Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability

Question 1

RCP

Answer 1

• Representative Concentration Pathway
• Each RCP contains a set of starting values and estimated emissions to 2100 based on assumptions about economic activity, energy sources, population growth and other socio-economic factors.

Question 2

Mitigation is

Answer 2

reducing GHG emissions

Question 3

Adaptation is

Answer 3

adjusting to climate change and minimizing impacts.

Question 4

Adaptation history - building codes

Answer 4

• Storm force gale with 130km/hr winds, 28th Dec 1879
• Destroyed new Tay River Bridge, Scotland
• Over 70 lives lost
• Led to introduction of first UK building codes
• Also stimulated wider monitoring and application of wind speed data.

Question 5

Adaptation history - meteorological info for military planning

Answer 5

• Un-anticipated wet August, 1917 in NE France coincided with British Army offensive of Passchendaele
• Rainfall 250% of average and the mud and floodwaters seriously hampered the battle
• Over 200,000 Allied lives lost

Question 6

Adaptation history - Storm Surge

Answer 6

• 31st Jan 1952, 6m tidal surge and strong winds
• 307 lives lost in UK
• Led to the design and eventual construction of the Thames Barrier, protecting London from future surges
• Barrier increasingly used to protect City from flood risk
• TE2100 project leading to re-design of Barrier to allow for climate change

Question 7

Adaptation history - ‘hurricane’ and weather warnings

Answer 7

• Gusts of over 150km/hr, 16-17th Oct 1987
• 15 million trees destroyed, widespread power failures, economic losses ran into several £100m.
• Changed the way weather forecasts were communicated to the UK public – introduction of a system of “severe weather warnings”

Question 8

Adaptation history - droughts of 1995-7

Answer 8

• Rainfall below average in England and Wales 20 and the 26 months from March 1995 to April 1997 – two dry summers and two dry winters.
• Serious water shortages in some regions
• New government legislation introduced, requiring water companies to meet basic minimum water service standards
• All new water company management plans must now explicitly take future climate change into account.

Question 9

Adaptation history - heatwave 2003

Answer 9

• Record high tempratures (>37 degrees C) in southeast England in early August 2003.
• Many premature deaths
• Led to UK NHS issuing a “Heatwave Plan for England” to minimize future adverse effects on human health
• Three formal levels of alert/warning, each triggering different interventions
• In 2003, Central Europe experienced the hottest summer since 1500, and the heatwave in early August caused an estimated 14800 deaths in France.

Question 10

Adaptation history - Bushfires in Victoria, 2009

Answer 10

• Record high temperatures, low humidity and extreme winds = highest ever Fire Danger Index predicted
• Agencies issued warnings the day before
• 272 civilians died, over 5000 properties destroyed
• Royal commission set up to investigate deaths
• Recommendations to government included restriction on (re)building in areas of ‘unacceptably high risk’, especially in the face of climate change

Question 11

What is adaptation?

Answer 11

The process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects. In human systems, adaptation seeks to moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate and its effects

Question 12

Anticipatory adaptation

Answer 12

Adaptation that takes place before impacts of climate change are observed

Question 13

Autonomous adaptation

Answer 13

Adaptation that does not constitute a conscious response to climatic stimuli but is triggered by ecological changes in natural systems and by market or welfare changes in human systems. Also referred to as spontaneous adaptation.

Question 14

Planned adaptation

Answer 14

Adaptation that is the result of a deliberate policy decision, based on an awareness that conditions have changed or are about to change and that action is required to return to, maintain, or achieve a desired state.

Question 15

Adaptation is not new because

Answer 15

• Societies have always attempted to make the best use of their climatic conditions
• Societies have also always tried to adapt to changes
• Adaptation includes practices from well-established domains e.g. disaster risk management, coastal management, spatial planning, urban planning

Question 16

Adaptation is new because

Answer 16

• Unprecedented climate conditions
• Unprecedented rate of change
• Unprecedented knowledge
• Unprecedented methodological challenges.
• New Actors
• New measures.

Question 17

Questions for Adaptation to take place

Answer 17

• Climate sensitive domain (agriculture, water, mgmt.?)
• Climate hazard (observed/expected change: changes in mean, extreme)
• Predictability of the climatic change (is confidence in change high → low?)
• Who are the actors (government, private sector, civil society?)
• Timing (reactive or anticipatory?)
• Planning horizon (few months → many decades?)
• Form (What measure: technical, institutional, educational, behavioural?)
• What non-climatic conditions also impact the adaptation decision? (these might be environmental, economic, political, cultural)

Question 18

Preconceptions for effective adaptation

Answer 18

• Awareness of the problem – assessing and communicating vulnerability
• Availability of effective adaptation measured – triggering research that may lead to new adaptation measures
• Information about these measures – identifying and assessing effective adaptation options
• Availability of resources for implementing these measures – evaluating co-benefits; efficient use of resources; additional resources?
• Cultural acceptability – how acceptable is proposed adaptation? Is it fair, equitable, legitimate?
• Incentives for implementing these measures – obstacles, barriers?

Question 19

Energy Saving in building

Answer 19

According to CISL ”there is potential for energy savings of 50-90% in existing and new buildings.

Question 20

Population in cities

Answer 20

More than half the world’s population now lives in cities, making urban areas more important than ever for climate change adaptation. (Rose, 2014)

Question 21

Investment needed in energy sector from rising 2 degrees C

Answer 21

An estimated investment of USD $190-$900 billion a year to 2050 is needed for the energy sector to keep temperatures from rising 2 degrees C. An estimated $340 billion was invested in reducing GHG emissions in 2011/12.
(Rose, 2014)

Question 22

World’s oceans acidity

Answer 22

The world’s oceans have seen roughly a 30% in acidity since pre-industrial times. (Rose, 2014)

Question 23

Research and policy aspects of climate change has focused largely

Answer 23

on the material aspects of climate change, including risks to lives and livelihoods, the costs of decarbonizing economies and the costs of impacts on various sectors of the economy (Adger et al, 2012)

Question 24

Climate change effect on cultures

Answer 24

• The expected impacts of climate change will affect cultures in diverse ways.
• Few cultures will escape the influences of climate change in these coming decades.
• The loss of access to places as a result of coastal inundation for example will have a clear impact on culture. When people are displaced from places that they have value, there is strong evidence that their cultures are diminished.
  Adger et al, 2012

Question 25

Place attachment

Answer 25

• Individuals with a strong attachment to their community are often unwilling to migrate to maintain their income levels because they are reluctant to leave behind their social and emotional support groups and adapt to a new community

Question 26

Fussel (2007) - Adaptation measures

Answer 26

Adaptation to climate change involves a very broad range of measures directed at reducing vulnerability to a range of climatic stimuli

Question 27

Fussel (2007) - Adaptation and risk management

Answer 27

– Adaptation planning shares many common features with risk management but involves unprecedented methodological challenges because of the uncertainty and complexity of the hazard.

Question 28

Fussel (2007) - Adaptation context-specific

Answer 28

Adaptation to climate change is highly context-specific, because It depends on the climatic, environmental, social and political conditions in the region and sector.

Question 29

Fussel (2007) - Adaptation - adaptation principles

Answer 29

– Although there is no single approach for assessing, planning and implementing adaptation to climatic change, some robust adaptation principles have nevertheless emerged.

Question 30

Fussel (2007) - Adaptation assessment

Answer 30

– Adaptation assessment has become more inclusive over time, linking future climate change with current climate risks and other policy concerns.

Question 31

Fussel (2007) - Adaptation consideration of global climate change

Answer 31

– Consideration of global climate change is particularly important for decisions with a long planning or policy horizon

Question 32

Fussel (2007) - Adaptation and impacts of climate change

Answer 32

Adaptation cannot avoid all impacts of climate change, because of important fundamental and practical, constraints. Adaptation to climate change is, therefore, no substitute for mitigation of climate change.

Question 33

High social capital and adaptation

Answer 33

High social capital contributes to both positive public health outcomes and to climate change adaptation.
There is an expectation that social capital could reduce vulnerability to risks from the impacts of climate change in the health sector. Wolf et al (2010)

Question 34

Strong social networks

Answer 34

Strong social networks have been said to support individuals and collective initiatives of adaptation and enhance resilience. Wolf et al (2010)

Question 35

Barriers to adaptation shaped by social networks

Answer 35

This research suggests that barriers to adaptation can be shaped by social networks.
Elderly and social contacts’ perception of health risks from heat waves, and their consequences, are an example of barriers to proactive anticipatory adaptation.
Wolf et al (2010)

Question 36

Adger and Barnet (2009): Four reasons for concern about adaptation to climate change - Adaptation smaller than imagined.

Answer 36

• Scale of change and interconnectedness of impacts may be such that the window of opportunity for adaptation is smaller than previously imagined.
• Recent research that projects future concentrations of GHG based on emission trends since 2000 suggests that there will have to be a major turnaround in policy, planning, and behavior to avoid an atmospheric concentration that poses a significant risk of global mean warming of 2 degrees C or beyond (Meinshausen et al, 2009)

Question 37

Adger and Barnet (2009): Four reasons for concern about adaptation to climate change - adaptive capacity and action taken

Answer 37

• The adaptive capacity will not necessarily translate into action.
• Robert Repetto (2009) has termed this ‘adaptation myth’ – he argues that the US in effect decided that its economy is unvulnerable to climate change impacts and will be able to adapt to climate change.

Question 38

Adger and Barnet (2009): Four reasons for concern about adaptation to climate change - sustainable actions in place?

Answer 38

• The extent to which actions already in place are not sustainable
• In southern Australia the response of governments to declining streamflows – which in extreme cases such as Perth have been 25% of long-term averages (Preston and Jones, 2006) – has been to trade energy for increased water supply

Question 39

Adger and Barnet (2009): Four reasons for concern about adaptation to climate change - Social context of adaptation

Answer 39

• The metrics that may be used to determine the goals of adaptation, the measures of its success, and that trade-offs that may be involved can be understood only in terms of the social context in which adaptation takes places.
• Communities value things differently and these must be taken into account if adaptation is to be effective, efficient, legitimate, and equitable (Barnett and Campbell, 2009).