Emerging ideas on adaptation to climate change

1
Emerging ideas on adaptation to climate change

• Anand Patwardhan
• Executive Director
• Technology Information, Forecasting and
  Assessment Council, Ministry of Science
  Technology

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Outline

• State of science and evolution of understanding
• Research needs (adaptive capacity, indicators)
• Action on adaptation
• Staged approach
• Funding
• Way forward
• Principles and operationalization
• Emerging themes
• Adaptation and sustainable development
• Mainstreaming

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Key concepts

• AdaptationAdjustment in natural or human systems
  in response to actual or expected climatic
  stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or
  exploits beneficial opportunities. Types of
  adaptation include anticipatory and reactive
  adaptation, private and public adaptation, and
  autonomous and planned adaptation
• Adaptive Capacity The ability of a system to
  adjust to climate change (including climate
  variability and extremes) to moderate potential
  damages, to take advantage of opportunities, or
  to cope with the consequences
• Sensitivity Sensitivity is the degree to which a
  system is affected, either adversely or
  beneficially, by climate-related stimuli.
• Vulnerability The degree to which a system is
  susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse
  effects of climate change, including climate
  variability and extremes. Vulnerability is a
  function of the character, magnitude, and rate of
  climate variation to which a system is exposed,
  its sensitivity, and its adaptive capacity

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Why is adaptation important?

• Regardless of mitigation, we are faced with a
  finite, and significant degree of anthropogenic
  climate change
• Managing climate risk is likely to be important
  for sustainable development
• For both these reasons, adaptation should be an
  important part of policy response to climate
  change

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Evolving ideas on adaptation

• Adaptation viewed purely as a response mechanism
• Adaptation as an element of scenario-impact
  assessments
• Vulnerability and adaptive capacity as central
  themes in adaptation
• Adaptation and sustainable development
  mainstreaming adaptation

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Initial thinking on adaptation a function of
response

• Adaptation viewed as adjustments made in
  practices, processes, or structures of systems
  to projected or actual changes in climate
• At the end of the sequential process identified
  for impact assessments
• Seven step methodology for impact assessment in
  the IPCC Second Assessment Report
• Define the problem
• Select method of assessment
• Test methods/ conduct sensitivity analysis
• Select and apply climate change scenarios
• Assess biophysical and socio-economic impacts
• Assess autonomous adjustments
• Evaluate adaptation strategies

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Insights from the IPCC ThirdAssessment Report

• Vulnerability and adaptation given significant
  importance in WG II, shift in emphasis from
  mechanistic impact assessment
• Importance of extreme events, cross-sectoral
  analysis and multiple stresses
• Regional predictions still highly uncertain,
  important phenomena not well captured (monsoon)
• Focus on adaptation, recognition of the link with
  development and equity issues, introduce concepts
  such as adaptive capacity
• Recognition that those with least resources have
  the least ability to adapt

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Preliminary ideas from the IPCC Fourth
Assessment Report

• Adaptation defined as adjustments made to
  enhance resilience or reduce vulnerability
• Adaptation practices may be looked at from
  various perspectives
• Spatial scale
• Sectors
• Climate stress / hazard
• Baseline economic development level of the
  systems they are implemented in
• Relating adaptation to adaptive capacity
• Adaptive capacity represents potential rather
  than actual adaptation

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Research issues in adaptation

• Indicators and measuring adaptation
• Adaptive capacity
• Structuring and formulating adaptation
  interventions
• Impacts proximate, non-proximate marginal,
  non-marginal, stocks vs. flows
• Interactions across scales (spatial, temporal,
  institutional) aggregation issues
• Extremes and variability
• Scenarios

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Measuring adaptation

• What should be measured?
• Hazard
• Risk
• Exposure
• Vulnerability
• Impacts
• Adaptation intervention
• Effectiveness of adaptation intervention

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Adaptive capacity

• Autonomous what responses are happening (will
  happen) automatically?
• How will impacts be perceived, how will they be
  evaluated and how will response take place?
• Who will respond, in what way?
• Adaptive capacity is influenced not only by
  factors that promote or constrain the adoption of
  technologies and management practices, but also
  by the economic, social, political,
  environmental, institutional, and cultural
  factors that create both external and internal
  incentives as well as barriers to adaptation

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Action on adaptation

• Types of interventions
• Financing and supporting adaptation
• International actions
• Approach for moving forward

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Range of adaptation responses
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Classifying adaptation measures
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Time-scales of response

• Anticipatory adaptation to climate change risks
  may take place at three levels
• Adaptation to current variability
• For observed medium change/variability
• Long-term changes
• Responses across the three levels are closely
  intertwined, and indeed might form a continuum.
• Visible shift of emphasis from first level to the
  second and third levels
• Increasing examples of measures taken to cope
  with the impacts of observed trends in climate,
  as well as scenarios of climate change.
• Tsho Rolpa risk reduction project in Nepal
• Quinhai-Tibet Railway in China
• Konkan Railway in Western India
• Thames Barrier in UK
• Copenhagen metro in Denmark

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Initial thinking on action

• Adaptation within the financial mechanism of the
  Convention
• Identification of need for programming adaptation
  interventions within the climate change response
  framework
• Designing a framework for funding adaptation
• Initial thoughts on adaptation viewed it as an
  independent process rather than an action taken
  in integration with ongoing programmes
• Thus, the staged approach to adaptation surfaced
  in the UNFCCC (decision 11/CP.1)
• Views adaptation in three stages of interventions
• Identifies adaptation interventions as
  sequential, one leading to another
• Has been the programming guideline for financing
  adaptation in the international arena

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Staged approach to adaptation

• Stage I planning through studies to identify
  vulnerabilities (vulnerable countries and
  regions), policy options (for adaptation response
  measures), and appropriate capacity building
• Stage II identifying measures to prepare for
  adaptation and further capacity building
• Stage III promoting measures to facilitate
  adaptation, including insurance and other
  adaptation interventions

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Taking the dialogue further

• What needs to be funded guiding principles for
  funding adaptation
• Identification of concrete what will define
  the concrete adaptation measures
• Mainstreaming what and how
• Exploring new mechanisms and tools
• What should be measured and how identifying
  indicators

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What should be funded?

• What kinds of projects?
• Pilot vs. full
• Climate variability vs. anthropogenic climate
  change
• Climate and non-climate benefits
• Are there a set of projects that have unambiguous
  climate change linkages

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Principles for funding adaptation

• Automaticity in contributions
• Adequacy and predictability of resources
• Move from enabling activities to real projects
• Guiding the institutional process
• Ensuring flexibility
• Expediting the process
• Enabling wider access
• Re-programming the approach to funding adaptation

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Identifying concrete interventions

• Moving away from the staged approach
• New knowledge acquired on the theme of adaptation
  suggests that adaptation interventions are NOT
  sequential
• Adaptation interventions are now viewed in
  integration with each other and the development
  programmes
• Need for identifying a new approach that
  identifies major types of interventions that can
  be taken up across sectors relevant in
  sustainable development

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Towards a portfolio approach

• A portfolio of broad interventions for adaptation
• Interventions may be identified through the views
  and priorities expressed in the Convention and
  the various decisions
• Mainstreaming activities
• Technology development and transfer
• Insurance

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Technology development and transferas a tool for
adaptation

• Technology transfer is very relevant
• Role of traditional knowledge and capturing the
  value
• The dialogue needs to be extended to include
• Technology development
• Adoption of technology
• Barrier removal
• Favorable market mechanisms
• Creating enabling environment

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Insurance

• Insurance as an instrument for providing
  risk-cover against the impacts of climate
  change and variability, specifically for extreme
  weather events.
• Exploring the tool
• Creation of viable insurance markets requires
  risk pooling and reinsurance mechanisms
• The former might require pooling across sectors
  and even countries
• The latter might require access to a source of
  funds that is generated through automatic
  contributions
• Possibilities
• Public-private partnerships
• Disaster risk insurance

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Linking adaptation and sustainable development

• Emerging realization of the links between climate
  change and sustainable development
• IPCC (2001) identified that activities required
  for enhancement of adaptive capacity are
  essentially equivalent to those promoting
  sustainable development.
• It has further been understood that climate
  change adaptation and equity goals can be
  achieved through the route taken for achieving
  development goals such as improving food
  security, provision of safe drinking water,
  shelter and health care and access to other
  resources.

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Mainstreaming adaptation

• Mainstreaming adaptation into development
  activities leverage concessional developmental
  funds?
• Increasingly, many developmental activities (for
  example in infrastructure) are being implemented
  by the private sector
• How can we evaluate the portfolio of development
  projects to
• Assess implications of climate change for project
  benefits?
• Assess implications of project for reducing
  vulnerability to climate change?
• Related question
• How can we incrementally adjust project design or
  implementation to enhance climate change related
  benefits?
• Mainstreaming in practice
• Building ownership among stakeholders
• Engaging private sector as active partners in
  sustainable development programmes

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Barriers to adaptation

• Financial
• Increased realisation that available funding may
  not always be sufficient to cover the financial
  requirements of rehabilitation, mitigation and
  adaptation, specifically in case of extreme
  events
• Therefore, Insurance may be an instrument worth
  exploring
• Institutional
• Social and Cultural
• Technological
• Informational

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Future directions

• Research issues in adaptation science
• Focused research on methodologies for
  mainstreaming adaptation
• Development and diffusion of technologies for
  adaptation in developing countries
• Fostering public-private partnerships for
  mainstreaming as well as technology development
  and transfer
• Exploring innovative funding mechanisms that
  provide automaticity for resource generation
• Exploring insurance as the tool for providing
  risk cover against climate change and variability