Climate Change
Impacts and Responses
Topic 7:
Climate Change Adaptation

Topic outline
Image: UN photo, Sophia Paris
1.
Terminology and history
2.
Adaptation approaches
3.
Types of adaptation
4.
Adaptive capacity
5.
Selecting and evaluating adaptation options
6.
Opportunities, limits, and constraints to adaptation
7.
Indigenous knowledge and gender issues
8.
Adaptation policies

Learning outcomes for this topic
 Explain the history of the concept of climate change adaptation
 Describe and critique approaches for selecting and evaluating adaptation options
 Explain how gender and equity issues relate to adaptation
 Give examples of climate research involving scientific and indigenous knowledge
 Summarise constraints and barriers to adaptation
 Discuss features of the international and national policy environment

Terminology and history

 Adaptation
 Adaptation vs mitigation
 Resilience and tipping points
 Vulnerability
Outline:
Terminology and history

The meaning of adaptation
“The process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects. In human systems, adaptation seeks to moderate or avoid harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. In some natural systems, human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate and its effects.”
-IPCC 2014
Incremental adaptation: actions that aim to maintain the essence and integrity of a system or process at a given scale.
Transformational adaptation: actions that change the fundamental attributes of a system in response to climate and its effects.

Adaptation
Adaptation versus mitigation
Mitigation
UN/ Logan Abassi UN/ Christopher Herwig
Even if we were to stop our emissions now, we would still experience climate change for many years in the future

Resilience and tipping points
Resilience: “The capacity of a social-ecological system to cope with a hazardous event or disturbance, responding or reorganizing in ways that maintain its essential function, identity, and structure, while also maintaining the capacity for adaptation, learning, and transformation”
- IPCC 2014
Tipping point: “Thresholds for abrupt and irreversible change”
- IPCC 2014

Vulnerability
“The propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected.
Vulnerability encompasses a variety of concepts and elements including sensitivity or susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to cope and adapt”
-IPCC 2014

Types of adaptation

 Coping
 Maladaptation
 Hard and soft adaptation
 Anticipatory and reactive adaptation
 High regret, low regret and no regret options
Outline:
Types of adaptation

Coping
Image: UN photo, Logan Abassi
“The use of available skills, resources, and opportunities to address, manage, and overcome adverse conditions, with the aim of achieving basic functioning of people, institutions, organizations, and systems in the short to medium term”
-IPCC 2014

Maladaptation
Image: Ildar Sagdegev
“Maladaptation can increase the vulnerability or exposure of the target group in the future, or the vulnerability of other people, places, or sectors.
Some near-term responses to increasing risks related to climate change may also limit future choices. For example, enhanced protection of exposed assets can lock in dependence on further protection measures”
-IPCC 2014

Soft adaptation
Capacity building activities
Soft and hard adaptation
Hard adaptation
Construction
Image: UN photo, Christopher Herwig
Image: UN photo, Tobin Jones

Anticipatory and reactive adaptation
Anticipatory
 Planned, occurring before impacts have been experienced
 Also termed Ex-ante
Reactive
 Responsive, occurring after impacts have already been felt
 Also termed Ex-post

Image: UN Photo, Logan Abassi
High regret, low regret and no regret options
HIGH REGRET: High cost options for adaptation e.g. investment in flood defences
LOW REGRET: lower investment options e.g. mangrove restoration
Image: UN Photo, Eskindar Debebbe
NO REGRET: plausible under all future scenarios e.g. institutional capacity-building
Image: UN Photo, Pernaka Sudhakaran

Adaptation approaches

 Adaptation approaches
 Top-down
 Bottom-up
 Which approach is better?
 Adaptation and development
Outline:
Adaptation approaches

Adaptation approaches
Source: SREX 2012

Top-down approaches
 Have been substantial in conveying scientific understanding to policy
 Most referenced approached within IPCC
BUT
 High level of uncertainty due to the use of climate models.
 Produce long-term projections but government’s goals are short-term

Bottom-up approaches
 Argue that adaptation is linked with key development goals.
 Base adaptation strategies on achieving developmental goals to reduce vulnerability
BUT
 What happens if coping thresholds change?
 What if climate risks are outside the range of those experienced today?
 Does not take into account long-term implications of climate change

Adaptation and development
Reducing vulnerability to the negative impacts of climate change
UN Photo/ Logan Abassi UN Photo/ Tobin Jones

Adaptive capacity

 Adaptive capacity definition
 How is adaptive capacity measured?
Outline:
Adaptive capacity

Adaptive capacity definition
Image: UN photo, Riccardo Gangale
“The ability of systems, institutions, humans, and other organisms to adjust to potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities, or to respond to consequences”
-IPCC 2014

Measuring adaptive capacity at the national level
 Climate disaster mortality data
 Poverty associated with greater losses
 Inequality associated with greater losses
Image: UN Photo, Kibae Park

Measuring adaptive capacity at the local level:
Image: UN Photo, Gill Fickling
Sustainable livelihoods Framework - five capitals: Human, Financial, Natural, Social,
Physical
Local Adaptive Capacity Framework from the
African Climate Change Resilience Alliance
(ACCRA):
 Assets
 Institutions and Entitlements
 Knowledge and information
 Innovation
 Flexible, forward-looking decision-making

Adaptive capacity in summary
 Tangible and intangible assets
 Innovation and technology adoption
 Social learning
 Flexibility
Image: UN photo, Martine Perret

Selecting and evaluating adaptation options

Outline:
Selecting and evaluating adaptation options
 Timescales for adaptation
 The adaptation continuum
 Adaptation and a risk management process
 Adaptation to what and who decides?
 Managing adaptation
 Tools for selecting and evaluating adaptation options

Timescales for adaptation
Systems
Adaptation
Transformational
Adaptation
• Transformation from landuse or distribution change
• New products such as ecosystem services
• Climate change ready crops
• Climate sensitive precision agriculture
• Diversification and risk management
Incremental
Adaptation
• Varieties, planting times, spacing
• Stubble, water, nutrient and canopy management etc.
Climate Change
From Rickards and Howden (2012)

The adaptation continuum
1.
Addressing
of vulnerability
2.
Building response capacity
3.
Managing climate risk
4.
Confronting climate change
Vulnerability focus Impacts focus
From McGray, Hammil and Bradley, 2007
Images: All UN photos, M.Frechon, D.Davis, B. Wolff, S. Leichti

Adaptation as a risk management process
IPCC AR5 WGII 2014, SPM.3

Adaptation to what? Who decides?
Image: UN photo, Fanga Suk
 Integrating top-down and bottom up approaches
 Stakeholder participation
 Shared understandings and visions of the future

Tools for selecting adaptation options
 Nairobi compendium tools from UNFCCC:
•
•
•
•
CLOUD, APSIM, DSSAT and many others
Most require some expertise or training to use
Impacts focus
Go to https://unfccc.int/adaptation/nairobi_work_programme/knowledge_resou rces_and_publications/items/5457.php
 Community Based Adaptation (CBA)
•
•
• Low cost, widely accessible
Vulnerability focus
Go to http://www.iisd.org/cristaltool/

Summary
Photo of farmers digging an irrigation canal in Tanzania as an adaptation option.
Image: UN photo /B Wolff

Opportunities, limits, and constraints of adaptation

Outline:
Opportunities limits, and constraints of adaptation
 Definitions
 Adaptation opportunities
 Adaptation constraints
 Adaptation limits

Definitions
Adaptation Opportunities: factors that make it easier to plan and implement adaptation actions, that expand adaptation options, or that provide ancillary co-benefits
Adaptation limits: The point at which an actor’s objectives (or system needs) cannot be secured from intolerable risks through adaptive actions.
 Hard adaptation limit: No adaptive actions are possible to avoid intolerable risks.
 Soft adaptation limit: Options are currently not available to avoid intolerable risks through adaptive action.
Adaptation constraint
Factors that make it harder to plan and implement adaptation actions or that restrict options.
IPCC 2014

Types of adaptation opportunities
Mangrove planting in Kiribati with UN Secretary General
 Awareness
 Capacity
 Tools
 Policy
 Learning
 Innovation
Image: UN Photo/Eskindar Debebe

Types of adaptation constraints
• Economic
• Social
• Human capacity
• Governance
Images: UN photos, Basir Seerat, Logan Abassi, Sylvan Liechti
• Financial
• Informational
• Physical
• Biological

 Biophysical
 Economic
 Social /Cultural
Types of adaptation limits
Conceptual model of the determinants of acceptable, tolerable and intolerable risks and their implications for limits to adaptation
Image: PCC 2014, Fig 16.1, from Dow et al 20013)

Indigenous knowledge and gender issues in adaptation

Outline:
Indigenous knowledge and gender issues in adaptation
 Indigenous knowledge, scientific knowledge and adaptation to climate change
 Indigenous adaptation strategies
 Combining indigenous and scientific forecasts
 Gender aspects of adaptation and vulnerability

Indigenous knowledge and adaptation to climate change
Scientific knowledge
 Systematic experimentation
 Universal
 Written transmission
Traditional/ indigenous knowledge
 Belief
 Context specific/local
 Oral transmission

Indigenous adaptation strategies:
Some examples
 Zai bunds for conserving water
 Emergency fodder
 Pastoral migrations
 Wild foods
IUN Photo/Tim McKulka

Combining indigenous and scientific forecasts to enhance uptake
USAID – Tom Casadevall

Gender aspects of adaptation and vulnerability
 Type of work – agriculture in developing world
 Access to information
 Highly vulnerable
 Different priorities
 No political voice
UN photo – Carolyn Redenius

International and national adaptation strategies

Outline:
International and National Adaptation Strategies
 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s
(UNFCCC) Adaptation Fund
 National Adaptation Plans of Action (NAPAs)
 Nairobi work programme

The United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
Conference of the Parties
(COP)
▸ Supreme decision making body
▸
Meets formally every year at United Nations Climate
Change Conference
Financial Mechanisms
Aimed at providing for the costs of adaptation
▸ Least Developed Country
Fund
▸ Special Climate Change
Fund

UNFCCC’s Adaptation Fund
 2% of proceeds from Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
 Established in 2001 at COP7
 Official launch in 2007
 Specific adaptation focus – traditional development activities unlikely to receive funding

National Adaptation Plans of Action (NAPAs)
 COP7 (Marrakech, Morrocco, 2001)
 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) Fund
 Resources in excess of $415 million
 NAPAs are a means to prioritize adaptation activities and collect information on local coping strategies already in use

Nairobi Work Programme
 COP11 (Montreal, Canada, 2005)
 Focus on impacts and vulnerability assessments
 Develop technical and socioeconomic foundations for adaptation decisions
 Knowledge sharing platform

 Adaptation terminology
 Types of adaptation
 Adaptation approaches
 Adaptive capacity
 Selecting and evaluating adaptation options
 Adaptation limits, constraints and opportunities
 Gender and indigenous knowledge
 Global adaptation policies
Summary

References
BROOKS N., W. N. ADGER, and P. M. KELLY (2005).
The determinants of vulnerability and adaptive capacity at the national level and the implications for adaptation. Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions, 15,
151-163.
COOPER P. J., S. CAPPIELLO, S. J. VERMEULEN, B. M. CAMPBELL, R. ZOUGMORÉ, and J. KINYANGI (2013). Large-scale implementation of adaptation and mitigation actions in agriculture.
DESSAI, S. and M. HULME (2004).
Does climate adaptation policy need probabilities? Climate Policy, 4 , 107-128.
DOW, K., F. BERKHOUT, B.L. PRESTON, R.J.T. KLEIN, G. MIDGLEY, and M.R. SHAW (2013b).
Limits to
Adaptation.
Nature Climate Change, 3 , 305-307
IISD (2003).
Livelihoods and Climate Change: Combining disaster risk reduction, natural resource management and climate change adaptation in a new approach to the reduction of rural poverty, IUCN-IISD-SEI-IC Task Force on
Climate Change.
IPCC (2012).
Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation. A Special
Report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Field, C.B., V. Barros, T.F. Stocker,
D. Qin, D.J. Dokken, K.L. Ebi, M.D. Mastrandrea, K.J. Mach, G.-K. Plattner, S.K. Allen, M. Tignor, and P.M. Midgley (eds.)].
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, and New York, NY, USA, 582 pp.
KANSIIME, M. K. (2012) Community-based adaptation for improved rural livelihoods: a case in eastern Uganda. Climate and Development, 4, 275-287.
KYAZZE, F., B. OWOYESIGIRE, P. KRISTJANSON, and M. CHAUDHURY(2012).
Using a gender lens to explore farmers adaptation options in the face of climate change: Results of a pilot study in Uganda.
McGray, H., Hammill, A. and Bradley, R., (2007) Weathering the Storm: Options for Framing Adaptation and
Development, World Resources Institute, Washington, D.C.

References - continued
NEUMAYER, E. and T. PLUMPER, (2007).
The gendered nature of natural disasters: The impact of catastrophic events on the gender gap in life expectancy, 1981-2002. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 97,
551-566.
O'BRIEN, K., S. ERIKSEN, L.P. NYGAARD, and A.SCHJOLDEN (2007).
Why different interpretations of vulnerability matter in climate change discourses. Climate Policy, 7 , 73-88.
Rickards L., Howden S. M. (2012) Transformational adaptation: agriculture and climate change.
Crop and Pasture
Science 63 , 240–250.
WILBY, R. L. and S. DESSAI (2010).
Robust adaptation to climate change. Weather, 65 , 180-185.
YOHE, G. and R. S. J. TOL (2002).
Indicators for social and economic coping capacity - moving toward a working definition of adaptive capacity. Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions, 12, 25-40.
ZIERVOGEL, G. and A. OPERE (2010).
Integrating meteorological and indigenous knowledge-based seasonal climate forecasts for the agricultural sector: Lessons from participatory action research in sub-Saharan Africa; IDRC.
IDRC [online].
Nairobi programme on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change https://www3.unfccc.int/pls/apex/f?p=333:1:1231614686716003

Image: UN Photo, Sophia Paris