Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies. A Presentation by Asif Kabani

Transcription

1 Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies A Presentation by Asif Kabani

2 Structure of Presentation Defining Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Mitigation Strategies Adaptation Strategies Nicholas Stern on Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Issues and Problem The Way Forward Commitment

3 Defining Climate Mitigation and Adaptation What is Climate Mitigation? What is Climate Adaptation? [Brainstorming] use Flash Cards And Flip Chat by Participants. One Word one by one

4 Documentary

5 Climate mitigation Climate mitigation is any action taken to permanently eliminate or reduce the long-term risk and hazards of climate change to human life, property. Note: The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines mitigation as: An anthropogenic intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases. Climate Mitigation and Adaptation

6 Climate Adaptation Climate adaptation refers to the ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes) to moderate potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the consequences. Note: The IPCC defines adaptation as the, adjustment in natural or human systems to a new or changing environment. Adaptation to climate change refers to adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities. Various types of adaptation can be distinguished, including anticipatory and reactive adaptation, private and public adaptation, and autonomous and planned adaptation.

7 Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Reading Handout The terms adaptation and mitigation are two important terms that are fundamental in the climate change debate. The IPCC defined adaptation as adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderate harm or exploits beneficial opportunities. Similarly, Mitchell and Tanner (2006) defined adaptation as an understanding of how individuals, groups and natural systems can prepare for and respond to changes in climate or their environment. According to them, it is crucial to reducing vulnerability to climate change. While mitigation tackles the causes of climate change, adaptation tackles the effects of the phenomenon. The potential to adjust in order to minimize negative impact and maximize any benefits from changes in climate is known as adaptive capacity. A successful adaptation can reduce vulnerability by building on and strengthening existing coping strategies. In general the more mitigation there is, the less will be the impacts to which we will have to adjust, and the less the risks for which we will have to try and prepare. Conversely, the greater the degree of preparatory adaptation, the less may be the impacts associated with any given degree of climate change. For people today, already feeling the impacts of past inaction in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation is not altogether passive, rather it is an active adjustment in response to new stimuli. However, our present age has proactive options (mitigation), and must also plan to live with the consequences (adaptation) of global warming. The idea that less mitigation means greater climatic change, and consequently requiring more adaptation is the basis for the urgency surrounding reductions in greenhouse gases. Climate mitigation and adaptation should not be seen as alternatives to each other, as they are not discrete activities but rather a combined set of actions in an overall strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

8 Mitigation Strategies Who are the stakeholder of Mitigation Strategies? Use flip chart Each participants write one/two stakeholders on Flip chart

9 Mitigation Strategies Climate change involves complex interactions between climatic, environmental, economic, political, institutional, social, and technological processes. It cannot be addressed or comprehended in isolation of broader societal goals (such as equity or sustainable development), or other existing or probable future sources of stress.

10 Mitigation Strategies In the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) three conditions are made explicit when working towards the goal of greenhouse gas stabilization in the atmosphere: 1. That it should take place within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change; 2. That food production is not threatened and; 3. That economic development should proceed in a sustainable manner To eliminate or reduce the risk of climate change to human life and property, both policy instruments and technology must be used in the context of sustainable development.

11 Mitigation Strategies

12 Mitigation Strategies Example

13 Adaptation Strategies The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change refers to adaptation in several of its articles: Article 4.1(f): All Parties shall Take climate change considerations into account, to the extent feasible, in their relevant social, economic and environmental policies and actions, and employ appropriate methods, for example impact assessments, formulated and determined nationally, with a view to minimizing adverse effects on the economy, on public health and on the quality of the environment, of projects or measures undertaken by them to mitigate or adapt to climate change.

14 Nicholas Stern on Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Climate Nicholas change Herbert Stern, and the British transition economist and to a lowcarbon academic. economy He is IG Patel should Professor be of high Economics the and Government, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute agenda on Climate for Change every and political the Environment party, not at the just London to reduce School of the Economics risks that (LSE), result and 2010 from Professor greenhouse of gas Collège emissions de France. but also to stimulate an exciting period of growth, creativity and innovation. _of_brentford (Statement from Nicholas Stern on a green investment bank, 2 February 2010 )

15 Nicholas Stern on Climate Mitigation and Adaptation For developing countries, good adaptation and good development policy are very strongly intertwined, and it is right that climate change should now become central to national planning processes and to development assistance. International support for adaptation will come in large part through the delivery of the commitments made by rich countries to double aid by 2010 and the commitments made by many countries to meet the target of 0.7% of GNI by This will deliver an increase of hundreds of billions of dollars.

16 Issues and Problem But there are limits to adaptation. Small island developing states threatened by sea level rise have fewer options to adapt. Sea defenses are particularly costly for lowlying islands, and may do little to protect the tourism and fisheries that sustain the local economy.

17 Issues and Problem Development and diversification are still important strategies wherever possible, but ultimately the international community will have to find ways to support alternative responses, including the managed resettlement of some people in these states. This will bring many challenges, particularly for those people that must move. There will be much greater pressures if unabated climate change leads to sea level rise that threatens much larger populations in low-lying coastal areas. (from the Stern Review postscript, January 2007)

18 The Way Forward Commitment Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change addresses a wide range of timely environment, economic and energy topics including global climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, acid deposition, and aquatic ecosystems, species extinction and loss of biological diversity, deforestation and forest degradation, desertification, soil resource degradation, land-use change, sea level rise, destruction of coastal zones, depletion of fresh water and marine fisheries, loss of wetlands and riparian zones and hazardous waste management. The journal provides a forum to review, analyze and stimulate the development, testing and implementation of mitigation and adaptation strategies at regional, national and global scales. One primary goal of this journal is to contribute to real-time policy analysis and development as national and international policies and agreements are discussed and promulgated. Related subjects» Atmospheric Sciences - Environmental Management - Global Change - Climate Change

19 Case Study Group work Make Small Groups

20 The migration management cycle The migration management cycle illustrates the types of programmatic intervention for each of the phases (

21 Reading References

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23 Topics Presentation Relevant to you By: Author on Climate Change

24 Quote by David Suzuki, celebrity scientist, alarmist extraordinaire: 2011 quote: "Humanity is facing a challenge unlike any we ve ever had to confront. We are in an unprecedented period of change."

25 Sustainable Transition to Green Economy By: Asif Kabani