more locally focused adaptation dimension to climate policy integration, which has not been adequately explored by academics or policy makers. Drawing on a case study of the UK, this paper adopts both a top-down and a bottom-up perspective to explore how far different sub-elements of policies within the agriculture, nature conservation and water sectors support or undermine potential adaptive responses. The top-down approach, which assumes that policies set explicit aims and objectives that are directly translated into action on the ground, combines a content analysis of policy documents with interviews with policy makers. The bottom-up approach recognises the importance of other actors in shaping policy implementation and involves interviews with actors in organisations within the three sectors. This paper reveals that neither approach offers a complete picture of the potentially enabling or constraining effects of different policies on future adaptive planning, but together they offer new perspectives on climate policy integration. These findings inform a discussion on how to implement climate policy integration, including auditing existing policies and ‘climate proofing’ new ones so they support rather than hinder adaptive planning.     

Vulnerability of Aboriginal health systems in Canada to climate change

Climate change has been identified as potentially the biggest health threat of the 21st century. Canada in general has a well developed public health system and low burden of health which will moderate vulnerability. However, there is significant heterogeneity in health outcomes, and health inequality is particularly pronounced among Aboriginal Canadians. Intervention is needed to prevent, prepare for, and manage climate change effects on Aboriginal health but is constrained by a limited understanding of vulnerability and its determinants. Despite limited research on climate change and Aboriginal health, however, there is a well established literature on Aboriginal health outcomes, determinants, and trends in Canada; characteristics that will determine vulnerability to climate change. In this paper we systematically review this literature, using a vulnerability framework to identify the broad level factors constraining adaptive capacity and increasing sensitivity to climate change. Determinants identified include: poverty, technological capacity constraints, socio-political values and inequality, institutional capacity challenges, and information deficit. The magnitude and nature of these determinants will be distributed unevenly within and between Aboriginal populations necessitating place-based and regional level studies to examine how these broad factors will affect vulnerability at lower levels. The study also supports the need for collaboration across all sectors and levels of government, open and meaningful dialogue between policy makers, scientists, health professionals, and Aboriginal communities, and capacity building at a local level, to plan for climate change. Ultimately, however, efforts to reduce the vulnerability of Aboriginal Canadians to climate change and intervene to prevent, reduce, and manage climate-sensitive health outcomes, will fail unless the broader determinants of socio-economic and health inequality are addressed.     

气候变化对城市和农村地区的影响、适应和脆弱性研究的认知

自IPCC第四次评估报告以来,对城市和农村地区气候变化影响、脆弱性、适应和风险管理文献都在增加。第五次评估报告取得了进展。主要包括：气候变化风险、脆弱性与所受的影响在全球范围不同规模、不同经济水平和地理位置的城市中心均在增加。改善基本服务不足的状况以及建设有恢复力的基础设施系统,可以显著降低城市地区的脆弱性和暴露度,特别是对于风险和脆弱性最高的人群来说。气候变化对农村地区的主要影响将体现在对淡水供应、粮食安全和农业收入的影响等方面。发展中国家农村人口更容易遭受多种非气候压力,包括农业投入不足、土地与自然资源政策问题和环境退化。包括增加可再生能源的供给、鼓励生物燃料种植或发展中国家减少砍伐森林和森林退化而造成的碳排放（REDD+）项目等在内的气候政策,将对有些农村地区有重要的间接影响,既有正面的影响（增加就业机会）,也有负面的影响（景观变化和稀有资源冲突增多）。     

Ethics and public perception of climate change: Exploring the Christian voices in the US public debate

Climate change raises many questions with strong moral and ethical dimensions that are important to address in climate-policy formation and international negotiations. Particularly in the United States, the public discussion of these dimensions is strongly influenced by religious groups and leaders. Over the past few years, many religious groups have taken positions on climate change, highlighting its ethical dimensions. This paper aims to explore these ethical dimensions in the US public debate in relation to public support for climate policies. It analyzes in particular the Christian voices in the US public debate on climate change by typifying the various discourses. Three narratives emerge from this analysis: ‘conservational stewardship’ (conserving the ‘garden of God’ as it was created), ‘developmental stewardship’ (turning the wilderness into a garden as it should become) and ‘developmental preservation’ (God's creation is good and changing; progress and preservation should be combined). The different narratives address fundamental ethical questions, dealing with stewardship and social justice, and they provide proxies for public perception of climate change in the US. Policy strategies that pay careful attention to the effects of climate change and climate policy on the poor – in developing nations and the US itself – may find support among the US population. Religious framings of climate change resonate with the electorates of both progressive and conservative politicians and could serve as bridging devices for bipartisan climate-policy initiatives.     

A quantitative analysis of the causes of the global climate change research distribution

During the last decades of growing scientific, political and public attention to global climate change, it has become increasingly clear that the present and projected impacts from climate change, and the ability adapt to the these changes, are not evenly distributed across the globe. This paper investigates whether the need for knowledge on climate changes in the most vulnerable regions of the world is met by the supply of knowledge measured by scientific research publications from the last decade. A quantitative analysis of more than 15,000 scientific publications from 197 countries investigates the distribution of climate change research and the potential causes of this distribution. More than 13 explanatory variables representing vulnerability, geographical, demographical, economical and institutional indicators are included in the analysis. The results show that the supply of climate change knowledge is biased toward richer countries, which are more stable and less corrupt, have higher school enrolment and expenditures on research and development, emit more carbon and are less vulnerable to climate change. Similarly, the production of knowledge, analyzed by author affiliations, is skewed away from the poorer, fragile and more vulnerable regions of the world. A quantitative keywords analysis of all publications shows that different knowledge domains and research themes dominate across regions, reflecting the divergent global concerns in relation to climate change. In general, research on climate change in more developed countries tend to focus on mitigation aspects, while in developing countries issues of adaptation and human or social impacts (droughts and diseases) dominate. Based on these findings, this paper discusses the gap between the supply of and need for climate change knowledge, the potential causes and constraints behind the imbalanced distribution of knowledge, and its implications for adaptation and policymaking.     

An Assessment of Integrated Climate Change Impacts on the Agricultural Economy of Egypt

This study used a quadratic programming sector model to assess the integrated impacts of climate change on the agricultural economy of Egypt. Results from a dynamic global food trade model were used to update the Egyptian sector model and included socio-economic trends and world market prices of agricultural goods. In addition, the impacts of climate change from three bio-physical sectors – water resources, crop yields, and land resources – were used as inputs to the economic model. The climate change scenarios generally had minor impacts on aggregated economic welfare (sum of Consumer and Producer Surplus or CPS), with the largest reduction of approximately 6 percent. In some climate change scenarios, CPS slightly improved or remained unchanged. These scenarios generally benefited consumers more than producers, as world market conditions reduced the revenue generating capacity of Egyptian agricultural exporters but decreased the costs of imports. Despite increased water availability and only moderate yield declines, several climate change scenarios showed producers being negatively affected by climate change. The analysis supported the hypothesis that smaller food importing countries are at a greater risk to climate change, and impacts could have as much to do with changes in world markets as with changes in local and regional biophysical systems and shifts in the national agricultural economy.     

Virtue and vulnerability: Discourses on women, gender and climate change

In the limited literature on gender and climate change, two themes predominate - women as vulnerable or virtuous in relation to the environment. Two viewpoints become obvious: women in the South will be affected more by climate change than men in those countries and that men in the North pollute more than women. The debates are structured in specific ways in the North and the South and the discussion in the article focuses largely on examples from Sweden and India. The article traces the lineage of the arguments to the women, environment and development discussions, examining how they recur in new forms in climate debates. Questioning assumptions about women's vulnerability and virtuousness, it highlights how a focus on women's vulnerability or virtuousness can deflect attention from inequalities in decision-making. By reiterating statements about poor women in the South and the pro-environmental women of the North, these assumptions reinforce North-South biases. Generalizations about women's vulnerability and virtuousness can lead to an increase in women's responsibility without corresponding rewards. There is need to contextualise debates on climate change to enable action and to respond effectively to its adverse effects in particular places.     

Building resilience to climate change through development assistance: USAID’s climate adaptation program

The topics of climate change and of what to do about it have been the subject of discussion for over two decades. Much of the focus has been on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the rate and magnitude of changes. Adapting to the impacts of those changes has received much less attention. In recent years, the development assistance community has recognized that climate change poses a stress on economic and social development in poor countries and has turned its attention to addressing climate stress. The US Agency for International Development developed a methodology of working with stakeholders to identify sources of climate related vulnerability and approaches to reducing that vulnerability. The methodology was developed iteratively with several pilot studies looking at vulnerability and adaptation in different sectors and settings.     

Climate volatility and poverty vulnerability in Tanzania

Climate volatility could change in the future, with important implications for agricultural productivity. For Tanzania, where food production and prices are sensitive to climate, changes in climate volatility could have severe implications for poverty. This study uses climate model projections, statistical crop models, and general equilibrium economic simulations to determine how the vulnerability of Tanzania's population to impoverishment by climate variability could change between the late 20th Century and the early 21st Century. Under current climate volatility, there is potential for a range of possible poverty outcomes, although in the most extreme of circumstances, poverty could increase by as many as 650,000 people due to an extreme interannual decline in grain yield. However, scenarios of future climate from multiple climate models indicate no consensus on future changes in temperature or rainfall volatility, so that either an increase or decrease is plausible. Scenarios with the largest increases in climate volatility are projected to render Tanzanians increasingly vulnerable to poverty through impacts on staple grains production in agriculture, with as many as 90,000 additional people entering poverty on average. Under the scenario where precipitation volatility decreases, poverty vulnerability decreases, highlighting the possibility of climate changes that oppose the ensemble mean, leading to poverty impacts of opposite sign. The results suggest that evaluating potential changes in volatility and not just the mean climate state may be important for analyzing the poverty implications of climate change.     

IPCC《气候变化与土地特别报告》对陆气相互作用的新认知

IPCC向全球正式发布了其最新的《气候变化与土地特别报告》（SRCCL）,从陆气相互作用、荒漠化、土地退化、粮食安全、综合变化和协同性、可持续土地管理等方面评估气候变化与土地的相互关联。报告是在IPCC 3个工作组共同主导下,首次系统评估气候变化与陆面过程和土地利用/土地管理之间的相关作用。报告的评估结果表明,全球陆地增温幅度接近全球海陆平均值的两倍,气候变化加重了综合土地压力,并严重影响全球粮食安全,而全球很多区域的极端天气气候事件频率/强度持续增加,加重了农业生产的灾害风险和损失。采取行业间和国家间协同一致的行动,通过可持续土地管理,可以有效地适应和减缓气候变化,同时减轻土地退化、荒漠化和粮食安全的压力。     

Linkages between climate change and sustainable development

Abstract

Climate change does not yet feature prominently within the environmental or economic policy agendas of developing countries. Yet evidence shows that some of the most adverse effects of climate change will be in developing countries, where populations are most vulnerable and least likely to easily adapt to climate change, and that climate change will affect the potential for development in these countries. Some synergies already exist between climate change policies and the sustainable development agenda in developing countries, such as energy efficiency, renewable energy, transport and sustainable land-use policies. Despite limited attention from policy-makers to date, climate change policies could have significant ancillary benefits for the local environment. The reverse is also true as local and national policies to address congestion, air quality, access to energy services and energy diversity may also limit GHG emissions. Nevertheless there could be significant trade-offs associated with deeper levels of mitigation in some countries, for example where developing countries are dependent on indigenous coal and may be required to switch to cleaner yet more expensive fuels to limit emissions. The distributional impacts of such policies are an important determinant of their feasibility and need to be considered up-front. It follows that future agreements on mitigation and adaptation under the convention will need to recognise the diverse situations of developing countries with respect to their level of economic development, their vulnerability to climate change and their ability to adapt or mitigate. Recognition of how climate change is likely to influence other development priorities may be a first step toward building cost-effective strategies and integrated, institutional capacity in developing countries to respond to climate change. Opportunities may also exist in developing countries to use regional economic organisations to assist in the design of integrated responses and to exploit synergies between climate change and other policies such as those designed to combat desertification and preserve biodiversity.

© 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.     

The new climate discourse: Alarmist or alarming?

The discourse on climate change is in part divided between a sense of alarm and a sense of alarmism in assessments of the magnitude and urgency of the problem. The divide in the discourse among climatologists relates to tensions in the use of key phrases to describe climate change. This article reviews evidence to support claims that climate change can be viewed as ‘catastrophic’, ‘rapid’, ‘urgent’, ‘irreversible’, ‘chaotic’, and ‘worse than previously thought’. Each of these terms are imprecise and may convey a range of meaning. The method used here is to assess whether the conventional understandings of these terms are broadly consistent or inconsistent with the science, or else ambiguous. On balance, these terms are judged to be consistent with the science. Factors which divide climatologists on this discourse are also reviewed. The divide over a sense of urgency relates to disagreement on the manner and rate at which ice sheets breakdown in response to sustained warming. Whether this rate is fast or slow, the amount of time available to reduce emissions sufficient to prevent ice sheet breakdown is relatively short, given the moderate levels of warming required and the inertia of the climate and energy systems. A new discourse is emerging which underscores the scope of the problem and the scope and feasibility of solutions. This discourse differentiates itself from existing discourses which view the magnitudes of the problem or of solutions as prohibitive.     

Observed adaptation to climate change: UK evidence of transition to a well-adapting society

This paper investigates whether and to what extent a wide range of actors in the UK are adapting to climate change, and whether this is evidence of a social transition. We document evidence of over 300 examples of early adopters of adaptation practice to climate change in the UK. These examples span a range of activities from small adjustments (or coping), to building adaptive capacity, to implementing actions and to creating deeper systemic change in public and private organisations in a range of sectors. We find that adaptation in the UK has been dominated by government initiatives and has principally occurred in the form of research into climate change impacts. These government initiatives have stimulated a further set of actions at other scales in public agencies, regulatory agencies and regional government (and the devolved administrations), though with little real evidence of climate change adaptation initiatives trickling down to local government level. The sectors requiring significant investment in large scale infrastructure have invested more heavily than those that do not in identifying potential impacts and adaptations. Thus we find a higher level of adaptation activity by the water supply and flood defence sectors. Sectors that are not dependent on large scale infrastructure appear to be investing far less effort and resources in preparing for climate change. We conclude that the UK government-driven top-down targeted adaptation approach has generated anticipatory action at low cost in some areas. We also conclude that these actions may have created enough niche activities to allow for diffusion of new adaptation practices in response to real or perceived climate change. These results have significant implications for how climate policy can be developed to support autonomous adaptors in the UK and other countries.