A Tool for Adaptation Planning especially in NAPA Development

1. A Tool for Adaptation Planning especially in NAPA Development Paul V. Desanker Penn State University/Miombo Network (Vice-Chair, UNFCCC LDC Expert Group, LDC Negotiator (Malawi); AIACC Project AF38) desanker@psu.edu; www.geog.psu/geclab www.africaclimatechange.org www.miombo.org etc

2. PRIVA ... • Participatory … Rapid Integrated Assessment … of Vulnerability … and Adaptation (PRIVA) • Mix of process, tools (such as GIS for data processing and display and models) PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

3. Guiding Questions for this Session • 6. Climate Change and the Development Agenda • What are the implications of climate change vulnerability for development? – obvious • Should adaptation be integrated into development? Why and How? – No, development should be integrated into or with adaptation • What are the obstacles to integrating climate change adaptation into development? How might they be overcome? – see above, development is national policy issue, adaptation to climate change is an international policy issue PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

4. Need for a paradigm shift … • Consider a (real) maize study …GCMs …maize models …lots of simulations and output data …2 years later … PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

5. Need for a paradigm shift … • Conclude that maize production and so food security is sensitive to climate variability especially erratic rains – some of the GCMs scenarios projected wetting, others drier conditions ... PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

6. Bear in mind … • GCM scenarios are not predictions! They are projections of what might happen if the drivers of that scenario were in effect …. PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

7. Need for a paradigm shift … • That study then recommended adaptation options as follows: • Need to adopt drought resistant cultivars • Manage water better to withstand erratic rains • Switch to crops other than maize PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

8. Now the question is … • Are these conclusions and adaptation options informed by the 2-year modeling study of potential impacts of different GCM projections? PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

9. Need for a paradigm shift … • Clearly we need to look at adaptation differently …. • We still need the impact assessment studies, no doubt, but not to directly inform adaptation (esp those based on scenarios) PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

10. Need for a paradigm shift … • One of the missing pieces is of course how to put the results of the scenario assessments in the context of what might actually happen • The various uncertainties in the climate system and the assessments themselves notwithstanding PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

11. Enter the NAPA Idea and PRIVA • In summary, we believe you can identify (some) major needs for adaptation by an informed interaction with stakeholders in relation to their experience and livelihoods • Then you can design approaches – activities and projects to address the urgent needs, in terms of immediate actions versus longer term approaches …including policy reforms, enabling activities, removal of barriers, etc PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

12. NAPA under the UNFCCC • National Adaptation Programme of Action for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) • Designed to implement Article 4.9 of the FCCC that relates to LDCs • LDC Fund created under the convention with voluntary contributions from Annex II countries • LDCs negotiated this programme and designed the methods for doing NAPAs, etc, with active participation of many experts and agencies • Implemented under the GEF, and has gone from idea in 2000 to full programme by COP-7 in Nov 2002 PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

13. PRIVA • One method for approaching NAPA development PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

14. NAPA Process (from NAPA Primer, Desanker et al. 2003) PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

15. Conceptual description of PRIVA • Semi-formal description of vulnerability and adaptation • Integrates hazard and risk assessment, functional relationship of systems to climate, thresholds, adaptive capacity etc • Analytical solution likely, but can solve/resolve semi-quantitatively (using participatory approach) PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

16. Overall Vulnerability in PRIVA • Overall Vulnerability = V(hazard);  hazard (eqn 1) • where the function , of individual vulnerabilities, V; can be one of the following: , , , or ; or the minimum or maximum function; multidimensional, complex function, etc • V is vulnerability of a system to a particular climatic hazard (with an associated risk) PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

17. Overall Vulnerability in PRIVA • Overall Vulnerability = V(hazard);  hazard (eqn 1) • Without loss of generality, the above is applied to a given place-specific system (in terms of goods or service) or human community • Systems can be population of region/country/community; can be a ‘goods or service such as Food Security, Water Security, Energy Security, Life (survival and/or quality of life), etc • This is applied for every climatic hazard or select hazards based on perceived criticality for domain PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

18. Components of Vulnerability • Risk of climatic hazards or climate threats • Impact Potential • Sensitivity to a given hazard • Coping Rangeof system • Depending on how system is related to climate • Coping Ability • Function of determinants for a given hazard PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

19. Linking impacts to vulnerability in PRIVA • V(climatic hazard) = F{Risk (climatic hazard) ; Impact Potential (Sensitivity (hazard)Coping Range(system_f(climate)); Coping Ability (determinants|hazard))} (eqn 2) • Analytical solution likely, but can solve/resolve qualitatively using participatory approach with (semi-) quantitative inputs in components PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

20. Steps in PRIVA for Eqn 2 • Step 0: Choose scale of analysis anytime (in terms of systems and spatial scales under consideration) • Can be all sectors, whole country or subset of these • Can also apply for groups of ‘connected’ countries in a region (e.g. countries sharing a big river basin) PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

21. Steps in PRIVA for Eqn 2 • Identify national policy goals and activities that will guide analysis • For example, goal of ensuring food security in sections of society, eradication of poverty • Specific targets: vision documents, or regional/global goals such as MDG .. PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

22. Steps in PRIVA for Eqn 2 • Step 1: Describe system as a function of climatic factors in terms of reduced form impact models for systems, quantitatively where possible • But can be descriptive based on past experience or local knowledge PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

23. Steps in PRIVA for Eqn 2 • Step 2: Identify climatic hazards for region/system • And describe risks associated with these climatic hazards for place (select critical risks), based on probabilities if possible or using descriptive models • Descriptive – stand guided by the IPCC TAR: in terms of how extremes will very likely get worse PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

24. Steps in PRIVA for Eqn 2 • Step 3: Calculate/”simulate” partial differentials in terms of how climate is likely to change (in broad terms – globally, regionally and not through location specific scenarios) to understand threshold exceedance, break points; and so sensitivity of system to hazard, and so define coping range. “Simulate” through participatory approaches PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

25. Describing system as a function of climatic factors to estimate vulnerability • Can develop a probability model for yield falling below the critical threshold • Can also represent the probability of the climate variable (temperature, moisture, etc) • Then combine these two to create a measure of risk for the catastrophic event of y<y_crit (e.g. food shortage …. With respect to climate …) • Simulate to develop response surfaces … apply user thresholds to define vulnerability PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

26. Steps in PRIVA for Eqn 2 • Step 4: Characterize coping ability as function of social-economic determinants at particular place and timeframe with respect to hazard • Step 5: identify interventions (adaptation activities) to manipulate this equation 2 as follows. PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

27. Framing Adaptation in PRIVA in terms of Eqn 2 • V(climatic hazard) = F { Risk (climatic hazard) ; Impact Potential (Sensitivity (hazard)Coping Range(system_f(climate))); Coping Ability (determinants|hazard) } Define adaptation to minimize (to zero even) through any of the following: • By reducing the risk associated with hazards by manipulating components of risk • (Removing/reducing hazard through mitigation is outside domain of analysis for the LDCs) • Reduce impact potential through manipulation of the system dependence on climate (cropping manipulations for instance) • By increasing coping ability (e.g addressing key determinants such as poverty, access to financial resources, etc) • Carry out above in a multi-dimensional analysis or less effectively by addressing only one or some of the components PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

28. Framing Adaptation in PRIVA in terms of Eqn 2 • Idea in NAPA is for a participatory process involving stakeholders to identify key systems for consideration in the context of a particular development goal or target • For example, if we concluded food security would be significantly affected, we can explore pathways for achieving food security taking into account the rapid assessment of the climate threats • Then can apply consensus building or MCA or other method to rank needs and interventions PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

29. Applying PRIVA to NAPA • This rapid assessment approach has been advocated for use in planning adaptation in LDCs in the context of urgent and immediate needs • Semi-quantitative approaches are used, sometimes descriptive to overcome lack of data • Method fine-tuned with broad participation of experts from LDCs and those of the UNFCCC LDC Expert Group (LEG) • Applied in 4 regional workshops (worldwide for LDCs) by the LEG (along with various agencies and groups and other methodological inputs) PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

30. Applying PRIVA to NAPA • Current knowledge and experiences with climate (variability, extremes etc) sufficient to go through steps using participatory approaches for all LDCs • No expectation that NAPA activities will identify or address all adaptation needs especially long-term needs • NAPA to address the transition period between recent past/present climate and future changed climate PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

31. ClimateChange Extremes and Coping Range Current Climate Changed Climate? Climatic Attribute (X) Time(years) Current Coping Range Transition period – NAPA domain PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

32. Cascading or nested spatial scales • Apply PRIVA in successive spatial scales until issue is manageable – in relation to stakeholders, or in terms of funding limitations • For example, apply at national level to identify/select most vulnerable regions and systems or sectors or communities (“hotspots”) • Can then re-apply PRIVA for the selected regions • Iterate until can identify clear actions (adaptation activities) that are easily implementable and address specific communities/locations (action-orientedness, etc) PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

33. Cascading or nested spatial scales • In fact, PRIVA approach can be applied at any scale, from global, regional, national, sub-regional to community level depending on the stakeholders PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

34. Summary – grand challenge • Formal description of vulnerability in terms of climate, impacts, coping (adaptation) to allow rigorous testing and such. • Tools for adaptation need to be based on some formulation of vulnerability and adaptation. Impact assessments by themselves are not adaptation assessments. Is some kind of a decision framework the link between the two? • PRIVA is attempting these, and the approach can be applied at any scale PRIVA: Tool for NAPA

35. Further information • NAPA Primer (funded by CIDA, with contributions from AF38) • Thinking and evolution of the NAPA through efforts by the UNFCCC, the LDC Group, the LEG and IA’s and numerous scientists is gratefully acknowledged. Usual disclaimers apply. PRIVA: Tool for NAPA