OUTLINE
• Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) Concept
• The Role of uncertainty• Managing uncertainty – five methods• Conclusion
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4
CCA: Living with climate change
• An automatic or planned response to change that minimises the adverse effects and maximises any benefits.
• Now and near future time-basis• Anticipatory, Autonomous, Planned
effectsbenefits
Parry et al. 2007
The Role of uncertainty
• 2 sources of uncertainty: Scientific Future human & behaviour
• Being used as a delaying tactic• Despite uncertainties, decisions have to
be made
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Managing uncertainty – five methods
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1. “no-regrets”
2. reversible and flexible
3. have “safety margins”
4. soft adaptation strategies
5. have shorter decision time horizons.
• measures constitute a first category of strategies that are able to cope with climate uncertainty.
• generates benefits even in forecasts reveal wrong.
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1. “no-regrets”
• favour strategies that are reversible and flexible over irreversible choices.
• The aim is to keep as low as possible the cost of being wrong about future climate change.
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2. reversible and flexible
• reduce vulnerability at null or low costs • practical applications recently (e.g.
manage sea level rise or water investments
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3. have “safety margins”
• institutional or financial tools rather than technical (e.g. land-use plans, insurance schemes or early warning systems)
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4. soft adaptation strategies
• uncertainty regarding future climate conditions increases rapidly with time.
• reducing the lifetime of investments is an option to reduce uncertainty and corresponding costs.
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5. have shorter decision time horizons.
Adaptation In Agriculture
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Options Ranking
Crop Insurance
+ + + 1
Irrigation + - + 2
Shorter rotation time
- - + 2
Dev. Resistant crops
++ 1
The options are ranked first and coloured in green when they are evaluated positively in light of the present analysis. Other options, ranked second and coloured in yellow, have to be considered in spite of their lack of flexibility because this drawback is compensated either by the fact that they yield benefits in the current climate,by the availability of cheap safety margins, or by the reduction of decision horizons,
no-regrets reversible and
flexible
“safety margins” soft strategies
shorter decision
time horizons
Adaptation +
Mitigation
Conclusion
• Adaptation programs and its implementation is a dynamic processes, will be efficient if it is always updated.
• The need for synergies between mitigation and adaptation is paramount because both like two sides of the same coin
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References
Hallegatte, S 2009, Strategies to adapt to an uncertain climate change, Global Environmental Change, vol.19, pp. 240–247.
Hallegatte, et al. 2012. “Investment Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty: Application to Climate Change.” The World Bank, Policy Research Working Paper 6193.
Parry et al. 2007. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, CUP.
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