Transcript Slide 1

Adaptation - integrated
approaches
Habiba Gitay
World Resources Institute
[email protected]
Climate change - is and will continue to affect
development goals
Development
goals
Current
Development
Cost …figure? … but it is large
A
Development
goals
Current
Development
A … Adaptation Costs
and change in
development plans
Approaches taken
 Conceptual frameworks
– good for getting your world view organised
 Threshold models
– recognition?
 Indicators
– predictive (but not for assessing progress)
Project based: Societal and environmental
components treated as separate entities
Water
Human health
Production systems: forestry,
fisheries and agriculture
Coastal and urban
communities
Energy supply
Tourism
Biodiversity
Outcomes sought..
 Early warning systems
 Research, monitoring
 Capacity building
But….
 Is this improving the adaptive capacity (societal and
biophysical/ecological)
Moving from rhetoric to action
Need…
– integration) - bring together sectors, conventions, use
concepts like the ecosystem approach, integrated land
and water management, wise use etc
– a systems approach (landscape based?)
– Policies to manage risk across sectors
– Analyse policies - what has worked?
– Extract lessons learned
 Mechanisms?
– Facilitate getting people together
So…
 Good to see lots of activity on adaptation
 International conventions - adaptation
decisions
 National activities with similar messages need to integrate adaptation into development
agenda
 Acceptance…
– Added cost to deal with climate change for
many countries and societies
Challenges
 How to integrate adaptation into national
agenda?
 How to avoid a fragmented project based
approach?
 How to monitor if you are meeting your goals?
 How to avoid competition (or survival struggle)
and enhance collaboration and go for policy
cohesiveness
and finally..
 Need sustained effort - not just a 3-5 year
“fashion”
 Looking for “socially just and ecologically
sustainable communities to flourish for
generations to come”