Policies for adaptation

1. Policies for adaptation Anand Patwardhan Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay Asian Climate Change Workshop Indian Institute of Science, July 2011

2. Why adaptation? • Asymmetry in distribution of impacts • Disproportionately larger impacts may be experienced in developing countries • Mitigation is not enough • Regardless of mitigation, we are faced with a finite, and significant degree of anthropogenic climate change • This is true even if we think a 2 C target is possible, and even more important if we don’t reach it (quite likely) • Managing climate risk is important for sustainable development • We are not well adapted to current climate risks • A greater focus on adaptation (filling the “adaptation deficit”) may actually help in advancing the development agenda Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

3. Sensitivity to climate: GDP and Indian Monsoon Rainfall Impact of a severe drought on GDP remains 2 to 5% throughout, despite the substantial decrease in the contribution of agriculture to GDP over five decades. From: Gadgil and Gadgil (2006) Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

4. Evolving thinking on adaptation • Adaptation viewed purely as a response (to climate change) • Adjustments made in practices, processes or structures of systems to projected or actual changes in climate (AR1) • Adaptation as an element of scenario-impact assessments • Net impacts = Impacts (Vulnerability, Hazard) – Adaptation (SAR) • Vulnerability and adaptive capacity as issues of importance in their own right • Recognition of an “adaptation deficit” (TAR) • Evolution in thinking from a mechanistic and sequential view of impacts, vulnerability & adaptation to a more complex, process oriented view of climate-society interaction • Concept of mainstreaming (AR4) Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

5. Useful to think about adaptation as a risk management problem Risk: chance of loss or adverse consequence – function of loss and probability What is the source of risk? (Hazard) Who / what is at risk? (Exposure) How are they at risk and what are the consequences? (Vulnerability & Impacts) How will this risk change in the future? (Future vulnerability) How do we manage risk now and in the future? (Adaptation & Adaptive Capacity) Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

6. The interaction between coping and climate outcomes Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

7. Classes of adaptation options Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

8. Typologies and examples Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

9. More examples Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

10. Putting adaptation into practice: mainstreaming or integration Resource management: water, forestry Adaptation Development activities: infrastructure, public services Disaster management: climate-related hazards Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

11. Development planning • Because development planning authority is local, possibility of mal-adaptation because the climate signal is at a scale that is not “seen” • Securing urban water supply • Outcomes / benefits of development interventions may be at risk due to climate change • Energy / coastal infrastructure • Can a focus on adaptation help catalyze investment to meet the “adaptation deficit” and thus contribute to development outcomes? • Good idea to seek co-benefits, but are we giving up “new and additional” resources for adaptation? Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

12. Disaster management • Short-term coping vs. long-term adaptation • At what point does coping effectively become unviable? • Disaster management often focuses on relief • In terms of adaptive capacity, what is more important – ability to reduce immediate impact (relief) vs. ability to restore flow of goods & services (recovery) Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

13. Resource management • Operational, planning and policy decisions in key sectors: water, health, conservation & forest management • How useful is the 30-year climate normal as the basis for planning? • Going from one-time to on-going response • Does the institutional set-up have the ability to perceive change, assess it, and formulate response on an on-going basis? Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

14. Multilateral response: Adaptation in the Convention • According to Article 4.1 Parties are committed to: • Formulate, implement, publish and regularly update national and, where appropriate, regional programmes containing measures… to facilitate adequate adaptation to climate change (Art. 4.1. (b)); and • Cooperate in preparing for adaptation to the impacts of climate change; develop and elaborate appropriate and integrated plans for coastal zone management, water resources and agriculture, and for the protection and rehabilitation of areas, particularly in Africa, affected by drought and desertification, as well as floods (Art. 4.1 (e)). • Article 4.4 states that: • The developed country Parties and other developed Parties included in Annex II shall also assist the developing country Parties that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in meeting the costs of adaptation to those adverse effects. • Basis, quantum and delivery of funding not specified • Articles 4.8 and 4.9 of the Convention make specific reference to developing country Parties, in particular least developed and most vulnerable countries, and funding and transfer of technology “to meet the specific needs and concerns of developing country Parties arising from the adverse effects of climate change” • A staged response has dominated thinking on adaptation: • Stage 1: Planning and assessment (including impact & vulnerability assessment) • Stage 2: Identifying and evaluating adaptation measures • Stage 3: Implementing adaptation measures • Unfortunately, progress has been rather limited, little beyond research, assessment & capacity-building (stages 1 & 2) Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

15. Key questions • What is “adaptation”? The adaptation = development conceptualization has led to a peculiar situation: • Because adaptation = development, “normal” development actions ought to take care of the problem, as long as agents (and decisions) are “fully informed” • If adaptation = development, donor countries fear that “normal” development cam get put under adaptation projects, thus “opening the floodgates” in terms of demand on resources • How much is needed? • Costs of adaptation, dealing with chronic vs. acute change • How to generate the resources? • Adequacy, predictability, new & additional? • What to support? • Characterization of adaptation demand, with standardized methodologies and metrics • How to deliver? • Appropriate institutional structure (GEF vs. Adaptation Fund Board) and financing instruments (grant vs. “concessional” finance) • Recognize that in the case of adaptation (unlike mitigation), for most sectors, the actions being supported will be those of public entities • Difficulty with directly applying ideas from mitigation (baselines, additionality, incremental cost, global / local benefits) Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

16. Estimates of costs of adaptation • UNFCCC, 2007: Additional investment and financial flows in 2030 for adaptation amount to tens of billions of USD, estimates depend on underlying scenarios • Adaptation costs depend on level of mitigation activities • Most studies based on the original World Bank approach: taking the fraction of the investment that is “climate-sensitive” and applying a mark-up factor to estimate the cost of climate-proofing • Many problems: limited range of impacts, only infrastructure measures, no transaction costs, ignore range of outcomes, lack of “bottom-up” validation Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

17. Comparing costs with funding Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

18. Sorting through the adaptation – development linkage • Burden-sharing with respect to resource mobilization • Co-benefits • Additionality: better characterization of adaptation demand • Nature of additionality • Integrating climate risk into socio-economic activities to ‘climate-proof’ a current or future socio-economic activity to harness development benefits, e.g. airport in coastal zone • Expanding adaptive capacity to deal with future and not only current risks to harness development and adaptation benefits, e.g. crop insurance • Directly addressing observed impacts from climate change to harness adaptation benefits, e.g. changing Malaria zones • Nature of intervention • Context (projects, programmes and policies) • Type (research, capacity-building, investments) Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

19. Analyzing the interventions in the National Adaptation Plans of Action (NAPA’s) Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

20. Negotiated co-financing based on characterization of demand Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

21. Challenges • Perception • How do we bring the long-term into today’s decisions? • Planning and evaluation • Methodologies and metrics (costs, benefits) • Constraints & barriers to response • Resources, institutions, political will • Path dependency • Possibility of mal-adaptation • Limits of adaptation • How much is possible with adaptation? Residual vulnerabilities will be large in a 4 C world • Non-marginal impacts, non-linearity, thresholds • Existing methodologies break down Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay

22. To conclude Adaptation is not an option – it is a necessity Adaptation is required now – managing climate risk is essential for sustainable development Adaptation is a process – it needs to be institutionalized What we are adapting to is not fully clear – and may never be fully clear We may not be able to identify optimal (first best) strategies – robust (second best) strategies may be better As a start we need to invest in research, assessment and capacity-building Anand Patwardhan, IIT-Bombay