Socio-political aspects of adapting to Climate Change

1
Socio-political aspects of adapting to Climate
Change

• Geoff Syme
• Research Director - Society, Economy Policy
• CSIRO Land and Water
• August 16, 2005

2
Methodology

• Workshops
• Three workshops were held in Wagga Wagga at the
  end of May 2005.
• Workshops were held for different stakeholder
  groups farmers (N17), catchment managers
  (N14), and local government officers (N7).
• Climate Change Scenario
• Participants were required to complete a set of
  questions pertaining to a climate change
  scenario.
• Participants reviewed a list of potential actions
  they could undertake to address climate change.
  The predicted impact of each action on the
  catchment water security was expressed as a
  number ranging between -3 (major negative effects
  on catchment water security) to 3 (major
  positive effects on catchment water security)
• Participants rated the perceived effect of each
  action on a list of impact factors developed in
  an earlier stage of the research.

3
Possible Future Climate Scenario

• The climate change scenario was described as
  follows.
• You might expect average temperatures in the
  Murrumbidgee catchment to increase by one and a
  half degrees Celsius. The climate change would
  also affect water resources within the
  Murrumbidgee catchment in the following way
• Temperature up by about 1.5C
• Rainfall down by 12
• Evaporation up by 10
• Water stored in catchment dams down 40 50
• Long term average initial allocation down to 44
• Long term average final allocation down to
  70.

4
Rating the Effect of Actions on Impact Factors

• Catchment water security relates to the
  availability of water to meet catchment demands
  given the effects of the changed climate (eg.
  increased temperature evaporation)
• -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
• extreme enough extreme
• not enough water water more than enough
  water
• to cope

5
Action List and Impact Factors at the Farm Scale

• Impact Factors
• Farm profit
• Ability to manage water within or across seasons
• Invest in catchment management activities
• The natural environment
• The farming community
• The regional community
• The farmer and his/her family

• Action List
• No action
• Change enterprise mix
• Buy more water
• Use water more efficiently
• Harvest and store more water
• Plant high value crops
• Cut back your enterprise
• Buy more land
• Employ minimum tillage

6
Action List and Impact Factors at the Catchment
Scale

• Impact Factors
• Long term catchment planning
• Economic sustainability of the catchment
• The natural environment
• Reaching catchment plan targets
• Community involvement and investment in catchment
  management activities
• Resilience of the community
• Population profile

• Action List
• No action
• Employ cloud seeding
• Develop and institute stricter controls for
  licensing and monitoring water use
• Replace channels with pipes
• Create en-route water storages
• Conduct RD for adaptive crop stock and breeds
• Increase government coordination
• Establish a market-based catchment water bank
• Ban inter-valley transfer

7
Data Analysis Level of Perceived Importance of
Impacts

• How important were the impact factors perceived
  to be at each of the scales (Farm, Catchment,
  Local Government)?
• Participants rated the importance of each impact
  factor
• 1 2 3 4 5
• extremely very important hardly not at all
• important important important important
• and ranked each impact factor from the most
  important (1) factor to the least important (7)
  factor.
• Perceived Importance Rated Importance x Ranked
  Importance

8
Relative Importance of Impact Factors at the Farm
Scale
NOTE Lower numbers equate to higher mean
importance
9
Relative Importance of Impact Factors at the
Catchment Scale
NOTE Lower numbers equate to higher mean
importance
10
Data Analysis Decision Frameworks at Each Scale

• Which actions were preferred most/least at each
  scale?
• No Action was the least preferred option at all
  three scales.
• There were a number of actions that were viewed
  positively in terms of their perceived effects on
  the most important impact factors at each scale.
  These were
• Farm Scale
• Use water more efficiently Employ minimum
  tillage Harvest and store more water Plant
  high value crops
• Catchment Scale
• Conduct RD for adaptive crop stock and breeds
  Establish a market-based catchment waterbank
  Create en-route water storages.

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Negative Decision Framework for NO ACTION at the
Farm Scale
12
Positive Decision Framework for USE WATER MORE
EFFICIENTLY at the Farm Scale
13
Negative Decision Framework for NO ACTION at the
Catchment Scale
14
Positive Decision Framework for CONDUCT RD at
the Catchment Scale
15
How did people respond

• Not probabilities
• Disinterested in scientists views
• Benchmark from own aspirations
• In the long term hope that climate variability
  response suffice

16
Stoll-Kleemann et al (2001)

• Denial by exaggerating costs of shifting away
  from comfortable lifestyles
• Blame on inaction of others including
  governments
• Uncertain and far away

17
Staat et al (1994)

• Mean hope as measured by expected affective
  balance (EBS) and standard deviations for four
  time frames.

18
Staats et al (1994)

• Means and standard deviations for the scales of
  the Hope Index for four time frames.

19
Lindberg et al (1974)

• Emotional involvement in future events as a
  function of temporal distance.

20
Lindberg et al (1974)

• Emotional involvement in future events as a
  function of temporal distance.

21
Geissler (2002)

• Social systems, communities, societies,
  families, businesses and institutions are most
  prone to crises and imbalances when they only
  have very limited opportunities to reorganise
  themselves because of a lack of heterogeneity in
  temporal structures and processes.

22
Geissler (2002)

• There is no rational economic basis for our
  obsession with speed.

23
Hukkinen (1999)

• Feedback between formal environmental
  institutions and the mental models of experts.

24
Required basic ingredients of learning

• Information
• Motivation
• Capacity to implement (Lambin, 2005)

25

• But also reinforcement to complete learning over
• Time
• and
• Issues

26

• How we can coordinate adaptive learning is the
  major socio-political issue facing adaptation to
  climate change

27
Thank You

• Land and Water
• Dr Geoff Syme
• Research Director Society, Economy and Policy
• Phone [phone]
• Email Geoff.Syme_at_csiro.au
• Web www.csiro.au/group

Contact CSIRO Phone [phone] 9545
2176 Email enquiries_at_csiro.au Web www.csiro.au