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Adaptation initiatives for the Asia-Pacific region
Climate Adaptation National Research Flagship
Andrew Ash
Flagship Director
August 2008
The case for climate adaptation reaffirmed
“The international community is too late with
effective mitigation to avoid significant impacts. It
may yet fail to put in place substantial mitigation, in
which case the challenge of adaptation to climate
change will be more daunting”.
“As a nation, Australia has a high level of capacity
to plan for and respond to the impacts of climate
change – that is, its adaptation potential is high.”
Garnaut Climate Change Review – July 2008
1. Preparing for extreme events
• Strengthen weather and seasonal climate forecasting services
in the region
• Develop and provide more regionally relevant climate change
projections
• Enhance in-country and regional capacity in meteorology and
climatology through dedicated training programs
• Broader institutional and community capacity building around
the risks of climate change – need thorough vulnerability
assessments conducted in partnership with governments and
communities
2. Health
• Put additional effort into reducing major infectious and vectorborne diseases e.g. QIMR/UQ Gates Foundation dengue fever
program
• Improve water supply and treatment and sewerage
infrastructure so that it can withstand more extreme events
3. Agriculture, fisheries and food security
• Context: world food production doubled as a result of the green
revolution. It needs to double again in the next 50 years. Food
reserves at their lowest level for 40 years. In Asia decreased irrigation
water projected because of glacial melts and earlier snow melt. N
fertiliser rapidly increasing in price.
• Strengthen efforts to:
- improve upland/dryland farming systems
- water use and nutrient use efficiency
- diversify crops/food to reduce vulnerability to extreme events
- re-design aquaculture
through ACIAR/AusAid
• Slow or halt land degradation and loss of ecosystem services that
underpin agriculture
4. Systems analysis
• Interventions need to be thoroughly analysed to avoid unintended
consequences e.g. lack of capacity to maintain and support new
technologies
Climate Adaptation Flagship
Dr Andrew Ash
Director
Phone: +61 7 3214
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.csiro.au/org/ClimateAdaptationFlagship
Thank you
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