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Summary Articles lecture 1-7 Adaptation to Climate Change (SLM51306)
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Summary of the articles from lectures 1-7 from Adaptation to Climate Change (SLM-51306)
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Summary ArticlesBlock 1
Article lecture 1: Climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation in developing countries
Objective of lecture: concepts of vulnerability to climate change in developing countries with focus on
the physical aspects.
Over the next decades, it is predicted that billions of people, particularly those in developing
countries, face shortages of water and food and greater risks to health and life as a result of climate
change. Developing countries are the most vulnerable to climate change impacts because they have
fewer resources to adapt: socially, technologically and financially. Developing countries need:
- International assistance
- Capacity building
- Transfer of technology and funds
- Systematic planning
The main sectors affected by climate change include agriculture, water resources, human health,
terrestrial ecosystems, biodiversity and coastal zones. Main characteristics of climate change are:
increases in average global temperature (global warming), changes in cloud cover and precipitation
particularly over land, melting of ice caps and glaciers and reduced snow cover, increases in ocean
temperatures and ocean acidity.
Main vulnerabilities Africa
o Increasing water stress for many countries, people facing more severe water shortages
o Agricultural production severely compromised due to loss of land, shorter growing seasons,
more uncertainty about what and when to plant. Worsening of food insecurity and increase
in the number of people at risk from hunger. Yields of rainfed crops decreased. Depleted fish
stocks due to rising water temperatures.
o Alteration of spatial and temporal transmission of disease vectors.
o Drying and desertification in many areas. Deforestation and forest fires. Degradations of
grasslands. 25-40% of animal species in national parks expected to become endangered.
o Threat of inundation along coasts due to sea level rise, coastal erosion and extreme events.
Degradation of marine ecosystems. Cost of adaptation to sea level rise could amount to at
least 5-10% of GDP.
Main vulnerabilities Asia
o Increasing water stress to over a hundred million people due to decrease of freshwater
availability. Increase in the number and severity of glacial melt-related floods, slope
destabilization followed by decrease in river flows as glaciers disappear.
o Decreases in crop yield putting many millions of people at risk from hunger. Reduced soil
moisture and evapotranspiration may increase land degradation and desertification.
Agriculture may expand in productivity in northern areas.
o Heat stress and changing patterns in the occurrence of disease vectors affecting health.
Increases in endemic morbidity and mortality. Increase in the abundance and/or toxicity of
cholera.
o Increased risk of extinction for many species due to the synergistic effects of climate change
and habitat fragmentation. Northward shift in the extent of boreal forest in north Asia (could
be limited by forest fires).
o Tens of millions of people in low-lying coastal areas affected by sea level rise and increase in
the intensity of tropical cyclones. Coastal inundation affecting aquaculture industry and
infrastructure. Stability of wetlands, mangroves, and coral reefs increasingly threatened.
,Main vulnerabilities Latin America
o Increase in the number of people experiencing water stress. Runoff and water supply in
many areas compromised due to loss and retreat of glaciers. Reduction in water quality in
some areas due to an increase in floods and droughts.
o Reductions of crop yields in some areas, although other areas may see increases in yields.
Desertification and salinization of agricultural lands. Food insecurity in dry areas.
o Risks to life due to increases in the intensity of tropical cyclones. Heat stress and changing
patterns in the occurrence of disease vectors risk to health.
o Significant habitat loss and species extinctions due to higher temperatures and loss of
groundwater with effects on indigenous communities.
o Impacts on low lying areas, coastal cities and coastal morphology, coral reefs and mangroves,
location of fish stocks, availability of drinking water and tourism due to sea level rise and
extreme events.
Main vulnerabilities Small Island Developing States
o Water sources seriously compromised due to rising sea level, changes in rainfall and
increased evapotranspiration.
o Agricultural land and thus food security affected by sea-level rise, inundation, soil
salinization, seawater intrusion into freshwater lenses, and decline in freshwater supply. All
agricultural production affected by extreme events. Fisheries affected by increasing sea
surface temperature, rising sea level and damage from tropical cyclones.
o Increases in the intensity of tropical cyclones increase risks to life. Heat stress and changing
patterns in the occurrence of disease vectors and climate sensitive diseases affect health.
o Replacement of local species and colonization by non-indigenous species. Forests affected by
extreme events are slow to regenerate.
o Most infrastructure, settlements and facilities located on or near the shore and will be
affected by sea-level rise, coastal erosion and other coastal hazards, compromising the socio-
economic well-being. Accelerated beach erosion, degradation of coral reefs and bleaching
will all have impacts on incomes from fishing and tourism. Reduction in island size or
complete inundation.
Adapting to climate change entails taking the right measures to reduce the negative effects of
climate change (or exploit the positive ones) by making the appropriate adjustments and changes.
Many options:
- technological options such as increased sea defences or flood-proof houses on stilts
- behaviour change at the individual level, such as reducing water use in times of drought and
using insecticide-sprayed mosquito nets
- early warning systems for extreme events
- better water management
- improved risk management
- various insurance options
- biodiversity conservation
Assessing the impacts of and vulnerability to climate change and subsequently working out
adaptation needs requires good quality information. This includes climate data (e.g. temperature,
rainfall, frequency of extreme events) and non-climatic data (e.g. the current situation for different
sectors). There is a need for a better knowledge base, better forecasting and climate services and a
need to improve observations at all levels to enhance countries’ ability to adapt.
- Effective adaptation planning requires improved observations; improved regional, national
and global data, as well as denser networks; the recovery of historical data; building of
support among the user communities that have a demand for climate information; and
promoting greater collaboration between the providers and users of climate information.
,Accurate socio-economic data is also needed for effective vulnerability and adaptation assessments
to climate change in developing countries.
Developing countries have limitations in capacity making adaptation difficult. Limitations include
both human capacity and financial resources. The most effective adaptation approaches for
developing countries are those addressing a range of environmental stresses and factors. Strategies
and programmes that are more likely to succeed need to link with coordinated efforts aimed at
poverty alleviation, enhancing food security and water availability, combating land degradation and
reducing loss of biological diversity and ecosystem services, as well as improving adaptive capacity.
One way of grouping adaptation options is to identify whether they are sectoral, cross-sectoral or
multi-sectoral.
- Sectoral adaptation measures look at actions for individual sectors that could be affected by
climate change. Often adaptation measures in one sector will involve a strengthening of the
policy that already exists, emphasizing the importance of including long term climate change
considerations along with existing local coping mechanisms and integrating them into
national development plans.
- Multi-sectoral adaptation options relate to the management of natural resources which span
sectors (e.g. integrated management of water, river basins or coastal zones).
- Cross-sectoral measures also span several sectors and can include: improvements to
systematic observation and communication systems; science, research and development and
technological innovations (e.g. development of drought-resistant crop varieties or new
technologies to combat saltwater intrusion); education and training to help build capacity
among stakeholders; public awareness campaigns to improve stakeholder and public
understanding on climate change and adaptation; strengthening or making changes in the
fiscal sector (e.g. new insurance options); and risk/ disaster management measures (e.g.
emergency plans).
Adaptation to climate change must also occur through the prevention and removal of maladaptive
practices. Maladaptation refers to adaptation measures that do not succeed in reducing vulnerability
but increase it instead.
Funding is vital in order for developing countries to plan for and implement adaptation plans and
projects. The costs of strong and urgent action on climate change will be less than the costs thereby
avoided of the impacts of climate change under business as usual. The Strategic Priority on
Adaptation (SPA) includes three stages: 1) Provide support for the national communications process,
a portion of which is the vulnerability and adaptation assessment; 2) provide further assistance for
other capacity-building efforts for adaptation; 3) support for actual adaptation activities, including
insurance. From the perspective of sustainable development, insurance measures can be beneficial
for many developing countries by transferring risk from climate change. They can enhance financial
resilience to external shocks and provide a unique opportunity to spread and transfer risk. New
funding and improved access to funding, including through existing GEF funds, is needed to
effectively provide technical and financial support and capacity building capabilities.
An effective way to address the impacts of climate change is by integrating adaptation measures into
sustainable development strategies so as to reduce the pressure on natural resources, improve
environmental risk management, and increase the social well-being of the poor. Climate change can
influence humans directly, through impacts on health and the risk of extreme events on lives,
livelihoods and human settlements, and indirectly, through impacts on food security and the viability
of natural resource-based economic activity. Integrating adaptation to climate change into planning
processes is a necessary strategy for sustainable development over the long term. Climate change
impacts do not happen in isolation; impacts in one sector can adversely or positively affect another;
sectors can be affected directly and/or indirectly by climate change and indeed sometimes a change
in one sector can offset the effects of climate change in another sector. As climate change increases
, the potential for climate related risk, it is also important that risk management and risk reduction is
incorporated into adaptation planning at all levels, and that climate change is incorporated into
disaster and risk management activities.
Capacity-building at local, national and regional levels is vital to enable developing countries to adapt
to climate change. It is important for stakeholders and funders to recognize the role of universities,
tertiary centres and centres of excellence. One of the challenges for capacity-building is that external
support of adaptation activities, including developing national communications, are short-term and
project-based, often using a single task approach rather than a long-term programme approach. This
means that expertise is lost between projects, and often it is difficult to retain experts once they
reach a high level of expertise. Education and training of stakeholders, including policy-level decision
makers, are important catalysts for the success of assessing vulnerabilities and planning adaptation
activities, as well as implementing adaptation plans. It is important to communicate both successful
and unsuccessful efforts at planning and implementation to avoid future mistakes. Short policy cycles
are a major challenge in keeping decision makers up to date. Collaboration between educational,
training and research institutions would help to enable the formal exchange of experience and
lessons learned among different institutions of the respective regions.
Awareness on climate change risks and the need for adaptation should be raised among key sectors
and mass media, including by using current events, such as economic, weather and health crises, as a
basis to promote adaptation measures with co-benefits. Improving public awareness and developing
overall communications strategies makes climate change science accessible to the average citizen
and can reduce their vulnerability. Besides awareness-raising at local levels, it is also important to
involve high-level policymakers to ensure integration of climate change risks into national
development policies. Given that many countries may experience similar effects from climate
change, sharing experience can broaden knowledge on how to address the adaptation challenges.
It is important to bridge the gap between adaption assessment and planning and adaption
implementation, and to build on knowledge from capacity building projects. Adaptation options need
to be matched to priority needs both in the context of community-based action and in national and
sectoral planning as well as disaster risk reduction. Adaptation plans must be integrated into top-
down and bottom-up approaches for planning to enable sustainable development and the efficient
use of resources for adaptation. In order to avoid maladaptation, mechanisms should be introduced
to validate adaptation options.
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