Download Adaptation Work Programme Points for Discussion

Climate Change Adaptation Initiative
Prepared for UNEP Training
Workshop on Climate Change
Adaptation
9 April 2008
Jian Liu, DEPI
Topics
• UNEP on Climate Change: Medium-Term Strategy
and Climate Change
• The Science and the needs
• Setting UNEP’s niche for adaptation
• Actions to support vulnerable countries
• Towards a programmatic approach
UNEP Medium-Term Strategy
(2010-2013)
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Climate change
Disasters and conflict
Ecosystem management
Environmental governance
Harmful substances and hazardous waste
Sustainable consumption and production
UNEP Climate Change Strategy: 4 themes
•Mitigation: facilitating a transition towards low
carbon societies
•Adaptation: adapting by building resilience
•Science: improving understanding of climate
change science
•Outreach: communicating and raising public
awareness
Adaptation:
1. Integrating climate change and ecosystem
management practices
• Assist countries to better integrate ecosystems
approach to climate change
• Develop tools for estimating the value of climate
change adaptation services that ecosystems
provide
• Develop specific assessment tools and
methodologies to assess ecosystem vulnerability
and analyze the potential impact of climate
change on ecosystems
Adaptation:
2. Building national institutional capacities for
adaptation planning
• Help mainstream climate change into development
planning and UN country operations
• Promote the integration of climate change activities of
line ministries
• Promote exchange of experiences on adaptation through
regional networks of experts in developing regions
• Integrate disaster risk reduction and responses into
planning
• Help improve community knowledge on climate change
adaptation through public awareness campaigns
Adaptation in UNEP
Adaptation engages 4 of the 6 thematic
priorities in UNEP MTS:
• Climate Change
• Disaster reduction
• Ecosystem management
• Environmental governance, and
cuts across the work of most divisions and
all ROs…
Topics
• UNEP on Climate Change: Medium-Term Strategy
and Climate Change
• The Science and the needs
• Setting UNEP’s niche for adaptation
• Actions to support vulnerable countries
• Towards a programmatic approach
The Science: IPCC-AR4
• Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and
is very likely due to increase in anthropogenic
GHG concentrations.
• Even if GHGs were to be stabilised today,
temperature and sea level rise would continue
for centuries,
• Adaptation is essential, but there are substantial
limits and barriers
• Mitigation is economically and technologically
feasible
IPCC-AR4: Adaptation
• Adaptation to climate change is already
taking place, but on a limited basis
• Climate change poses novel risks, often
outside the range of experience
• Many adaptations can be implemented at low
cost, but no comprehensive estimates of
costs and benefits exist
• Adaptive capacity is uneven across and
within societies
• There are substantial limits and barriers to
adaptation
Needs of developing countries
(reflected in Bali Action Plan)
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International cooperation to support urgent
implementation of adaptation actions,
including through vulnerability
assessments, prioritization of actions,
financial needs assessments, capacitybuilding and response strategies,
integration of adaptation actions into
sectoral and national planning…,
Needs of developing countries
(Cont.)
• Risk management and risk reduction
strategies, including risk sharing and
transfer mechanisms such as insurance;
• Disaster reduction strategies and means
to address loss and damage associated
with climate change impacts…;
• Economic diversification to build resilience.
Topics
• UNEP on Climate Change: Medium-Term Strategy
and Climate Change
• The Science and the needs
• Setting UNEP’s niche for adaptation
• Sample actions to support vulnerable countries
• Towards a programmatic approach
Key Players and their roles
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UNDP (Development),
WMO (climate change science),
FAO (food security, REDD),
WHO (health),
ISDR (disaster reduction),
UNFCCC (Nairobi Work Programme),
World Bank (poverty reduction and finance,
investment)
Challenges to UNEP
• Over-simplification of adaptation as
economic development
⇒ Little room for the environmental aspect and
jeopardizes the ecosystem services
supporting development
• UNEP’s country presence is mainly through
environment ministries
⇒ Partnerships with national planners and
sectoral ministries as well as local
governments are still to be strengthened
Comparative advantages of UNEP
• Track record: co-sponsoring IPCC, Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment, Global Environmental
Outlook, AIACC project, Integrated Water Resource
Management, Regional Seas Initiatives… and
• Built credibility as a
– a capacity builder,
– ecosystem manager and,
– knowledge mobilizer
• Global leadership and its convening power such as
organizing adaptation session of SG’s High-Level
Event on climate change, and the side-event on
adaptation at UNFCCC COP 13
UNEP’s complementary approach
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Building on strength
Overcoming weakness
Looking for new opportunities
Executing comparative advantages
The Niche of UNEP
• Meeting the twin needs of vulnerable
countries for environment protection and
economic development and,
• Assisting them in integrating adaptation into
their multi-faceted planning and deliberative
processes.
3 Key pillars to support the Niche
• Building key adaptive capacity of the
developing world
• Increasing ecosystem resilience and
reducing the risk of climate-related
disasters and conflicts
• Mobilizing and managing knowledge for
adaptation policy and planning
Topics
• UNEP on Climate Change: Medium-Term Strategy
and Climate Change
• The Science and the needs
• Setting UNEP’s niche for adaptation
• Actions to support vulnerable countries
• Towards a programmatic approach
1. Global Adaptation Network
To deploy world’s best knowledge and technology to
assist policy-setting, planning and adaptation
practices as well as to support the current and
future UN-wide adaptation arrangements such as
the next stages of the Nairobi Work Programme.
• Network of ground stations for monitoring,
research and demonstration (e.g. ILTER)
• Regional centers for gov capacity building, tech
support policy and planning, and regional
cooperation (e.g. CGIAR, ICIMOD)
• International Support Group for tech support to
regional centers and stations (e.g. SEI, IIED, IISD)
2. Legislators and Planners Forum
• It will transfer existing knowledge on adaptation
to assist legislators and national planners on for
policy-setting on adaptation and to facilitate the
integration of adaptation into relevant
legislations and development planning
• The Forum will strengthen the integration
between national environment and development
agencies and empower environmental agencies
and organizations
• It can support and complement the UNEP-UNDP
Poverty and Environment Initiative
3. Sustainable Water Resource
Management
• To minimise the projected stresses of too little
or too much water for disaster reduction and
conflict prevention,
• through knowledge-based policy, technology
and finance interventions
• Specific objectives:
– to project the best case, worst case and
intermediate case scenarios of water scarcity and
propose/design and help implement responsive
interventions (such as Africa);
– to identify likelihood and frequency of flood risks
and propose/design and help implement preventive
measures (e.g. S. Asia).
4. Integrated coastal zone
management
• To increase the adaptive capacity and
preparedness of coastal areas of South-East
Asia, Small Island Developing States and Africa
to respond to both the threat of sea level rise
(0.18-0.59 m in the next 100 years) and more
frequent floods from down-streams of large
rivers.
• Projects under this action would assist policy
intervention, urban land use planning,
technology transfer, creation of ecological buffer
zones and building of key infrastructures.
5. Conserving biodiversity
• To minimize the projected biodiversity loss, e.g.
the loss of the 20-30 % of species estimated to
disappear when temperature exceeds 1.5-2.5 C,
• through aforestation, avoided deforestation, and
enhanced measures to conserve/improve the
essential habitats for the endangered species
such as nature reserves, greenbelts, Ramsar
sites, botanical gardens and other networks of
protected and/or conservation area.
6: Highland-Lowland Partnership
• To increase the capacity of the mountain
community for adaption to climate change
impacts especially melting glaciers and its
triggered floods and landslides, and help to
increase their preparedness to climate-related
disasters
• through enhancement of highland-lowland
partnerships including technical, financial and
political interventions such as integrated river
basin management by mobilizing information
and financial flows against the water flow to
save lives and livelihoods.
7: Building climate resilient cities
• To help identify the likely impacts of climate
change such as head waves, floods, snowstorm,
water shortage, and related health problems etc
to cities and urbanization process and build
capacities and preparedness propose measures
• Through integration of adaptation into urban
planning process, strengthening key
infrastructures, mobilizing technology and
financial flows to meet the incremental need for
technology and finance.
8: Reducing the risk of climaterelated disasters and Conflicts
• To integrate adaptation efforts into preparedness
and reduction for climate-related disaster and
conflicts and promote such an approach in the
UN system,
• through improving the capacity of national
authorities and relevant organizations,
information management, early warning and
knowledge development, regional/national policy
and planning and advocacy, and partnership
development, with close links to the Hyogo
Framework for Action.
• One of the most challenging yet productive
activities is to link adaptation and disaster risk
reduction/conflict prevention
9: Mobilizing knowledge for policy setting
• To focus on global adaptive capacity
assessment, economic cost-benefit
analysis of innovative financing, and
development and assessment of
adaptation options through the 2nd phase
of AIACC
10: Knowledge-Based Planning
• To help countries mainstream climate change
into development planning process through
partnership with UNDP on Climate Change and
poverty and environment, MDG Fund, CC-DARE
project, NAPAs,
• further development of the package of useful
tools, methods and Good Practice Guidance, e.g.
development of environmental indicators of
adaptation, is also urgently needed
11: Adaptation Knowledge
Management
• To establish a global adaptation knowledge
management system to strengthen UNEP’s
role as the world knowledge centre on
adaptation,
• Building on GEO, IPCC, MA process and
working with WMO, UNDP, SEI,
• Thru e.g. development of specialized website
on adaptation knowledge and interactive
technical platform such as weADAPT (SEI) .
12: Technology for Adaptation
• Environmental safety of applying the new
and high-techs, especially bio-techs such
as new species (such as drought- or
logging-resistant)
• Adoption of these new and high-techs and
increased receptiveness of local
communities,
• Combination of traditional techs and
new/high-techs.
Topics
• UNEP on Climate Change: Medium-Term Strategy
and Climate Change
• The Science and the needs
• Setting UNEP’s niche for adaptation
• Actions to support vulnerable countries
• Towards a programmatic approach
Towards programmatic approach
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Actions in regional packages
Window for emerging adaptation needs
Innovative and sustained financing
Extensive yet strengthened partnerships
Internal capacity building
Actions in regional packages
• Adaptation is region- & ecosystem specific
• Actions will be implemented in developing
regions, yet in different combinations to forge
regional packages to meet different needs, such
as:
– In Africa, package of climate change adaptation，
disaster reduction and conflict prevention, and
– In Asia, IRBM, ICZM, and climate-resilient
urbanization
– SIDs? West Asia? Latin America? To follow up…
Window for
emerging adaptation needs
• To respond to emerging issues or hidden crisis
caused by climate change impacts or extreme
events, such as:
• an ecological or environmental disaster caused
by climate change such as invasive species,
• a gender issue because very often, women are
the most vulnerable group in the most
vulnerable regions,
• an emerging economic issue because insurance
companies have to prepare for most climaterelated disasters and conflicts.
Innovative and sustained financing
• The cost of adaptation is a complicated scientific,
economic and political issue
• Financing adaptation should address both short-term
and long-term, as well as multi-scale and multi-sectoral
needs
• Building on existing mechanisms such as MDGF, SPA,
SCCF, LDCF etc
• Proactive engagement in AF and CCIF
• Looking for new opportunities and striving
for long-term arrangements, such as TF and
regional bi-lateral forum of development
agencies
Extensive
yet strengthened partnerships
• Governments
• UN agencies and organizations, such as UNDP,
WMO, UNFCCC, FAO, ISDR,
• intergovernmental organizations, such as World
Bank, EC, AU, APEC, AfDB, ADB…
• non-governmental organizations, such as IUCN,
WWF, Red Cross,
• the science community, such as CGIAR, ICSU,
SEI, IPCC…
• private sectors and the civil society
Internal capacity building
• UNEP Technical Group on Adaptation to help:
– implement in a coherent manner agreed adaptation
initiatives within the framework of the UNEP Climate
Change Strategy and this Action Plan,
– develop partnerships with governments and
organizations in a coordinated manner to support the
UNFCCC process on adaptation such as the Nairobi
Work Program (NWP),
– strengthen and expand links with the world science
community and other partners to support future
programme development.
• Technical strength in ROs
Conceptual Framework
Adapting by Building Resilience
Identification of
Identification
of challenges/opportunities
challenges/opportunities
Integrated
adaptation planning
Integrated adaptation planning
Implementation
Implementation
Region-1
Region-2
1. Building key adaptive capacity
of the developing world
2. Increasing ecosystem
resilience and reducing the risk of
climate-related disasters and
conflicts
3.Mobilizing and managing
knowledge for adaptation policy
and planning
Region-3
Innovative financing and
strengthened partnerships
Region-4
Thank
you!