GSDRC newsfeed on Climate change

Ecosystem-based Adaptation to Climate Change: What Scope for Environmental Services?

Sheila Wertz-Kanounnikoff et al. — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

This article analyses the opportunities and constraints of payments for environmental services (PES) as an instrument for ecosystem-based adaptation (EBA). It finds that PES is not suitable for all environmental services and country contexts, but can be a promising adaptation policy instrument where certain preconditions are met and synergies prevail.

Creating Space for Action: Options for Small Island States to Cope with Global Environmental Change

Achim Maas and Alexander Carius — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

This paper reviews the options available for small island states to adapt to global environmental change, particularly climate change. Climate change may create new pressures for small island states (such as severe ocean acidification) and intensify others (such as sea-level changes) in a comparatively short, yet unpredictable, amount of time. Internal relocation and migration is a tested adaptation practice for such states, which already have well-established migration links. However, with greater access to financial resources � by increasing the extent to which island states profit from fishing or mining concessions, for example � and by investing in people and knowledge, states can reduce the need for future relocation.

Migration and Global Environmental Change: Future Challenges and Opportunities

The Government Office for Science, UK — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

How might human population movements across the world be affected by global environmental changes up to 2060? This report, to which 350 experts in over 30 countries contributed, examines both global and within-country migration trends. It finds that: millions will be 'trapped' in vulnerable areas and unable to move; people are as likely to move towards areas of environmental risk as to move away; but also that migration can transform people�s ability to cope with environmental change.

Making Adaptation Count: Concepts and Options for Monitoring and Evaluation of Climate Change Adaptation

Margaret Spearman and Heather McGray — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

This publication offers guidance for designing M&E systems for climate change adaptation. It argues that M&E systems need to enable results-based management, promote flexibility, and support iterative learning. Achieving these goals requires development practitioners to carefully articulate their adaptation objectives, clarify the basis for their project design, and make their assumptions transparent. With this foundation, project managers can select indicators and build information systems that are able to track adaptation success.

Development, Climate Change and Human Rights: From the Margins to the Mainstream?

Edward Cameron — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

What are the social and political implications of a discourse linking climate change and human rights? How is this discourse relevant for development practitioners? The human rights lens has rapidly emerged from obscurity to prominence and has succeeded in broadening the scope of climate change debate. This paper predicts that vulnerable groups worldwide will increasingly use arguments based on human rights to demand action. However, this discourse will need to adapt and demonstrate practical value for policymaking in order to achieve substantive outcomes.

Climate Change and Conflict: Lessons for Conflict Resolution from the Southern Sahel of Sudan

Salomé Bronkhorst — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

What lessons can be learned from work by NGOs to address climate and environmental conflicts in the southern Sahel? This study suggests that NGOs and international organisations can play an important role in providing funding and technical support to address climate and environmental related conflicts. They can help to reduce environmental threats, to address structural factors (deprivations and exclusions) that increase people's vulnerability to such threats, and they can help to build conflict resolution capacity. Current participatory methods can enhance traditional conflict resolution mechanisms.

The Multiplicity of Rural Risk

Ian Christoplos — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

How do the rural poor and the local institutions on which they rely manage multiple climate change, market and food security risks? How can research increase understanding of what climate change as a 'risk multiplier' means for local-level development policy? Climate risk reduction policies must become better aligned with the concerns of the rural poor, the organisations linking them to wider governance and market structures, and the politicians who represent them. Climate-aware development requires a more empirically-grounded view of climate risk. This needs to involve critical reassessment of what is already known about rural risk from the perspectives of local actors and institutions.

Incentives and Constraints to Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction - a Local Perspective

Ian Christoplos — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT

How do the capacities of and constraints experienced by local actors affect their engagement in climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction (CCA/DRR)? How can development actors improve their efforts to achieve local 'buy-in' to CCA/DRR? This policy brief finds that CCA//DRR implementation requires the creation of an enabling environment for changes in local institutions, markets, political relationships and public service. The design of CCA/DRR interventions should be linked to local priorities and local efforts to pursue market opportunities, and should avoid overburdening local actors.

Decentralization: A Window of Opportunity for Successful Adaptation to Climate Change?

Maria Brockhaus and Hermann Kambiré — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This chapter examines the opportunities and barriers for successful adaptation to climate change in decentralisation processes. Using a study of two municipalities in Burkina Faso, it stresses the importance of knowledge and institutional flexibility in overcoming resource dependency. The varying degrees of space generated by the decentralisation process in the two municipalities demonstrates the importance of individual understanding and decision-making in determining successful adaptation.

Vulnerability, Risk and Adaptation: A Conceptual Framework

Nick Brooks — Wed, 01 Jan 2003 00:00:00 GMT

In studying and addressing vulnerability and adaptation, different formulations of vulnerability lead to confusion. These need to be distinguished from each other, and clear statements are needed on how terms are being defined. The 'official' definition of vulnerability used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is very similar to long-established definitions of risk used in the natural hazards community. Clarity might be enhanced by distinguishing between this kind of 'biophysical vulnerability' and the socially constructed vulnerability focused on by social scientists.

Climate Change as the 'New' Security Threat: Implications for Africa

Oli Brown, Anne Hammill and Robert McLeman — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

What are the implications for Africa of the 'securitisation' of climate change? This article examines the international rhetoric linking climate change and security, focusing on its predictions regarding the stability of African states. It argues that the extent to which climate change triggers war will depend largely on governance and governments. Using projections of climate change in isolation from other factors is therefore an inadequate means of predicting future conflict. Meanwhile, the securitisation of the climate change debate (displacing focus on developmental or environmental consequences) presents both risks and opportunities. Viewing climate change principally as a security problem is likely to be less effective than incorporating adaptation into existing development processes.

Climate Change Adaptation and Poverty Reduction: Key Interactions and Critical Measures

Siri E. H. Eriksen et al. — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

What are the links between poverty reduction and adaptation to climate change? How can these place-specific links be identified in any given context? Three key types of sustainable adaptation interventions target vulnerability-poverty links, reducing both poverty and vulnerability to climate change. These are activities that: 1) address climate risk, 2) strengthen adaptive capacity, and 3) focus on the factors creating vulnerability. Identifying them involves asking: How do people secure or fail to secure needs? What is the influence of climate change on how people secure or fail to secure needs? What new measures or alterations to existing interventions are needed?

Growth in a Carbon Constrained Global Economy

Karen Ellis et al. — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

How will the economies of developing countries be affected by efforts to deal with climate change? This report examines the impact of international mitigation policies on economic opportunities in developing countries. Greater understanding of the impacts of different mitigation policies on developing countries is needed to inform the decision-making of developed country policymakers'. More importantly, such understanding can help developing countries to start taking advantage of new opportunities and to protect themselves from new risks arising from mitigation. Donors need to increase support for developing countries' low carbon growth efforts, and compensate countries where they lose out from international mitigation efforts.

Accounting for Results: Ensuring Transparency and Accountability in Financing for Climate Change

Athena Ballesteros and Vivek Ramkumar — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

How will climate change funds be collected, distributed, and accounted for at the international level? What mechanisms are needed to ensure that recipient countries manage these funds in ways that are transparent and responsive to the needs and input of the public? This Brief argues that gathering resources and managing resources need to be considered simultaneously. The next generation of climate finance needs to strengthen the national institutions that will implement mitigation and adaptation activities and ensure their transparency and accountability to citizens within countries, as well as to the international community.

Cities, Climate Change and Multilevel Governance

Jan Corfee-Morlot et al. — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

What forms of national-local policy links are used in implementing mitigation and adaptation policies? What are the key tools for integrated, multilevel governance of mitigation and adaptation activities, and how can these be applied? This paper highlights a 'hybrid' framework of multilevel governance in which local-regional/national collaboration promotes mutual learning and enhanced effectiveness. Systematic efforts are needed to align incentives across sectoral and cross-sectoral policy areas, so that regional and local policy implementation is successful.

Disaster Risk Reduction or Climate Change Adaptation: Are we Reinventing the Wheel?

Jessica Mercer — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

What are the similarities and differences between Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA)? What can be learned from experiences of both approaches in Papua New Guinea (PNG)? This paper analyses the two approaches and draws on experience from PNG in recommending ways to integrate both in development policy. The research demonstrates the importance of a holistic response to all underlying vulnerability factors, as opposed to focusing on one hazard or factor such as climate change. It would appear most effective, financially and otherwise, to embed CCA within existing DRR tools. This is as opposed to developing tools and methodologies for CCA separately and integrating these with DRR at a later date.

Climate Finance Additionality: Emerging Definitions and their Implications

Jessica Brown, Neil Bird and Liane Schalatek — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

What are the emerging definitions of 'climate finance additionality'? What are the technical and political implications of these different definitions? This policy brief explores these questions and looks at their requirements in terms of tracking, measuring, reporting and verifying finance. Additionality is an important issue; sufficient finance must be channelled towards climate change needs while simultaneously avoiding diversion from development needs. The way additionality is defined by donor governments needs focused attention and debate. Innovative approaches to raising the funds required outside development funding are needed.

Evaluation of Adaptation to Climate Change from a Development Perspective

Merylyn Hedger et al. — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT

This paper reviews the current state of the evaluation of climate change adaptation interventions (CCAI). It finds that while development agencies are scaling up the funding and delivery of adaptation interventions, few systematic assessments of CCAI have been undertaken. The authors propose a pyramid of indicators which might provide a framework to measure the accumulation and culmination of effort at multiple levels. This allows for a variety of monitoring and evaluation tools to cope with the complexities of CCAI and to improve the overall quality of assessments. Five key factors for successful adaptation � effectiveness, flexibility, equity, efficiency and sustainability � will need to be reflected in indicators.

Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation in the Pacific: The Challenge of Integration

Anna Gero et al. — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

What are the challenges in integrating community-based disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA)? This research investigates the current situation and thinking on integrating DRR and CCA in community based projects in the Pacific. A key finding is the importance of agency and the significance of building and maintaining good relationships between DRR and CCA practitioners across sectors, including the government, NGOs and donors. A common barrier to integrating DRR and CCA is the multitude of organisations engaged in related initiatives.

Screening Tools and Guidelines to Support the Mainstreaming of Climate Change Adaptation into Development Assistance � A Stocktaking Report

Anne Olhoff and Caroline Schaer — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

What is climate change adaptation mainstreaming and how it can be made operational at national and sub-national levels? This report looks at the ways in which mainstreaming of climate change adaptation has been defined and it gives an overview of available resources and screening tools to support components of mainstreaming. It argues that although available definitions point to the need for mainstreaming, they give limited practical guidance as to how to integrate climate concerns into the different levels of planning and decision-making.