Download Climate information and decision making in development and

Information needs for adaptation decisions
Department for International Development
Yvan Biot, Su-Lin Garbett-Shiels, Annika Olsson, Nicola Ranger
February 2014
DECISION MAKING
Who and what?
•Whose decisions?
– Citizens
– Business
– Governments
– International system
•What do they need to know?
– Do we need to do something urgently?
– Can we do something sensible now to prepare ourselves for the future?
– What can we just let happen?
Context matters!
•Business concerns1
– Direct physical impacts on the investments themselves
– Degradation of critical supporting infrastructure
– Changes in the availability of key natural resources
– Changes to workforce availability or capacity
– Changes in the customer base
– Supply chain disruptions
– Legal liability
– Shifts in the regulatory environment
– Reductions in credit ratings
1: Higgins, P., 2014: Climate Information Needs for Financial Decision Making
DFID AND UK AID
Context
•International Development Act
– Generate lasting benefits to current and future population
•Instruments
– Multilateral environmental
agreements
– International Climate Fund
– Climate smart development
– Research and innovation
Environmental
Protection
3
Research
3
Humanitarian
Assistance
11
Economic
24
Water and
Sanitation
4
Social
Services
5
Education
11
Government and
civil society
23
Health
17
Why it matters
Map of DFID priority countries 2013
1:
Map of Vulnerability to Climate Change 1
Source: Maplecroft climate change vulnerability index 2012
How it affects our business
1. Reduced long-term effectiveness of DFID interventions, if long-term
risks are not accounted for. E.g. without action, climate change will
erode gains in poverty alleviation and progress against the MDGs
2. Reduced value for money of DFID’s long-lived investments, such as
infrastructure, if they need to be retrofitted or replaced prematurely.
3. Higher long-term costs, where DFID or partners need to retrofit or
adjust programmes later. Acting now is often cheaper and easier in the
long-term
4. Adverse outcomes, where DFID’s interventions are maladaptive,
inadvertently committing people to greater and difficult-to-reverse risks
down the line.
5. Human costs of delay: adaptations, like building capacity, can take
time to implement, so there is a rationale for starting now.
After: Ranger et al., 2013: Building resilience to changing times – internal document
MAKING DECISIONS …
Decision point 1: policy and resource allocation
•International
– Multilateral spend (Green Climate Fund): additionality, prioritisation, VFM
– Loss and damage  future liabilities?
•Bilateral
– country budgets
•Sectoral
– food, water, energy, towns, disaster management
Decision point 2: country portfolios
Challenges to growth
environment: damage to
infrastructure, disruption
to public services,
reconstruction costs,
unstable macroenvironment
Strain on political
stability and potential
conflict
Erosion of natural
capital: ecosystems,
fisheries, forests,
biodiversity, ecosystem
services
Changing global
environment: more
volatile commodity and
energy prices; strain on
humanitarian system;
changing trade patterns
Reduced productivity in
some sectors, such as
agriculture; and rising
damage to assets
Risk to human capital
Increasing risks of food
and water crises,
humanitarian crises,
health impacts, children
removed from education,
strain on social protection
Source: DFID “Changing with the times”, June 2012. DFID Internal document
Decision point 3: project decisions
• Theory of change – what might happen to our beneficiaries if the climate
changes
• Options identification - what options look good in the short and longer run?
• Options appraisal – which option
will offer a good rate of return?
• Monitoring and evaluation – track
hazard data alongside
outcome/impact indicators
Prioritising
1. The intervention directly or
indirectly affects resilience
OR
2. The outcomes of the intervention
are sensitive to weather
e.g. Infrastructure, WASH or food security
e.g. social protection programme
AND
Intervention with longterm effects
Difficult to reverse/retrofit
intervention or its effects
High stakes (costs or number of
people/assets at risk)
Ranger, N. and Garbett-Shiels, 2014: Safeguarding development investments from climate change risks. Forthcoming
ABOUT UNCERTAINTY
Wicked !
•Wicked problems
– Unclear evidence
– No consensus about desired outcome
•So what?
– Linear evidence into policy process doesn’t work for wicked problems …
– More than one ‘optimal’ solution
After Roger Pielke, 2007: The honest broker: making sense of science, policy and politics
There’s more than the weather to talk about …
Exposure
Sensitivity
CLIMATE SIGNAL
𝐸𝑥𝑆
𝑅=𝐻𝑥
AC
VULNERABILITY
CONTEXT
Risk
Hazard
Adaptive Capacity
We have tools to deal with uncertainty!
Ranger et al., 2010: Adaptation in the UK: a decision making process. Grantham – LSE, London
Iterative adaptation
1
2
3
Watkiss, P., 2014: Early value for money adaptation. Forthcoming Evidence on Demand working paper
TOWARDS A TYPOLOGY OF NEEDS
Elements
•Three time horizons
– Now
– 2020’s
– 2050’s
 protection against extreme event
 disaster risk reduction
 adaptation to trends
•Four types of questions
– Weather/climate information
– Implications – state
– Implications – business
– Analysis
•Caveat
– context
Weather / climate 

Implications State



Implications –
business

Analyses

Immediate
Early warnings,
seasonal
Weather forecasts


Nature, geogr

spread
Key assets – roads, 
food, water,
energy, transport,
owns

People at risk

How will my
business be
affected?

Monitoring for
insurance payouts

2020’s - DRR
Decadal forecasts
Trends and
P(extremes)



Nature and geogr
spread
Sectoral impacts –
food, water, energy,
transport, towns
Global hotspots –
conflict, food security
Humanitarian needs



Probabilities of
catastrophic failure

Probability profiles
hum assistance
and risk insurance





2050’s – adaptation
Climate scenarios
Trend and P(extremes)
Likelihoods of upper/lower?
Upper and lower scenarios
Nature and geogr spread
Sectoral impacts – food, water,
energy, transport, towns
Global hotspots – conflict, water
security, food security
Humanitarian needs
Development of new catastrophic
failure
New market opportunities
Evolving probability scenarios
hum assistance and risk
insurance
Attribution  additionality in
climate finance
TAKE HOME MESSAGES
• Climate science is important for national and international policy
• And it will probably become useful some day also to help us adapt …
• But to be useful it will have to start from the bottom up
–
–
–
–
Understand who’s doing the asking
Understand the nature of the questions asked
Understand context  critical asset /flows
Where and how decisions are made …
• And work with others!
• Relevant time horizons: immediate, 2020’s (DRR), 2050’s (adaptation)
• Don’t worry too much about uncertainties
• But don’t make life even more difficult for people than it already is …
• Priorities: food, water, energy, towns, transport infrastructure, disasters; who
will be most vulnerable – regional / socio-economic group; attribution
Thank you