On Orderly Adaptation to Global Warming

Global warming during the last century has been a well-known fact. Despite arguments and uncertainties in explanations, most scientists agree that this century-scale warming trend is attributable to human activities. According to the recent assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change （IPCC, 2007） based on worldwide scientific results,     

全球适应目标的谈判进展和展望

正减缓和适应是应对气候变化的两大策略。由于适应"有潜力减少未来几十年气候变化带来的负面影响和潜在风险,而减缓在这个时间段却几乎无法产生作用",因此适应在《联合国气候变化框架公约》(简称《公约》)谈判中一直是发展中国家的优先议题[1-2]。经过发展中国家的不懈努力,2007年《巴厘路线图》提出减缓和适应并重,2010年《坎昆适应框架》提出增强适应行动,此后适应在《公约》谈判中的地位不断上升,议题也不断增多[3]。2015年,     

国际适应气候变化政策保障体系建设

适应气候变化政策体系由适应气候变化行动方案、保障体制、保障机制和保障法制4个部分组成,是为了提高国家或地区的适应能力以及达成适应目标而形成的政策体系。在对国家气候变化适应政策进行调研的基础上,系统梳理了欧盟、美国、日本、俄罗斯及印度等主要国家和组织所采取的适应气候变化政策保障体系,总结了国际适应气候变化政策保障体系对中国的经验启示。     

全球适应委员会呼吁提高全球适应领导力以增强恢复力

《巴黎协定》提出“减少脆弱性、增强适应能力和恢复力”的全球适应目标之后,适应在全球气候治理中的地位大幅度提升。在此背景下,2018年10月全球适应委员会(Global Commission on Adaptation,简称委员会)在荷兰海牙成立,并由联合国第八任秘书长潘基文、微软创始人比尔·盖茨和时任世界银行首席执行官克里斯塔琳娜·格奥尔基耶娃(Kristalina Georgieva,现任国际货币基金组织总裁)担任主席。委员会旨在提高全球适应的政治关注度,通过搭建行动平台,与政策制定者、出资方和研究机构一起解决目前全球适应存在的政治、资金和技术等障碍,提升全球适应的领导力,以加速和扩大全球适应行动、增强恢复力。     

热力适应、过流、频散和副高 I.热力适应和过流

利用位涡性质,讨论了因非绝热加热导致的大气动力特征的变化,阐明了大气动力过程向外加热强迫适应的原理。证明在热力适应过程中,沿着加热区的侧边界斜压位涡为负,且大于正压位涡,那里的大气出现对称不稳定。在加热区的上空尽管非绝热加热为零,仍然存在上升、辐散、反气旋环流及冷中心,证明这是由于“过流”引起的。通过总位涡的收支分析证明,由于边界层的摩擦作用,加热区上空多余的负位涡向外排放而成为大气中负涡度的源地。     

Climate Change and Agricultural Soils: Impacts and Adaptation

This article reviews the current state of knowledge on the response of soils to climate change, and the implications such changes have for agriculture. The article is based on the material reported in the IPCC second assessment report (Watson et al., 1996) and updated with more recent information, where appropriate. The review highlights the importance of understanding the dynamics of soil processes when addressing climate change impacts on agriculture. Rapid soil responses to climate change (e.g. soil water, organic carbon and erodibility) have been widely investigated and reported in the literature. However, it is important that longer-term processes (e.g. pedogenesis) are not ignored by the research community because these have potentially important implications for long-term agricultural land use and are often irreversible. The use of good land management practices, as currently understood, provides the best strategy for adaptation to the impact of climate change on soils. However, it appears likely that farmers will need to carefully reconsider their management options, and land use change is likely to result from different crop selections that are more appropriate to the changing conditions. Perhaps the greatest impact of climate change on soils will arise from climate-induced changes in land use and management.     

Adaptation and the state: Latin America and the challenge of capacity-building under globalization

In the managerial discourse of climate change, there are high expectations of nation-state leadership in promoting adaptation. Yet globalization has introduced new challenges for the state not only in terms of managing rapid economic and cultural integration, but also with respect to governance and decision-making, the use of science and information in policy, and the types of problems governments are called upon to address. Through concrete examples of the process of policy-making in Latin American countries, we illustrate not only the continued relevance of the state, but also the complex challenges posed by globalization to state-led adaptation.     

Adaptation options for the near term: climate change and the Canadian water sector

Climate change poses significant challenges for the Canadian water sector. This paper discusses issues relating to the selection of proactive, planned adaptation measures for the near term (next decade). A set of selection criteria is offered, and these are used in three cases to illustrate how stakeholders can identify measures appropriate for the near term. Cases include municipal water supply in the Grand River basin, Ontario; irrigation in southern Alberta; and commercial navigation on the Great Lakes. In all three cases, it is possible to identify adaptations to climate change that also represent appropriate responses to existing conditions; these should be pursued first.     

Equity and efficiency in adaptation finance: initial experiences of the Adaptation Fund

The Adaptation Fund, established under the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), has now been approving funding for adaptation projects for more than two years. Given its particular institutional status and specific focus on concrete adaptation, it is particularly relevant to study the initial experiences of it for any future upscaling of international adaptation finance, despite the fact that its own resources are getting scarce. Alternative rationales for allocating funds, based on equity and efficiency concerns at both international and subnational levels, are here tested against the criteria and priorities of the Fund and decisions made on project approval. It is concluded that equity concerns appear to be the primary motivation and that allocation is de facto made between states rather than by considering inequity between subnational communities. However, the currency of vulnerability for determining equitable outcomes in allocation decisions has not been formalized, despite its central importance to the Fund. Instead, uniform national caps have been introduced. Such an equality approach can be considered inequitable. Finally, it is noted that although the Adaptation Fund Board has continuously developed its proposal review practices and adopted a learning-by-doing approach, it should provide both a further specification of the evaluation criteria and a compilation of best practices from approved proposals, and moreover enhance the transparency of the review process, all of which would clarify its core priorities for current and future project proponents.     

Operationalizing the Adaptation Fund: challenges in allocating funds to the vulnerable

The Adaptation Fund of the Kyoto Protocol marks a change in the international climate change financing architecture due to its independence from official development assistance, direct access and the majority of developing countries in governance. A major goal of the Adaptation Fund is to finance concrete adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The presented analysis considers the results of operationalization of the fund between 2008 and 2010, and the role vulnerability had in the allocation of funds. The definition of ‘vulnerability’ remains broad and currently does not allow for a prioritization in the allocation of funds. Criteria like ‘level of vulnerability’ or ‘adaptive capacity’ still need to be specified. The possibilities for the Adaptation Fund Board to implement a vulnerability-oriented funding approach are limited by the legal basis of the Kyoto Protocol and the principle of a country-driven approach. The effective support of vulnerable communities primarily depends on the institutional capacities and the institutional arrangement at the national level and the quality of analysis the adaptation projects and programmes are based on.     

Global carbon mechanisms: lessons and implications

We outline the theoretical and political background to the global carbon mechanisms and how they emerged in the form of the Kyoto Protocol??s Clean Development Mechanism, Joint Implementation, and Intergovernmental Emissions Trading. We present empirical data on the response to date and the variants that have arisen. Based on this, we analyse the issues and evidence on the main controversies around additionality, efficiency and effectiveness of the instruments. The final part of the paper considers some of the implications for future development.     

Farm-Level Adaptation to Climatic Variability and Change: Crop Diversification in the Canadian Prairies

Among other foci, recent research on adaptation to climatic variability and change has sought to evaluate the merit of adaptation generally, as well as the suitability of particular adaptations. Additionally, there is a need to better understand the likely uptake of adaptations. For example, diversification is one adaptation that has been identified as a potential farm-level response to climatic variability and change, but its adoption by farmers for this reason is not well understood. This paper serves two purposes. The first is to document the adoption of crop diversification in Canadian prairie agriculture for the period 1994–2002, reflect upon its strengths and limitations for managing a variety of risks, including climatic ones, and gauge its likely adoption by producers in response to anticipated climate change. The second purpose is to draw on this case to refine our current understanding of climate change adaptation more generally. Based upon data from over 15 000 operations, it was determined that individual farms have become more specialized in their cropping patterns since 1994, and this trend is unlikely to change in the immediate future, notwithstanding anticipated climate change and the known risk-reducing benefits of crop diversification. More broadly, the analysis suggests that suitable and even possible climate change adaptations need to be more rigorously assessed in order to understand their wider strengths and limitations.     

中国冰冻圈变化的适应研究：进展与展望

冰冻圈变化的适应研究是冰冻圈科学领域的新兴研究方向,是当今自然科学与社会科学交叉融合跨学科集成研究的典型代表。起步于2007年的中国冰冻圈变化适应研究,经历了早期的探索,研究重点由评价脆弱性发展为量化冰冻圈变化的影响,形成以影响/风险—脆弱性—适应全链条的完善的研究体系,研究方法突破传统的指标体系赋权法的不足,初步实现了定量化,有机结合影响/风险、脆弱性、适应三方面的研究结果,使冰冻圈变化的适应措施由偏重宏观性、普适性开始转向更有针对性。未来中国冰冻圈变化的适应研究应拓展、完善和深化现有的理论体系,构建冰冻圈与社会经济耦合模型,科学量化冰冻圈全要素变化的影响,建立不同利益相关者与科学家共同参与的研究新模式,科学有效应对与适应冰冻圈变化及其影响。     

Adaptation in the context of technology development and transfer

Starting from a summary of key developments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) related to adaptation and technologies, the commentary provides an initial review of the available literature relevant to adaptation in the context of technology development and transfer. It summarizes what technologies for adaptation are, how they relate to development, and what their role is in adaptation. It subsequently highlights a number of policy and research issues that could be important to inform future policy. The commentary has two key messages. First, it argues that informed policy decisions on technology development and transfer to enhance adaptation require systematic assessments of the findings in the theoretical and empirical literature. Second, in light of the potential for overlap between processes for adaptation and processes for technologies for adaptation, there is a need for coordination and exchange of information between the work under the Cancún Adaptation Framework and under the Technology Mechanism of the UNFCCC.     

Agricultural Vulnerability and Adaptation in Developing Countries: The Asia-Pacific Region

During the last decades, a large number of climate change impact studies on agriculture have been conducted qualitatively and quantitatively in many regions of the Asia-Pacific. Changes in average climate conditions and climate variability will have a significant consequence on crop yields in many parts of the Asia-Pacific. Crop yield and productivity changes will vary considerably across the region. Vulnerability to climate change depends not only on physical and biological response but also on socioeconomic characteristics. Adaptation strategies that consider changes in crop varieties or in the timing of agricultural activities imply low costs and, if readily undertaken, can compensate for some of the yield loss simulated with the climate change scenarios. The studies reviewed here suggest that the regions of Tropical Asia appear to be among the more vulnerable; some areas of Temperate Asia also appear to be vulnerable.     

Adaptation and the Guardrail Approach to Tolerable Climate Change

Windows delineating tolerable or "acceptable" conditions associated with climate change can be defined in terms of a variety of parameters; a preliminary window offered by the Scientific Advisory Council on Global Change of the Federal Government of Germany sets limits on temperature change and the rate of temperature change. Investment in adaptation can alter the size and shape of these windows, and different emissions trajectories are associated with different limiting points on their boundaries. As a result, the value of adaptation depends upon both the underlying structure of the tolerable window and the basecase emissions trajectory. Given uncertainty about both, the best near-term policy should be cast in a sequential decision-making framework. Seen in this light, improved adaptive potential can either reduce the cost of sustaining tolerable climate change or increase the opportunity cost of holding to more restrictive boundaries.     

Adaptation,mitigation, and their disharmonious discontents: an essay

The frequently heard call to harmonize adaptation and mitigation policies is well intended and many opportunities exist to realize co-benefits by designing and implementing both in mutually supportive ways. But critical tradeoffs (inadequate conditions, competition among means for implementation, and negative consequences of pursuing both simultaneously) also exist, along with policy disconnects that are shaped by history, sequencing, scale, contextual variables, and controversial climate discourses in the public. To ignore these issues can be expected to undermine a more comprehensive, better integrated climate risk management portfolio. The paper discusses various implications of these tradeoffs between adaptation and mitigation for science and policy.