Climate change adaptation and mitigation: next steps for cross-sectoral action to protect global health

Effectively addressing the health risks of climate change necessitates an active crosssectoral approach because health risks arise predominantly via sectors such as water, agriculture and energy. Much has been written on climate change and its impact on health, but little attention has focused on the realpolitik of how to progress the development and implementation of health-relevant strategies and policies to reduce this impact. The objective of this paper is to propose three solutions to address current deficiencies: i) strengthening the capacity and understanding of health officials in relation to climate change and health; ii) improving cross-sectoral partnerships with sectors relevant to climate change and health, and iii) identifying organisations influential in the development of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies and policies, with a view to better target advocacy efforts. Practical examples of each solution are provided. In conclusion, as a steward of public health, the health sector must take the initiative to encourage a cross-sectoral approach that includes capacity development, coupled with an understanding of influential organisations. If this is done effectively, health, social and economic development goals can be reached more efficiently.     

Climate change impact, mitigation and adaptation strategies for agricultural and water resources, in Ganga Plain (India)

Agriculture consumes more than two-thirds of global fresh water out of which 90 % is used by developing countries. Freshwater consumption worldwide is expected to rise another 25 %by 2030 due to increase in population from 6.6 billion currently to about 8 billion by 2030 and over 9 billion by 2050. Worldwide climate change and variability are affecting water resources and agricultural production and in India Ganga Plain region is one of them. Hydroclimatic changes are very prominent in all the regions of Ganga Plain. Climate change and variability impacts are further drying the semi-arid areas and may cause serious problem of water and food scarcity for about 250 million people of the area. About 80 million ha out of total 141 million ha net cultivated area of India is rainfed, which contributes approximately 44 % of total food production has been severely affected by climate change. Further changing climatic conditions are causing prominent hydrological variations like change in drainage density, river morphology (tectonic control) & geometry, water quality and precipitation. Majority of the river channels seen today in the Ganga Plain has migrated from their historic positions. Large scale changes in land use and land cover pattern, cropping pattern, drainage pattern and over exploitation of water resources are modifying the hydrological cycle in Ganga basin. The frequency of floods and drought and its intensity has increased manifold. Ganga Plain rivers has changed their course with time and the regional hydrological conditions shows full control over the rates and processes by which environments geomorphically evolve. Approximately 47 % of total irrigated area of the country is located in Ganga Plain, which is severely affected by changing climatic conditions. In long run climate change will affect the quantity and quality of the crops and the crop yield is going to be down. This will increase the already high food inflation in the country. The warmer atmospheric temperatures and drought conditions will increase soil salinization, desertification and drying-up of aquifer, while flooding conditions will escalate soil erosion, soil degradation and sedimentation. The aim of this study is to understand the impact of different hydrological changes due to climatic conditions and come up with easily and economically feasible solutions effective in addressing the problem of water and food scarcity in future.     

The value of indigenous knowledge in climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies in the African Sahel

Past global efforts at dealing with the problem of global warming concentrated on mitigation, with the aim of reducing and possibly stabilizing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere. With the slow progress in achieving this, adaptation was viewed as a viable option to reduce the vulnerability to the anticipated negative impacts of global warming. It is increasingly realized that mitigation and adaptation should not be pursued independent of each other but as complements. This has resulted in the recent calls for the integration of adaptation into mitigation strategies. However, integrating mitigation and adaptation into climate change concerns is not a completely new idea in the African Sahel. The region is characterized by severe and frequent droughts with records dating back into centuries. The local populations in this region, through their indigenous knowledge systems, have developed and implemented extensive mitigation and adaptation strategies that have enabled them reduce their vulnerability to past climate variability and change, which exceed those predicted by models of future climate change. However, this knowledge is rarely taken into consideration in the design and implementation of modern mitigation and adaptation strategies. This paper highlights some indigenous mitigation and adaptation strategies that have been practiced in the Sahel, and the benefits of integrating indigenous knowledge into formal climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. Incorporating indigenous knowledge can add value to the development of sustainable climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies that are rich in local content, and planned in conjunction with local people.     

The effect of different mitigation strategies on international financing of adaptation

Recent proposals at the UNFCCC meeting in Bali in December 2007 suggest that a 2% levy on the CDM could finance adaptation costs in developing regions. Other proposals include extending the scope of the levy to emissions trading. This study applies an Integrated Assessment Model to gain insight in the interactions between adaptation costs, residual damages and mitigation costs and to analyse the effectiveness of a 2% levy on both the CDM and emissions trading from developing countries. We show that adaptation is especially important in lower income regions where damages are higher. The revenues of a 2% levy strongly depend on both the climate mitigation target and the burden-sharing regime. A more stringent climate mitigation target results in more emissions trade and, in the longer run, less need for adaptation. Both factors increase the share of adaptation costs that can be funded. The burden-sharing regime strongly affects the revenues of a 2% levy as well: relatively more stringent targets for developed countries increase the revenues of a 2% levy. However, in the next two decades the share of adaptation that can be financed remains well below 20% in most cases. Additional funding mechanisms are therefore necessary to substantially finance adaptation costs in developing countries.     

Groundwater-dependent irrigation costs and benefits for adaptation to global change

The effects of a 1.5 °C global change on irrigation costs and carbon emissions in a groundwater-dependent irrigation system were assessed in the northwestern region of Bangladesh and examined at the global scale to determine possible global impacts and propose necessary adaptation measures. Downscaled climate projections were obtained from an ensemble of eight general circulation models (GCMs) for three representative concentration pathways (RCPs), RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 and were used to generate the 1.5 °C warming scenarios. A water balance model was used to estimate irrigation demand, a support vector machine (SVM) model was used to simulate groundwater levels, an energy-use model was used to estimate carbon emissions from the irrigation pump, and a multiple linear regression (MLR) model was used to simulate the irrigation costs. The results showed that groundwater levels would likely drop by only 0.03 to 0.4 m under a 1.5 °C temperature increase, which would result in an increase in irrigation costs and carbon emissions ranging from 11.14 to 148.4 Bangladesh taka (BDT) and 0.3 to 4% CO₂ emissions/ha, respectively, in northwestern Bangladesh. The results indicate that the impacts of climate change on irrigation costs for groundwater-dependent irrigation would be negligible if warming is limited to 1.5 °C; however, increased emissions, up to 4%, from irrigation pumps can have a significant impact on the total emissions from agriculture. This study revealed that similar impacts from irrigation pumps worldwide would result in an increase in carbon emissions by 4.65 to 65.06 thousand tons, based only on emissions from groundwater-dependent rice fields. Restricting groundwater-based irrigation in regions where the groundwater is already vulnerable, improving irrigation efficiency by educating farmers and enhancing pump efficiency by following optimum pumping guidelines can mitigate the impacts of climate change on groundwater resources, increase farmers’ profits, and reduce carbon emissions in regions with groundwater-dependent irrigation.     

Climate change: linking adaptation and mitigation through agroforestry

Agriculture is the human enterprise that is most vulnerable to climate change. Tropical agriculture, particularly subsistence agriculture is particularly vulnerable, as smallholder farmers do not have adequate resources to adapt to climate change. While agroforestry may play a significant role in mitigating the atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG), it also has a role to play in helping smallholder farmers adapt to climate change. In this paper, we examine data on the mitigation potential of agroforestry in the humid and sub-humid tropics. We then present the scientific evidence that leads to the expectation that agroforestry also has an important role in climate change adaptation, particularly for small holder farmers. We conclude with priority research questions that need to be answered concerning the role of agroforestry in both mitigation and adaptation to climate change.     

Integrating mitigation and adaptation as responses to climate change: a synthesis

Integrating mitigation and adaptation (M&A) is a practical reality for climate change response policy, despite a range of conceptual and methodological challenges. Based on the papers in this special issue, some preliminary findings about appropriate integrated portfolios are offered, along with several implications for climate policy.     

Climate change scenarios to facilitate stakeholder engagement in agricultural adaptation

To prepare agricultural systems for climate change, scientists need to be able to effectively engage with land managers and policy makers to explore potential solutions. An ongoing challenge in engagement is to distil the complexity of climate-change-management-change interactions in agro-ecological systems to identify responses that are most important for adaptation planning. This paper presents an approach for selecting climate change scenarios to provide a focal point for engaging with stakeholders to evaluate adaptation options and communicate assessment outcomes. We illustrate how scenarios selected with the approach can be used by evaluating climate change impacts and an adaptation option for livestock industries in the north-east Australian rangelands. Climate change impacts on forage production, animal liveweight gain and soil loss are found to track projected climate changes in four pasture communities; increasing by up to 50% and declining by up to 110% in response to doubled atmospheric carbon-dioxide (CO₂), 4°C warming, and +20% to ?40% changes in mean annual rainfall. The effectiveness of reducing grazing pressure as an adaptation option shows a similar response; resulting in higher forage production (up to 40%), animal liveweight gains (up to 59%) and gross margins (up to 40%), and reduced soil erosion (down by 91%) per hectare relative to the baseline management. The results show that a few key scenarios may be selected to represent the range of global climate model (GCM) projections for use in assessing and communicating impacts and adaptation; simplifying the assessments and allowing limits to the effectiveness of adaptation options to be explored. The approach provides a framework for capturing and communicating trends in climate change impacts and the utility of options, which are required for successful engagement of stakeholders in finding viable adaption responses.     

Integrated strategies to reduce vulnerability and advance adaptation,mitigation, and sustainable development

Determinants of adaptive and mitigative capacities (e.g., availability of technological options, and access to economic resources, social capital and human capital) largely overlap. Several factors underlying or related to these determinants are themselves indicators of sustainable development (e.g., per capita income; and various public health, education and research indices). Moreover, climate change could exacerbate existing climate-sensitive hurdles to sustainable development (e.g., hunger, malaria, water shortage, coastal flooding and threats to biodiversity) faced specifically by many developing countries. Based on these commonalities, the paper identifies integrated approaches to formulating strategies and measures to concurrently advance adaptation, mitigation and sustainable development. These approaches range from broadly moving sustainable development forward (by developing and/or nurturing institutions, policies and infrastructure to stimulate economic development, technological change, human and social capital, and reducing specific barriers to sustainable development) to reducing vulnerabilities to urgent climate-sensitive risks that hinder sustainable development and would worsen with climate change. The resulting sustainable economic development would also help reduce birth rates, which could mitigate climate change and reduce the population exposed to climate change and climate-sensitive risks, thereby reducing impacts, and the demand for adaptation. The paper also offers a portfolio of pro-active strategies and measures consistent with the above approaches, including example measures that would simultaneously reduce pressures on biodiversity, hunger, and carbon sinks. Finally it addresses some common misconceptions that could hamper fuller integration of adaptation and mitigation, including the notions that adaptation may be unsuitable for natural systems, and mitigation should necessarily have primacy over adaptation.

Contribution of spatially explicit models to climate change adaptation and mitigation plans for a priority forest habitat

Climate change will impact forest ecosystems, their biodiversity and the livelihoods they sustain. Several adaptation and mitigation strategies to counteract climate change impacts have been proposed for these ecosystems. However, effective implementation of such strategies requires a clear understanding of how climate change will influence the future distribution of forest ecosystems. This study uses maximum entropy modelling (MaxEnt) to predict environmentally suitable areas for cork oak (Quercus suber) woodlands, a socio-economically important forest ecosystem protected by the European Union Habitats Directive. Specifically, we use two climate change scenarios to predict changes in environmental suitability across the entire geographical range of the cork oak and in areas where stands were recently established. Up to 40 % of current environmentally suitable areas for cork oak may be lost by 2070, mainly in northern Africa and southern Iberian Peninsula. Almost 90 % of new cork oak stands are predicted to lose suitability by the end of the century, but future plantations can take advantage of increasing suitability in northern Iberian Peninsula and France. The predicted impacts cross-country borders, showing that a multinational strategy, will be required for cork oak woodland adaptation to climate change. Such a strategy must be regionally adjusted, featuring the protection of refugia sites in southern areas and stimulating sustainable forest management in areas that will keep long-term suitability. Afforestation efforts should also be promoted but must consider environmental suitability and land competition issues.     

From federal to city mitigation and adaptation: climate change policy in Mexico City

Climate change is projected to affect Latin America and the Caribbean as a result of increased temperatures and changed rainfall patterns. The impacts of climate change are expected to be unevenly distributed throughout the region, due to differences in geographic location, demographic pressures, levels of poverty, and natural resource dependence. To date, few studies have explored these impacts and the governmental responses to cope with them at a city scale. This article examines the challenges faced by the Mexico City government as it translates the federal climate change policy into successful mitigation and adaptation. It analyzes climate change impacts on Mexico and Mexico City (also known as the Federal District), the federal and city’s mitigation and adaptation responses, and advances and contradictions in the implementation of these strategies at the national and city levels. Similar problems have limited the effectiveness of these actions at both the federal and city levels, including the overexploitation of natural resources, a lack of climate information and monitoring systems, and the subordination of climate change strategies to the objectives of economic growth and poverty reduction. These problems have resulted in poor coordination and collaboration among various levels of government to cope with climate change, in addition to avoiding local capacity building, particularly in regard to forest conservation.     

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.

Impacts of climate change on water resources in the Yellow River basin and identification of global adaptation strategies

Climate change is a global environmental issue, which is challenging water resources management and practices. This study investigates the impact of climate change on water resources of the Yellow River basin, a major grain-producing area in China, and provides recommendations on strategies to increase adaptive capacity and resilience in the basin region. Results show that the recorded stream flows of the Yellow River declined from 1951 to 2010 and have decreased significantly in the middle and lower reaches. The variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model performs well as a tool to simulate monthly discharge of both the tributary catchments and the whole Yellow River basin. Temperature across the Yellow River basin over 2021–2050 is expected to continue to rise with an average rates of approximately 0.039–0.056 °C/annum. The average annual precipitation in the basin is projected to increase by 1.28–3.29 % compared with the 1991–2010 baseline. Runoff during 2021–2050 is projected to decrease by 0.53–9.67 % relative to 1991–2010 with high decadal and spatial variability. This is likely due to the model’s projections of a significant rise in temperature and changes in precipitation patterns. Climate change will likely aggravate the severity and frequency of both water shortages and flooding in the basin region. It is therefore essential to devote sufficient attention on structural and non-structural measures for the Yellow River basin to cope with climate change. At the global level, strategies to increase adaptive capacity and build resilience to climate change focus on public education to improve awareness of climate risks, implementing the integrated water resources management and planning based on impact assessments.     

Identifying water resources management strategies in adaptation to climate change under uncertainty

In this study, an integrated simulation-based allocation modeling system (ISAMS) is developed for identifying water resources management strategies in response to climate change. The ISAMS incorporates global climate models (GCMs), a semi-distributed land use-based runoff process (SLURP) model, and a multistage interval-stochastic programming (MISP) approach within a general framework. The ISAMS can not only handle uncertainties expressed as probability distributions and interval values but also reveal climate change impacts on water resources allocation under different projections of GCMs. The ISAMS is then applied to the Kaidu-kongque watershed with cold arid characteristics in the Tarim River Basin (the largest inland watershed basin in China) for demonstrating its efficiency. Results reveal that different climate change models corresponding to various projections (e.g., precipitation and temperature) would lead to changed water resources allocation patterns. Variations in water availability and demand due to uncertainties could result in different water allocation targets and shortages. A variety of decision alternatives about water allocations adaptive to climate change are generated under combinations of different global climate models and ecological water release plans. These findings indicate that understanding the uncertainties in water resources system, building adaptive methods for generating sustainable water allocation patterns, and taking actions for mitigating water shortage problems are key adaptation strategies responding to climate change.     

Land use and climate change adaptation strategies in Kenya

Climate variability and change mitigation and adaptation policies need to prioritize land users needs at local level because it is at this level that impact is felt most. In order to address the challenge of socio-economic and unique regional geographical setting, a customized methodological framework was developed for application in assessment of climate change vulnerability perception and adaptation options around the East African region. Indicators of climate change and variability most appropriate for the region were derived from focused discussions involving key informants in various sectors of the economy drawn from three East African countries. Using these indicators, a structured questionnaire was developed from which surveys and interviews were done on selected sample of target population of farming communities in the Mt. Kenya region. The key highlights of the questionnaire were vulnerability and adaptation. Data obtained from respondents was standardized and subjected to multivariate and ANOVA analysis. Based on principle component analysis (PCA), two main vulnerability categories were identified namely the social and the bio-physical vulnerability indicators. Analysis of variance using Kruskal-Wallis test showed significant statistical variation (P ≤ 0.05) in the perceived vulnerability across the spatial distribution of the 198 respondents. Three insights were distinguished and were discernible by agro-ecological zones. Different vulnerability profiles and adaptive capacity profiles were generated demonstrating the need for prioritizing adaptation and mitigation efforts at local level. There was a high correlation between the bio-physical and social factor/livelihood variables that were assessed.     

Scale,context, and decision making in agricultural adaptation to climate variability and change

This work presents a framework for viewing agricultural adaptation, emphasizing the multiple spatial and temporal scales on which individuals and institutions process information on changes in their environment. The framework is offered as a means to gain perspective on the role of climate variability and change in agricultural adaptation, and developed for a case study of Australian agriculture. To study adaptation issues at the scale of individual farms we developed a simple modelling framework. The model highlights the decision making element of adaptation in light of uncertainty, and underscores the importance of decision information related to climate variability. Model results show that the assumption of perfect information for farmers systematically overpredicts adaptive performance. The results also suggest that farmers who make tactical planting decisions on the basis of historical climate information are outperformed by those who use even moderately successful seasonal forecast information. Analysis at continental scales highlights the prominent role of the decline in economic operating conditions on Australian agriculture. Examples from segments of the agricultural industry in Australia are given to illustrate the importance of appropriate scale attribution in adapting to environmental changes. In particular, adaptations oriented toward short time scale changes in the farming environment (droughts, market fluctuations) can be limited in their efficacy by constraints imposed by broad changes in the soil/water base and economic environment occuring over longer time scales. The case study also makes the point that adaptation must be defined in reference to some goal, which is ultimately a social and political exercise. Overall, this study highlights the importance of allowing more complexity (limited information, risk aversion, cross-scale interactions, mis-attribution of cause and effect, background context, identification of goals) in representing adaptation processes in climate change studies.