Thinking climate change adaptation for the Mekong region

1. Luong Quang Huy Climate Change Programme IUCN Vietnam Thinking climate change adaptation for the Mekong region

2. Contents • 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

3. 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 CapacityThe 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 • SensitivitySensitivity 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

4. Why is adaptation important? • Regardless of mitigation, the Mekong region is faced with a finite, and significant degree of anthropogenic climate change; • Managing climate risk is likely to be important for sustainable development; • Adaptation should be an important part of policy response to climate change.

5. 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.

6. 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

7. Insights from the IPCC TAR • 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 Anand Patwardhan - BASIC project India workshop

8. Preliminary ideas from the IPCC FAR • 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

9. 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

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

11. 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

12. Action on adaptation • Types of interventions • Financing and supporting adaptation • International actions • Approach for moving forward

13. Range of adaptation responses

14. Classifying adaptation measures

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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 Anand Patwardhan - BASIC project India workshop

22. 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 Anand Patwardhan - BASIC project India workshop

23. Technology development and transfer as 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

24. 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

25. 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.

26. 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

27. 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

28. 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