Community level adaptation to climate change: The potential role of participatory community risk assessment

This paper explores the value of using community risk assessments (CRAs) for climate change adaptation. CRA refers to participatory methods to assess hazards, vulnerabilities and capacities in support of community-based disaster risk reduction, used by many NGOs, community-based organizations, and the Red Cross/Red Crescent. We review the evolution of climate change adaptation and community-based disaster risk reduction, and highlight the challenges of integrating global climate change into a bottom-up and place-based approach. Our analysis of CRAs carried out by various national Red Cross societies shows that CRAs can help address those challenges by fostering community engagement in climate risk reduction, particularly given that many strategies to deal with current climate risks also help to reduce vulnerability to climate change. Climate change can also be explicitly incorporated in CRAs by making better use of CRA tools to assess trends, and by addressing the notion of changing risks. However, a key challenge is to keep CRAs simple enough for wide application. This demands special attention in the modification of CRA tools; in the background materials and trainings for CRA facilitators; and in the guidance for interpretation of CRA outcomes. A second challenge is the application of a limited set of CRA results to guide risk reduction in other communities and to inform national and international adaptation policy. This requires specific attention for sampling and care in scaling up qualitative findings. Finally, stronger linkages are needed between organizations facilitating CRAs and suppliers of climate information, particularly addressing the translation of climate information to the community level.     

IPCC特别报告SRCCL关于气候变化与粮食安全的新认知与启示

气候变化对粮食安全的影响是广泛的,不但影响粮食产量和品质,还会影响到农户的生计以及农业相关的产业发展等;而粮食系统在保障粮食安全的同时,又会产生一系列的环境问题,其中农业源温室气体（GHG）的排放加剧全球变暖。IPCC在2019年8月份发布的《气候变化与土地特别报告》（SRCCL）,从粮食生产、加工、储存、运输及消费的各个环节评估气候变化对粮食安全的影响及粮食系统的温室气体排放对气候系统的影响;系统梳理粮食系统供给侧和需求侧的适应与减缓措施、适应与减缓的协同和权衡问题,以及气候变化条件下保障粮食安全的政策环境等。SRCCL评估结论认为,由于大量施用氮肥和消耗水资源,目前粮食系统GHG排放占全球总排放的21%~37%;农业和粮食系统是全球应对气候变化的重要方面,供给侧和需求侧的综合措施可以减少食物浪费、减少GHG排放、增加粮食系统的恢复力。未来工作的重点应丰富和扩展气候变化影响评估内容,量化适应效果,加深对适应、减缓及其协同和权衡的科学认知,大力加强应对气候变化能力建设。     

Policies for reducing agricultural sector vulnerability to climate change in Mali

Abstract

The Mali agricultural sector and the country's food security are potentially vulnerable to climate change. Policies may be able to mitigate some of the climate change vulnerability. This article investigates several policy changes that may reduce vulnerability, including climate-specific and other policies. The policy set includes migration of cropping patterns, development of high-temperature-resistant cultivars, reduction in soil productivity loss, cropland expansion, adoption of improved cultivars, and changes in trade patterns. When all policies are considered together, results under climate change show an annual gain of $252 million in economic benefits as opposed to a $161 million loss without policy adjustment. Simultaneously, undernourishment is reduced to 17% of the Malian population as compared with 64% without policy adjustment. We also find tradeoffs in cases between economic benefits and undernourishment. Policies are also studied individually and collectively. Overall, the results indicate that policy can play an important role in reducing climate change vulnerability in Mali.     

Challenges to scenario-guided adaptive action on food security under climate change

This paper examines the development and use of scenarios as an approach to guide action in multi-level, multi-actor adaptation contexts such as food security under climate change. Three challenges are highlighted: (1) ensuring the appropriate scope for action; (2) moving beyond intervention-based decision guidance; and (3) developing long-term shared capacity for strategic planning. To overcome these challenges we have applied explorative scenarios and normative back-casting with stakeholders from different sectors at the regional level in East Africa. We then applied lessons about appropriate scope, enabling adaptation pathways, and developing strategic planning capacity to scenarios processes in multiple global regions. Scenarios were created to have a broad enough scope to be relevant to diverse actors, and then adapted by different actor groups to ensure their salience in specific decision contexts. The initial strategy for using the scenarios by bringing a range of actors together to explore new collaborative proposals had limitations as well as strengths versus the application of scenarios for specific actor groups and existing decision pathways. Scenarios development and use transitioned from an intervention-based process to an embedded process characterized by continuous engagement. Feasibility and long-term sustainability could be ensured by having decision makers own the process and focusing on developing strategic planning capacity within their home organizations.     

Classifying knowledge on climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability in Europe for informing adaptation research and decision-making: A conceptual meta-analysis

Knowledge on climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability is fragmented, because it is found in disparate case studies which use inconsistent terminology and focus on distinct aspects relevant to adaptation. While large-scale syntheses such as the Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provide a high level overview and are useful for international decision-making, there is a need for systematic and flexible access to this research-based knowledge in order to aid future adaptation research and decision-making. Against this background, we present a ‘conceptual’ meta-analysis, a novel approach to meta-analyse studies on climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability in Europe. The meta-analysis results in a classification scheme for relating the diverse studies. This scheme consists of (i) a classification of studies according to the type of adaptation-relevant results they produce and (ii) a hierarchical classification of the regional and thematic context of studies. The implementation of this scheme, for example in the form of a database, overcomes some of the identified gaps of current adaptation knowledge representation. We furthermore present a quantitative analysis of the classified studies that exemplifies how the developed classification scheme can be applied to get a systematic and quantitative overview of the knowledge they contain. Thus, the conceptual meta-analysis and the classification scheme represent a first step towards a systematisation of knowledge on climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability and may be seen as a useful complement to qualitative literature reviews.     

A conceptual framework for cross-border impacts of climate change

Climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability studies tend to confine their attention to impacts and responses within the same geographical region. However, this approach ignores cross-border climate change impacts that occur remotely from the location of their initial impact and that may severely disrupt societies and livelihoods. We propose a conceptual framework and accompanying nomenclature for describing and analysing such cross-border impacts. The conceptual framework distinguishes an initial impact that is caused by a climate trigger within a specific region. Downstream consequences of that impact propagate through an impact transmission system while adaptation responses to deal with the impact propagate through a response transmission system. A key to understanding cross-border impacts and responses is a recognition of different types of climate triggers, categories of cross-border impacts, the scales and dynamics of impact transmission, the targets and dynamics of responses and the socio-economic and environmental context that also encompasses factors and processes unrelated to climate change. These insights can then provide a basis for identifying relevant causal relationships. We apply the framework to the floods that affected industrial production in Thailand in 2011, and to projected Arctic sea ice decline, and demonstrate that the framework can usefully capture the complex system dynamics of cross-border climate impacts. It also provides a useful mechanism to identify and understand adaptation strategies and their potential consequences in the wider context of resilience planning. The cross-border dimensions of climate impacts could become increasingly important as climate changes intensify. We conclude that our framework will allow for these to be properly accounted for, help to identify new areas of empirical and model-based research and thereby support climate risk management.     

Assessing vulnerability of selected farming communities in the Philippines based on a behavioural model of agent's adaptation to global environmental change

Behavioural models that allow simple representation of the complexity of human–environment links are important in vulnerability assessment because they allow the analysis of human adaptive processes in a changing environment. This paper applies an agent-based framework that considers the behavioural model of farmers in three villages in a municipality in the Philippines. Agent-based modelling is a useful policy tool for simulating the effects of different adaptation options on reducing vulnerability because it allows representation of not only the dynamic changes in climate and market but also the dynamic adaptive process of different groups of communities to the impacts of these changes. Model simulations of adaptation options under various global change scenarios showed that production support would significantly reduce future vulnerability only if complemented with appropriate market support. It is thus important for policy to provide a complementary bundle of adaptation measures. Lack of money and information are the most important reasons for not applying available technical adaptation measures, which currently hinder reduction of vulnerability in selected villages in the municipality. Social networks, which play an important role in adapting to environmental changes, are limited to relatives and neighbours, who are important sources of informal credit.     

Local path dependence of U.S. socioeconomic exposure to climate extremes and the vulnerability commitment

Despite improvements in disaster risk management in the United States, a trend toward increasing economic losses from extreme weather events has been observed. This trend has been attributed to growth in socioeconomic exposure to extremes, a process characterized by strong path dependence. To understand the influence of path dependence on past and future losses, an index of potential socioeconomic exposure was developed at the U.S. county level based upon population size and inflation-adjusted wealth proxies. Since 1960, exposure has increased preferentially in the U.S. Southeast (particularly coastal and urban counties) and Southwest relative to the Great Plains and Northeast. Projected changes in exposure from 2009 to 2054 based upon scenarios of future demographic and economic change suggest a long-term commitment to increasing, but spatially heterogeneous, exposure to extremes, independent of climate change. The implications of this path dependence are examined in the context of several natural hazards. Using methods previously reported in the literature, annualized county-level losses from 1960 to 2008 for five climate-related natural hazards were normalized to 2009 values and then scaled based upon projected changes in exposure and two different estimates of the exposure elasticity of losses. Results indicate that losses from extreme events will grow by a factor of 1.3–1.7 and 1.8–3.9 by 2025 and 2050, respectively, with the exposure elasticity representing a major source of uncertainty. The implications of increasing physical vulnerability to extreme weather events for investments in disaster risk management are ultimately contingent upon the normative values of societal actors.     

Phosphorus vulnerability: A qualitative framework for assessing the vulnerability of national and regional food systems to the multi-dimensional stressors of phosphorus scarcity

The element phosphorus underpins the viability of global and national food systems, by ensuring soil fertility, maximising crop yields, supporting farmer livelihoods and ultimately nutritional security of the global population. The implications of global phosphorus scarcity therefore have serious potential consequences for future food security, yet these implications have not been be comprehensively or sufficiently assessed at the global or national scales. This paper offers a new integrated framework for assessing the vulnerability of national food systems to global phosphorus scarcity—the Phosphorus Vulnerability Assessment framework. Drawing on developments in assessing climate and water vulnerability, the framework identifies and integrates 26 phosphorus-related biophysical, technical, geopolitical, socio-economic and institutional factors that can lead to food system vulnerability. The theoretical framework allows analysis of context-specific food system by examining impact due to exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. The framework will also ultimately provide guidance for food and agriculture policy-makers, phosphate producers and phosphorus end-users (primarily farmers and consumers) to take action to reduce their vulnerability to this new global challenge.     

极端天气气候事件变化对荒漠化、土地退化和粮食安全的影响

土地是人类赖以生存的重要资源,在受气候变化影响的同时其状况变化也在气候系统中起着关键作用。IPCC最新发布的气候变化与土地特别报告（SRCCL）系统反映了关于荒漠化、土地退化、可持续土地管理、粮食安全和陆地生态系统碳通量方面的最新科学认知,并探讨了如何进行更加可持续性的土地利用和管理以应对与土地相关的气候变化问题。文中从极端事件变化及其影响的角度,结合SRCCL与其他相关文献,予以分析和总结。结果表明,在全球变暖的背景下,极端天气气候事件的变化已经并将继续影响荒漠化和土地退化进程并对粮食安全造成冲击;而土地对气候系统的反馈作用,又会加剧气候变化并提高极端事件发生的概率和严重程度。面对气候变化尤其是极端事件给土地带来的巨大压力,必须坚持可持续的土地管理,通过减少包括土地和粮食系统在内的所有行业的排放,才有可能实现到21世纪末将全球平均升温控制在相对工业化前水平2℃以内的目标,以减轻气候变化对土地和粮食系统的负面影响。     

Projected climate change impacts on skiing and snowmobiling: A case study of the United States

We use a physically-based water and energy balance model to simulate natural snow accumulation at 247 winter recreation locations across the continental United States. We combine this model with projections of snowmaking conditions to determine downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, and snowmobiling season lengths under baseline and future climates, using data from five climate models and two emissions scenarios. Projected season lengths are combined with baseline estimates of winter recreation activity, entrance fee information, and potential changes in population to monetize impacts to the selected winter recreation activity categories for the years 2050 and 2090. Our results identify changes in winter recreation season lengths across the United States that vary by location, recreational activity type, and climate scenario. However, virtually all locations are projected to see reductions in winter recreation season lengths, exceeding 50% by 2050 and 80% in 2090 for some downhill skiing locations. We estimate these season length changes could result in millions to tens of millions of foregone recreational visits annually by 2050, with an annual monetized impact of hundreds of millions of dollars. Comparing results from the alternative emissions scenarios shows that limiting global greenhouse gas emissions could both delay and substantially reduce adverse impacts to the winter recreation industry.     

How inequitable is the global distribution of responsibility, capability, and vulnerability to climate change: A comprehensive indicator-based assessment

While it is generally asserted that those countries who have contributed least to anthropogenic climate change are most vulnerable to its adverse impacts some recently developed indices of vulnerability to climate change come to a different conclusion. Confirmation or rejection of this assertion is complicated by the lack of an agreed metric for measuring countries’ vulnerability to climate change and by conflicting interpretations of vulnerability. This paper presents a comprehensive semi-quantitative analysis of the disparity between countries’ responsibility for climate change, their capability to act and assist, and their vulnerability to climate change for four climate-sensitive sectors based on a broad range of disaggregated vulnerability indicators. This analysis finds a double inequity between responsibility and capability on the one hand and the vulnerability of food security, human health, and coastal populations on the other. This double inequity is robust across alternative indicator choices and interpretations of vulnerability. The main cause for the higher vulnerability of poor nations who have generally contributed little to climate change is their lower adaptive capacity. In addition, the biophysical sensitivity and socio-economic exposure of poor nations to climate impacts on food security and human health generally exceeds that of wealthier nations. No definite statement can be made on the inequity associated with climate impacts on water supply due to large uncertainties about future changes in regional water availability and to conflicting indicators of current water scarcity. The robust double inequity between responsibility and vulnerability for most climate-sensitive sectors strengthens the moral case for financial and technical assistance from those countries most responsible for climate change to those countries most vulnerable to its adverse impacts. However, the complex and geographically heterogeneous patterns of vulnerability factors for different climate-sensitive sectors suggest that the allocation of international adaptation funds to developing countries should be guided by sector-specific or hazard-specific criteria despite repeated requests from participants in international climate negotiations to develop a generic index of countries’ vulnerability to climate change.     

对基于土地应对气候变化的新认知

2019年8月7日IPCC《气候变化与土地特别报告》决策者摘要获得通过,报告涉及对基于土地应对气候变化不同措施的评估,取得一些新的认知,包括定量评估基于土地的40种综合措施对提高气候变化减缓和适应能力、防治荒漠化和土地退化、增强粮食安全、保护生物多样性和水资源及促进可持续发展的效益,提出在防治荒漠化和土地退化及保障粮食安全过程中提高气候变化适应和减缓能力的措施,评估了实施不同措施的风险、限制、障碍和保障政策等。在措施的分类、气候变化适应的主体对象,以及风险和政策分析等方面还存在一些不足。评估报告结论将对我国建立基于土地的应对气候变化的对策,促进把应对气候变化与防治荒漠化和土地退化、保护生态环境与增强粮食安全工作结合,制定相关政策等方面都具有重要的启示意义。     

Climate change impacts on pricing long-term flood insurance: A comprehensive study for the Netherlands

Recently long-term flood insurance contracts with a duration of 5, 10 or 15 years have been proposed as a solution for covering flood risk and mitigating increasing flood losses. Establishing a long-term relation between the policyholder and the insurer can provide better incentives to reduce risk through undertaking damage mitigation measures. However, the uncertainty about the development of future flood risk in the face of climate and socio-economic change may complicate insurers’ rate-setting of long-term contracts. This issue has been examined in this study by estimating the effects of these changes on flood risk and pricing flood insurance premiums of short- and long-term flood insurance contracts in all (53) dike-ring areas in the Netherlands. A broad range of simulations with hydrological and flood damage models are used to estimate the future development of flood risk and premiums. In addition, the long-term development of insurance funds is estimated with a spatial “Climate Risk Insurance Model (CRIM)” for a private insurance arrangement and for a ‘three-layered’ public-private insurance program. The estimation of flood insurance premiums of long-term insurance contracts reveals fundamental problems. One is that there is an incentive for either the consumer or the insurer to prefer short-term rather than long-term contracts in the face of climate-related uncertainty. Therefore, it seems advisable to examine the introduction of one-year flood insurance contracts in the Netherlands, at least until the large uncertainties with climate and socio-economic change on flood risk have been resolved. The estimations performed with the Climate Risk Insurance Model indicate that a private insurance fund could have difficulties with building up enough financial reserves to pay for flood damage, while the layered public-private insurance scheme is more robust.     

Flood insurance arrangements in the European Union for future flood risk under climate and socioeconomic change

Flood risk will increase in many areas around the world due to climate change and increase in economic exposure. This implies that adequate flood insurance schemes are needed to adapt to increasing flood risk and to minimise welfare losses for households in flood-prone areas. Flood insurance markets may need reform to offer sufficient and affordable financial protection and incentives for risk reduction. Here, we present the results of a study that aims to evaluate the ability of flood insurance arrangements in Europe to cope with trends in flood risk, using criteria that encompass common elements of the policy debate on flood insurance reform. We show that the average risk-based flood insurance premium could double between 2015 and 2055 in the absence of more risk reduction by households exposed to flooding. We show that part of the expected future increase in flood risk could be limited by flood insurance mechanisms that better incentivise risk reduction by policyholders, which lowers vulnerability. The affordability of flood insurance can be improved by introducing the key features of public-private partnerships (PPPs), which include public reinsurance, limited premium cross-subsidisation between low- and high-risk households, and incentives for policyholder-level risk reduction. These findings were evaluated in a comprehensive sensitivity analysis and support ongoing reforms in Europe and abroad that move towards risk-based premiums and link insurance with risk reduction, strengthen purchase requirements, and engage in multi-stakeholder partnerships.     

A new assessment of climate change impacts on food production shortfalls and water availability in Russia

While previous studies have focused on impacts of average climate change on Russian agriculture and water resources, this study takes into account the impact of changing frequency and spatial heterogeneity of extreme climate events, and the reliance of most of Russia on a few food producing regions. We analyze impacts of the IPCC A2 and B2 climate scenarios with the use of the Global Assessment of Security (GLASS) model (containing the Global Agro-Ecological Zones (GAEZ) crop production model and the Water-Global Assessment and Prognosis (WaterGAP 2) water resources model). As in previous studies we find that decreased crop production in some Russian regions can be compensated by increased production in others resulting in relatively small average changes. However, a different perspective on future risk to agriculture is gained by taking into account a change in frequency of extreme climate events. Under climate normal conditions it is estimated that “food production shortfalls” (a year in which potential production of the most important crops in a region is below 50% of its average climate normal production, taking into account production in food-exporting regions) occur roughly 1–3 years in each decade. This frequency will double in many of the main crop growing areas in the 2020s, and triple in the 2070s. The effects of these shortfalls are likely to propagate throughout Russia because of the higher likelihood of shortfalls occurring in many crop export regions in the same year, and because of the dependence of most Russian regions on food imports from a relatively few main crop growing regions. We estimate that approximately 50 million people currently live in regions that experience one or more shortfalls each decade. This number may grow to 82–139 million in the 2070s. The assessment of climate impacts on water resources indicates an increase in average water availability in Russia, but also a significantly increased frequency of high runoff events in much of central Russia, and more frequent low runoff events in the already dry crop growing regions in the South. These results suggest that the increasing frequency of extreme climate events will pose an increasing threat to the security of Russia's food system and water resources.     

A typology of adaptation actions: A global look at climate adaptation actions financed through the Global Environment Facility

Climate change impacts threaten existing development efforts and achieving future sustainability goals. To build resilience and societal preparedness towards climate change, integration of adaptation into development is being increasingly emphasized. To date, much of the adaptation literature has been theoretical, reflecting the absence of empirical data from activities on the ground. However, the Funds established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and managed by the Global Environment Facility, the Least Developed Countries Fund, the Special Climate Change Fund and the Strategic Priority for Adaptation, have approved financing for 133 adaptation projects in 70 countries with sufficient documented experience to allow for initial categorization and evaluation. This article provides the first substantial compendium of adaptation actions identified through the allocation and disbursement of these Funds and organizes these actions into a generalized typology of adaptation activities. The information obtained sheds new insight into what adaptation is, in practice, and suggests some next steps to strengthen the empirical database. Ten types of overarching adaptation activities were identified through an analysis of 92 projects financed through these Funds. This paper analyzes these adaptation activities and compares them with theoretical constructs of adaptation typologies. We find that many of the early ideas and concepts advanced by theoreticians are consistent with results from the field. The adaptation categories that recur the most in Global Environment Facility projects are enabling and relatively inexpensive measures, such as those related to capacity building, policy reform, and planning and management. However, a rich panoply of technical actions ranging from information and communications technology, to early warning systems, to new or improved infrastructure, are also identified as common project goals. Future refinements of the costs of various adaptation actions, the mixture of technical and management options, and evaluating the efficacy of actions implemented, will be key to informing the future global adaptation agenda.     

Adaptation financing for projects focused on food systems through the UNFCCC

Investments in adaptation are required to reduce vulnerability and strengthen the resilience of food systems to the impacts of climate change. For low-income nations, international financing plays a central role in supporting adaptation. In this article, we document and examine adaptation projects targeting food systems financed through funding bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). We find that between 2004 and 2015, 3% (n?=?96) of adaptation projects supported through the UNFCCC explicitly focused on the production, processing, distribution, preparation and/or consumption of food, with US$546 m mobilized through funding bodies directly and US$1.44bn through co-financing. Agriculture is the most common sector supported, with extreme weather events the primary climate change-related impact motivating nations to apply for adaptation financing. The majority of actions are documented to adapt the food production component of food systems, with limited focus within projects on the full range of food system vulnerability and the implications on food security.

Key policy insights

• Enhanced international adaptation financing targeting food systems is needed, and in particular financing to address limited adaptation readiness

• Supported food system projects should include holistic assessments of the entire food system in order to prioritize sector and food system component issue areas for short- and long-term efficiency

• To better analyse food system linkages and aid in the prioritization of adaptation activities, adaptation-directed funds should consider placing a higher emphasis on a cross-sectoral approach within projects

• Linkages between official development assistance and adaptation-directed funds could help optimize financing for food systems and mainstream food system adaptation efforts

     

Tools for a new climate conversation: A mixed-methods study of language for public engagement across the political spectrum

Political orientation and ideology are amongst the most significant influences on climate change attitudes and responses. Specifically, those with right-of-centre political views are typically less concerned and more sceptical about climate change. A significant challenge remains to move beyond this ideological impasse and achieve a more open and constructive debate across the political spectrum. This paper reports on novel mixed-methods research in the UK to develop and test a series of ‘narratives’ to better engage citizens with centre-right political views. Qualitative work in Study 1 revealed two particularly promising narratives. The first focused on the idea that saving energy is predicated on the ‘conservative’ principle of avoiding waste; the second focused on the advantages of ‘Great British Energy’ (based on patriotic support for domestic low-carbon technologies). An online experiment in Study 2 with a representative UK sample compared these narratives with a more typically left-of-centre narrative focused on the concept of ‘climate justice’ with a representative sample of the UK public. Results indicate that the first two narratives elicited broad agreement and reduced scepticism amongst centre-right participants, while the ‘climate justice’ narrative (which reflects a common environmental message framing) polarised audiences along political lines. This research offers clear implications for how climate change communicators can move beyond preaching to the converted and initiate constructive dialogue about climate change with traditionally disengaged audiences.