Climate change and Ontario forests: Prospects for building institutional adaptive capacity

Institutions play an important role in the adaptive capacity of a system in responding to climate change. This review paper characterizes the status of the collective institutional response (government, industry, First Nation, community, civil society) to climate change in the forest sector of the Canadian province of Ontario, and highlights the presence and nature of inter-institutional networks as part of the response. Based on a synthesis of the commonalities in the public administration and policy literature on tackling wicked problems, and the resilience literature, inter-institutional networks, which foster exchange of different types of knowledge, are an important aspect of enhancing the adaptive capacity of social–ecological systems such as the forest sector. Based on a content analysis of publicly available documents and insights gained from representatives of government, community members and non-governmental organizations, mitigation and adaptations strategies are described. At the provincial level there have been some new innovations in inter-institutional networks, but expansion of the forest stakeholders involved in such networks would further enhance adaptive capacity. In particular, it is important to network with First Nations and other forest-dependent communities who have a heightened vulnerability to climate change. The presence of a collaborative capacity builder could foster the transfer, receipt and integration of knowledge across the networks, and ultimately build long-term collaborative problem-solving capacity in the Ontario forest sector.

Sustainable development as a framework for developing country participation in international climate change policies

The paper presents a number of ideas on how climate change policy implementation in developing countries can be supported by alternative international cooperation mechanisms that are based on stakeholder interests and policy priorities including broader economic and social development issues. It includes a brief review of current development policies, technological research and promotion efforts, and climate change that demonstrates that mutual policy initiatives undertaken by governments and the private sector actually have major positive impacts on climate change without being initiated by this global policy concern. Furthermore a number of examples are given on how future development objectives in Brazil, China, and India jointly can support economic and social goals and global climate change concerns if these goals are taken into consideration and supported by international cooperative mechanisms. The paper proposes international cooperative mechanisms that can support the implementation of integrated development and climate change policies. The mechanisms include an international sustainable development (SD) and Climate Finance Mechanism (SDCFM), technology development and transition programmes, technology standards, and other measures.

Adaptation and mitigation as complementary tools for reducing the risk of climate impacts

This paper uses the likelihood of flooding along Brahmaputra and Ganges Rivers in India to explore the hypothesis that adaptation and mitigation can be viewed as complements rather than sustitutes. For futures where climate change will produce smooth, monotonic and manageable effects, adopting a mitigation strategy is shown to increase the ability of adaptation to reduce the likelihood of crossing critical threshold of tolerable climate. For futures where climate change will produce variable impacts overtime, though, it is possible that mitigation will make adaptation less productive for some time intervals. In cases of exaggerated climate change, adaptation may fail entirely regardless of how much mitigation is applied. Judging the degree of complementarity is therefore an empirical question because the relative efficacy of adaptation is site specific and path dependent. It follows that delibrations over climate policy should rely more on detailed analyses of how the distributions of possible impacts of climate might change over space and time.

Institutional dynamics and climate change adaptation in South Africa

Climate change is a multi-dimensional issue and in terms of adaptation numerous state and non-state actors are involved from global to national and local scales. The aim of this paper is first to analyse specific institutional networks involved in climate change predominantly at the national level in South Africa and second to determine how different stakeholders perceive their role vis-a-vis climate change adaptation. Within the South African context there is a gap in understanding and evaluating how institutional networks operate and thus the findings of this work may help inform and strengthen such relationships in the future. Results showed that few institutions fully understand the implications of adaptation and their roles and responsibilities have not yet been properly defined. Constraints relating to capacity, lack of awareness and poor information flow need to be addressed. Climate change is perceived as an important issue although problems such as poverty reduction and job creation remain national priorities. Most importantly this research has demonstrated how adaptation challenges the hierarchical manner in which government works and a more collaborative approach to climate change adaptation is needed. Adaptation needs to be mainstreamed and institutional networks need to be strengthened in order for adaptation mechanisms to be effectively implemented.

Assessing the dynamic efficiency of internal mitigation projects. An evolutionary perspective

Internal mitigation projects have recently been proposed as an additional flexibility mechanism, particularly in the context of the European Union. Their main objective is to engage sectors not included in the European Union emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) in cost-effective emissions reductions. However, in this paper it is argued that, when assessed in terms of dynamic efficiency, the instrument is likely to be, at best, irrelevant to induce the scale of systemic technological changes which are required to tackle the climate change problem and, at worst, detrimental for this task. Insights from the Evolutionary Economics of technological change complemented with political economy considerations are used to support this claim.

Climate change and financial adaptation in Africa. Investigating the impact of climate change on the robustness of index-based microinsurance in Malawi

This paper discusses the applicability of crop insurance for the case of Malawi and explores the potential impact of climate change on the viability of the Malawi weather insurance program making use of scenarios of climate change-induced variations in rainfall patterns. The analysis is important from a methodological and policy perspective. By combining catastrophe insurance modeling with climate modeling, the methodology demonstrates the feasibility, albeit with large uncertainties, of estimating the effects of climate variability and climate change on the near- and long-term future of microinsurance schemes serving the poor. By providing a model-based estimate of insurance back-up capital necessary to avoid ruin under climate variability and climate change, along with the associated uncertainties and data limitations, this methodology can quantitatively demonstrate the need for financial assistance to protect micro-insurance pools against climate-induced insolvency. This is of major concern to donors, NGOs and others supporting these innovative systems, those actually at-risk and insurers providing insurance. A quantitative estimate of the additional burden that climate change imposes on weather insurance for poor regions is of interest to organizations funding adaptation. Further, by linking catastrophe modeling to regionalized climate modeling, the analysis identifies key modeling inputs necessary as well as important constraints. We end with a discussion of the opportunities and limits to similar modeling and weather predictability for Sub-Saharan Africa beyond the case of Malawi.

Setting greenhouse gas emission targets under baseline uncertainty: the Bush Climate Change Initiative

There is substantial uncertainty regarding baseline greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions forecasts—i.e., how GHG emissions will grow over time in the absence of policy intervention. Thus baseline uncertainty should be a key consideration in setting GHG emissions targets as a mitigation strategy to respond to global climate change. At a minimum, the emissions target must be less than the baseline level to induce changing behavior and new investment. Despite this fundamental policy criterion, baseline considerations have played only a minor role in target setting under international climate policy. Baseline uncertainty applies to both absolute and intensity based emissions targets. It is demonstrated that one advantage of intensity targets is reduced uncertainty in the projected baseline, however there will always be some residual uncertainty in model projections. To illustrate the importance of considering baseline uncertainty in GHG target setting, the Bush Climate Change Initiative is analyzed against its projected baseline as a case study of a modest intensity target. Based on comparison with historical data, the range of projections by major energy-economic models, past discrepancies in the accuracy of model projections and the added complexity of sector-specific drivers for non-CO₂ GHGs, it is shown that the Bush Initiative cannot be guaranteed or even expected to deliver actual reductions against an uncertain baseline. This finding emphasizes the importance of setting a target that accounts for baseline uncertainty to achieve genuine mitigation of GHG emissions.

Governance in vulnerability assessment: the role of globalising decision-making networks in determining local vulnerability and adaptive capacity

Community-based vulnerability assessment has often assumed that the local is the relevant level of adaptation to climate change. This paper suggests that not only do a number of levels from the international to the regional influence which adaptations can take place locally, but the governance network that is made up by actors on different levels may to a large extent be formed in responses to globalising factors, such as internationalisation of economies and the changing role of the state. The paper presents a study of adaptation in reindeer (Rangifier tarandus) herding, forestry and fishing communities in northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland, with a focus on assessing stakeholders’ own perceptions of environmental, socio-political and economic factors that affect them. In general, the paper illustrates the integration of non-subsistence economies into large and complex interactions where local adaptation is a result of the sum of stresses impacting individual entrepreneurs, and the potential they have to adapt their practices given governance (and their access to support) on different scales.

Greenhouse gas mitigation in developing countries through technology transfer?: a survey of empirical evidence

While greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are projected to rise primarily in the developing countries, the potential for developing new GHG mitigation technologies exists primarily in the industrialized countries. It is thus important, not only for predictions about future emission paths but also for climate change mitigation policies, to understand how the international diffusion of such technologies takes place and how it affects the energy infrastructure and GHG emissions in developing countries. This paper provides an overview of the channels through which these technologies diffuse and focuses on the empirical evidence pertaining to the effects these technologies have on GHG emissions in developing countries.

Complementarity between mitigation and adaptation: the water sector

The water cycle, a fundamental component of climate, is likely to be altered in important ways by climate change. Climate change will most likely worsen the already existing water related problems. Then the question is how should policy makers respond to this dilemma. Climate change mitigation, through greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction and sequestration is not a sufficient response. Adaptation will also need to feature as a response strategy. Mitigation and adaptation need to be viewed as complementary responses to climate change. Complementarity between adaptation and mitigation in the water sector will be addressed in this paper. The paper will also outline the main impacts of climate change on water resources and identify those areas that are most dependent and vulnerable to hydrological systems (e.g., hydroelectric systems, irrigation, agriculture) and any changes thereof resulting from climate change. It will aim to assess the impact of water demand and water use, with a view to identifying the main relationships between mitigation and adaptation in the water sector and the means through which individual mitigation and adaptation actions can potentially interact with each other for the benefit of the water sector as a whole. It will also explore the implications of climate change on the management of water resources. Adaptation and mitigation options would be considered in the context of their socio-economic and environmental impacts and their contribution to sustainable development. A brief evaluation of how this information can be directly used for planning purpose will also be presented.

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Climate change,adaptive capacity and policy direction in the Canadian North: Can we learn anything from the collapse of the east coast cod fishery?

Scientific evidence gathered over the past five years suggests that northern Canada and the Arctic have undergone, and are undergoing, formidable environmental changes linked to global climate change. Environmental change in the north is expected to persist and intensify over the course of the next century. When large-scale environmental changes take place, they inevitably affect people, especially when the cultures and livelihoods of those people depend on their relationship with the environment. Managing the local impacts of these changes is a matter of adaptation. This paper discusses some of the policy implications of adaptation––government interventions aiming to build communities’ and regions’ capacities to adapt to environmental changes. Three arguments for adaptive capacity building interventions in the north are discussed, and these arguments are augmented by a comparative review of government reactions to the collapse of the cod fishery in Atlantic Canada. Reactive and proactive policy approaches are discussed, and it is suggested from the comparison that proactive approaches to intervention are desirable for building adaptive capacity.

Synergisms between climate change mitigation and adaptation: an insurance perspective

As the world’s largest industry, the insurance sector is both an aggregator of the impacts of climate change and a market actor able to play a material role in decreasing the vulnerability of human and natural systems. This article reviews the implications of climate change for insurers and provides specific examples of insurance-relevant synergisms between adaptation and mitigation in the buildings and energy sectors, agriculture, forestry, and land use. Although insurance is far from a “silver bullet” in addressing climate change, it offers significant capacity and ability to understand, manage, and spread risks associated with weather-related events, more so today in industrialized countries but increasingly so in developing countries and economies in transition. Certain measures that integrate climate change mitigation and adaptation also bolster insurers’ solvency and profitability, thereby increasing their appeal. Promising strategies involve innovative products and systems for delivering insurance and the use of new technologies and practices that both reduce vulnerability to disaster-related losses and support sustainable development. However, climate change promises to erode the insurability of many risks, and insurance responses can be more reactive than proactive, resulting in compromised insurance affordability and/or availability. Public–private partnerships involving insurers and entities such as the international relief community offer considerable potential, but have not been adequately explored.

A stakeholder driven process to reduce vulnerability to climate change in Hermosillo,Sonora, Mexico

While there is a growing body of knowledge on potential impacts of climate change on water availability, there has been much less empirical research on exploring the viability of particular adaptation options. The participation of stakeholders in defining appropriate adaptation strategies is increasingly recognized as a critical element in the translation of climate change impact research into effective actions to reduce future vulnerability, yet the process by which stakeholders are included in such initiatives is not well-defined. This article presents the results of a pilot project in which a participatory approach was employed to identify and evaluate adaptation options to climate change scenarios for Sonora’s capital city, Hermosillo. In an iterative process, stakeholders representing different water users and managers in the city met to discuss climate change scenarios, identify specific adaptation options, and evaluate a subset of options for possible future implementation. This process enabled the focus of the investigation on those adaptations that addressed not only concerns with the potential future impacts of climate change but also the immediate and pressing concerns about development patterns and water use in the city. Two of the adaptations to climate change identified by stakeholders would also reduce energy demand. The simplicity of the approach makes it a feasible model for adaptation initiatives in other regions of Mexico and in other countries in Latin America.

An empirical approach to assessing generic adaptive capacity to tropical cyclone risk in coastal districts of India

Differences in impacts of climate hazards across exposed units are determined by many factors including the severity of the hazard itself, the population that is exposed to the hazard and the coping capacity of the exposed units to the hazard. Coping capacity or adaptive capacity results from a combination of development status (generic capacity) and interventions pertinent to the hazard (specific capacity). This paper explores the extent to which the generic adaptive capacity may explain the variation in tropical cyclone impacts. Therefore this paper offers an empirical approach by which adaptive capacity may be measured and validated against actual outcomes. Results not only validate the role of generic adaptive capacity in explaining variations in impact but also reveal that general development indicators are not very important as far as predicting outcomes is concerned. Those indicators of development that can be linked to the impact process are significant in explaining and predicting impact. This can help identify those aspects of generic adaptive capacity which are important from the perspective of policy action for enhancing adaptive capacity to a particular climate hazard.

Climate change adaptation and regional forest planning in southern Yukon,Canada

Recent interest in sustainable forest management planning in the Yukon has coincided with growing public awareness of climate change, providing an opportunity to explore how forestry plans are incorporating climate change. In this paper, the Strategic Forest Management Plans for the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations Traditional Territory (CATT) and the Teslin Tlingit Traditional Territory (TTTT) are examined for evidence of adaptation to climate change. For each plan, management policies and practices that are also recognized as ways to adapt to climate change are identified to provide information on the incremental costs and benefits of additional adaptation efforts. A typology for classifying sustainable forest management plans according to how they address climate change is proposed and applied to the CATT and TTTT plans. This typology, which may be useful to any future retrospective assessments on how successful these or other sustainable forest management plans have been in addressing and managing the risks posed by climate change, consists of a matrix that categorizes plans into one of four types; (1) proactive-direct, (2) proactive-indirect, (3) reactive-direct, and (4) reactive-indirect. Neither of the plans available for the southern Yukon explicitly identifies climate change vulnerabilities and actions that will be taken to reduce those vulnerabilities and manage risks. However, both plans have incorporated some examples of ‘best management practices’ for sustainable forest management that are also consistent with appropriate climate adaptation responses. Even in a jurisdiction facing rapid ecological changes driven by climate change, where there is a relatively high level of awareness of climate change and its implications, forestry planning processes have yet to grapple directly with the risks that climate change may pose to the ability of forest managers to achieve the stated goals and objectives of sustainable forest management plans.

Impact of bioenergy crops in a carbon dioxide constrained world: an application of the MiniCAM energy-agriculture and land use model

In the coming century, modern bioenergy crops have the potential to play a crucial role in the global energy mix, especially under policies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as proposed by many in the international community. Previous studies have not fully addressed many of the dynamic interactions and effects of a policy-induced expansion of bioenergy crop production, particularly on crop yields and human food demand. This study combines an updated agriculture and land use (AgLU) model with a well-developed energy-economic model to provide an analysis of the effects of bioenergy crops on energy, agricultural and land use systems. The results indicate that carbon dioxide mitigation policies can stimulate a large production of bioenergy crops, dependent on the level of the policy. This production of bioenergy crops can lead to several impacts on the agriculture and land use system: decreases in forestland and unmanaged land, decreases in the average yield of food crops, increases in the prices of food crops, and decreases in the level of human demand of calories.

Lessons learnt from a participatory integrated assessment of greenhouse gas emission reduction options in firms

This article discusses an approach for identification and evaluation of short-term greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction options in firms. The approach is based on lessons learnt from a project using Participatory Integrated Assessment (PIA) and builds on the idea that effective public climate policy for firms requires options that have support from stakeholders and are practically feasible. Scenarios are used to provide a link with short-term policy developments and a model assists to communicate quantitative effects of options to participating stakeholders. Our approach can be seen as a first step towards a framework that meets the need for more systematic approaches to PIAs identifying effective public policies for short-term GHG emission reduction options in firms. In order to identify effective options for non-carbon dioxide GHG emission reductions, our approach has been applied to Dutch dairy farms, after which it has been refined. The case study suggests that our approach can provide balance between practical, context specific issues and scientific-theoretical aspects, thereby avoiding common pitfalls of participatory research projects to focus too much on either theory or practical issues.

Temporary storage of carbon in the biosphere does have value for climate change mitigation: a response to the paper by Miko Kirschbaum

Kirschbaum (Mitig Adapt Strat Glob Change 11:1151–1164, 2006) explores the climatic impact over time of temporarily sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. He concludes that temporary storage of carbon in the terrestrial biosphere “achieves effectively no climate-change mitigation”. His strongly worded statement begs for a response. This paper argues that Kirschbaum’s conclusion is an artifact of the specific perspective of his analysis and his choice of a definition for climate-change impact. Even temporary sinks put us on a lower path for climate change, a path that will not otherwise be accessible. For carbon sinks in the terrestrial biosphere, we argue that sooner is better and longer is better, but even known temporary sinks have value.

Integrating Joint Implementation Projects for Energy Efficiency on the Built Environment with White Certificates in The Netherlands

In this paper we analyze policy interactions between two innovative climate and energy policy instruments, namely White Certificates (WhC) and Joint Implementation (JI) that target at energy efficiency improvement and reductions of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. We have selected The Netherlands and Bulgaria as a case study given that the former has a cumulated experience in energy efficiency policies and the latter for a growing potential in JI projects as a host country. Based on a method of analyzing policy interactions, we demonstrate how a possible design of such a scheme can take place and how it should function. A couple of parameters that deserve attention are a baseline definition and a conversion rate for credits. Our basic finding is that an integrated scheme is complementary and can assist substantially in achieving Dutch national United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Kyoto Protocol targets. Dutch electricity and gas suppliers (parties that receive energy efficiency obligations) can implement energy efficiency projects domestically and in other countries, hence reducing total abatement costs. Furthermore, such a scheme can stimulate further energy efficiency actions from other stakeholders participating in energy markets. Based on an ex-ante assessment, a carefully designed hybrid WhC and JI scheme appears to be effective in terms of targets, efficient, generating positive impacts on markets and society, while uncertain in stimulating innovation.

Approaches to semi-synthetic minimal cells: a review

Following is a synthetic review on the minimal living cell, defined as an artificial or a semi-artificial cell having the minimal and sufficient number of components to be considered alive. We describe concepts and experiments based on these constructions, and we point out that an operational definition of minimal cell does not define a single species, but rather a broad family of interrelated cell-like structures. The relevance of these researches, considering that the minimal cell should also correspond to the early simple cell in the origin of life and early evolution, is also explained. In addition, we present detailed data in relation to minimal genome, with observations cited by several authors who agree on setting the theoretical full-fledged minimal genome to a figure between 200 and 300 genes. However, further theoretical assumptions may significantly reduce this number (i.e. by eliminating ribosomal proteins and by limiting DNA and RNA polymerases to only a few, less specific molecular species). Generally, the experimental approach to minimal cells consists in utilizing liposomes as cell models and in filling them with genes/enzymes corresponding to minimal cellular functions. To date, a few research groups have successfully induced the expression of single proteins, such as the green fluorescence protein, inside liposomes. Here, different approaches are described and compared. Present constructs are still rather far from the minimal cell, and experimental as well as theoretical difficulties opposing further reduction of complexity are discussed. While most of these minimal cell constructions may represent relatively poor imitations of a modern full-fledged cell, further studies will begin precisely from these constructs. In conclusion, we give a brief outline of the next possible steps on the road map to the minimal cell.

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