Transcript WSLG Water and Climate Change

Learning from current mitigation
and adaptation strategies, models
and practices for Climate Change
with special focus on water
Presentation to WSLG
17 November 2011
Jessica Wilson, Environmental Monitoring Group
EMG’s work on
water and climate change
• EMG established as non-profit NGO in 1991
• member of SA water caucus and various environmental justice & climate
change networks
• Working on water-climate change links for past 4 years, mainly wrt to
urban water services, including:
– Household water conservation,
awareness, leak fixing, etc.
– Action research with poorlywater-serviced communities
– Municipal responses to southern
Cape drought
– Social justice angles of WDM,
tariffs and budgets
Work documented in new book:
water and climate change: an
exploration for the concerned and curious
www.emg.org.za
Civil society active on water and cc
• Water focused include
– National & provincial water caucuses (NGO&CBO networks)
– Umphilo waManzi: action research and community based
adaptation in KZN; Mvula Trust: water and sanitation
provision, including climate friendly alternatives: TCOE: rural
livelihoods, including rights to water and land
– CC links: rainwater harvesting, water services, catchment
management, waste-water treatment, food-growing, jobs etc.
• Climate & energy focused include
– CJN! SACAN, groundWork, ELA, million jobs campaign, etc.
• There will be coordinated CSO presence at COP17,
at the C17 People’s Space (UKZN), including a
seminar on water and cc on 1st December
www.emg.org.za
Missing from the debate
• Mitigation within the water sector
• Building social and institutional
responsiveness (rethinking governance)
• Human-scale resilience and livelihood
centred approaches
 need to make sure proposed solutions don’t
contribute to climate change or make people
more vulnerable
www.emg.org.za
Mitigation within the water sector
• Electric pumps only option for small-scale farmers
getting support from DoA in southern Cape. Why not
solar or wind pumps?
• Biogas digesters to extract methane from household
waste and sewage, currently mothballed at many
waste-water treatment plants
• Alternative waste-water treatment technologies, e.g.
integrated advanced ponding
• These are tried and tested technologies that work,
are easy to maintain and need support and rolling out
www.emg.org.za
Building social and
institutional responsiveness
(rethinking governance)
• We’re not adapting to a fixed (or uniform) scenario so
key is ability to respond
• This means strong elements of trust, respect,
communication within institutions and between state
and citizen
• Example: addressing water management device
failures in Witsand, Cape Town
• Systems that function, e.g. call centres, participatory
processes for IDPs and budgets, local disaster /risk
management strategies, intergovernmental
cooperation
www.emg.org.za
Human-scale resilience
and livelihood centred approaches
• Human-scale interventions are
critical and could be more effective
than large-scale projects, e.g.
rainwater harvesting at household
or small-farm scale
• For whom are we securing water?
• Resilience based on relationships,
e.g. will your neighbour share her
water with you in times of scarcity?
• Systems of governance &
distribution, allocation, tariffs,
rationing – ensuring they meet
people’s needs and don’t continue
to subsidise an unsustainable
economy
www.emg.org.za
Learning from
false or partial solutions
• Confusing resource scarcity with financial
scarcity exacerbates social scarcity
• Guard against WDM that targets and
penalises poorer households (and
exacerbates social inequality and injustice)
• Desalination needs careful consideration
because of high energy and financial costs
• A cc response that relies heavily on DWA
business-as-usual is not enough!
www.emg.org.za