PROGRESA/Oportunidades: Social protection in Mexico (Image by: Peter Bate, IDB, 2004)

Global environmental change, particularly in the form of global warming, exacerbates the risks faced by vulnerable rural communities whose livelihoods depend on climate-sensitive activities. The occurrence of immediate climate shocks, such as unseasonal droughts or floods, negatively affects food systems, thereby reducing the economic welfare of rural populations. Climate change is essentially a developmental challenge.

Within the context of climate change, the frequency and impact of shocks is becoming increasingly uncertain. Multiple approaches such as social protection (SP), disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) are necessary to improve resilience and reduce external risks. The common goal of all three approaches to risk management is to improve the level of development by reducing poverty within a community, country or region. This is done by tackling vulnerabilities to specific shocks, thereby enhancing individual, community and national resilience to said shocks.

In the context of Mexico, social protection strategies have been mainstreamed into development-but there is little inclusion of climate change adaptation, and disaster risk reduction remains institutionally weak.

The Programme for Education, Health and Food (PROGRESA) and its successor programme, Oportunidades, in Mexico have been praised for improving the capacity of families to pull themselves out of poverty. In 2001, the proportion of people with income levels under the poverty line fell by 10% from 1994, with the greatest improvement noted among the poorest populations. The success of the programmes is attributed to its ability to deal with multiple risks (education, health and food) simultaneously.

However, climatic risks are excluded from development planning. Because rural populations depend on weather-sensitive activities for their livelihoods, building resilience to climate change is fundamental to reducing rural poverty. The impacts of climate change on rural livelihoods remains uncertain.

Climate models predict an adverse impact on Mexican agriculture through an increase in the frequency and impact of weather extremes. Climate change impacts will have an overall negative impact on food insecurity. Changing disease and pest patterns, also associated with climate change, will reduce productivity.

In order to address such risks, it is also important to take into consideration local coping skills as incorporation of risk is commonplace in rural communities. Communities choose crops according to the risks intrinsic to their environment: sugar cane is selected in areas exposed to hurricane risk for its ability to resist high wind speeds and flooding.

Moreover, communities may accumulate assets to improve resilience to climate shocks. Diversification of livelihoods is an important method to encourage asset accumulation. In Mexico, agroforestry techniques have improved resilience to climate shocks. By introducing a woody perennial in a plantation, the farm plot becomes more resilient to climate risks. Farmers have reported lower losses in agricultural productivity following hurricane events after using agroforestry technologies due to increased ecosystem and structural stability. An additional benefit to multiple cropping is the accumulation of cash as the result of having additional crops-reliance on a single crop renders farmers vulnerable to a single market whereas having multiple crops allows farmers to depend on multiple markets. Furthermore, agroforestry techniques are inherently more labour-intensive and therefore encourage employment within a community. Such strategies can therefore be helpful in reducing the vulnerability of rural people to climate shocks but they need to be mainstreamed into development planning.

A combination of approaches may help in improving institutional coordination, and therefore improve both the efficiency and the effectiveness of poverty reduction strategy papers. However, a combination of policies also has the potential of obfuscating their specific roles: they may overlap both in their objective and in their focus, rendering them redundant. Specific policies will likely have very specific aims and objectives in an effective social protection approach. Social protection mechanisms should focus on meteorological phenomena and their impacts on agriculture and rural livelihoods. Social protection should increase resilience to disaster risks, while also acknowledging climate variability in the long-run. Rather than focusing on increasing assets or reinforcing coping mechanisms, social protection should aim to protect livelihoods from anticipated shocks; flexibility should also be given to respond to unexpected shocks. As such, it is important for social protection programmes to take into consideration the changing nature of climate and climate shocks.

The extremely high hurricane season of 2005 highlighted the vulnerability of coastal communities to extreme weather events.  The costliest (Katrina) and the most intense (Wilma) hurricanes were recorded in this season.

Hurricane formation is closely linked to sea surface temperature. Climate models agree that the intensity and frequency of hurricanes will increase over the next few decades as a result of anthropogenic climate change.

This poses important developmental and policy challenges to Mexico.

Developmental challenges

The economic losses associated with hurricanes are huge, with post-disaster recovery accounting for 30% of the regional economy.

The most affected States in Mexico are Veracruz, Tabasco, Yucatan and Quintana Roo.

The former two are highly dependent on climate-sensitive activities including monocrop agriculture and fishing. Monocrop agriculture is economically and structurally vulnerable to climate extremes. For instance, farmers in Veracruz often define hurricanes as “the worst of enemies”-not only do they destroy farm plots, they also affect the quality of soil. Climate change disasters therefore pose important challenges to rural livelihood security.

In contrast, the State of Quintana Roo-where the world-famous tourist resort Cancun is located-depends on tourism for its economic viability. Hotels are constructed on the shoreline and are hence very vulnerable to the winds that accompany hurricanes. During the 2005 hurricane season, losses of over $100 billion were reported.

Policies: disaster risk reduction as a strategy for climate risk management

The socioeconomic implications of hurricane risk are clear. The policy implications, however, are not so clear.

The Mexican adaptation strategy deals mostly with progressive changes (such as desertification and long-term water scarcity) but ignores climate extremes. This is because of the institutional arrangements: climate change is dealt with by a number of agencies, including the Ministries of Environment and Foreign Affairs, whereas disaster policy is prepared by the Ministry of Civil Protection. Disasters are dealt with on a more ad hoc basis, depending on the nature and scale of the emergency.

Disasters continue to be treated as “unavoidable”, and so policy tends to be reactive rather than responsive. However, as part of the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005), several countries (Mexico included) have moved towards disaster risk reduction. By linking risk reduction to climate change, it is possible to adapt to future climate threats. In Mexico, institutional commitment has been attained (with all major government agencies accepting risk reduction as a fundamental aspect of climate policy), but no comprehensive achievements have yet been attained.

Major obstacles to the successful inclusion of disaster risk reduction into Mexico’s climate change policy include:

• Lack of involvement of business: it is necessary to sensitise the private sector and to highlight the profitability of engagement in risk reduction strategies (for example, through insurance).
• Lack of community participation: it is necessary to integrate vulnerable communities in climate policies so as to give them a sense of ownership with the projects.
• Lack of experience with risk reduction strategies: it is necessary to develop policies and learn from past experiences.

By integrating the political epistemologies of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, it might be possible to adapt the most vulnerable coastal communities in Mexico to extreme weather events.

Climatico has just released its latest report entitled, “Copenhagen De-briefing: An Analysis of COP15 for Long-term Cooperation”

This report analyses key issues under discussion in Copenhagen including: finance, technology transfer, REDD+, CDM and JI, as well as the ongoing conflicts between Annex I and Non Annex I countries. The Copenhagen Accord is also discussed along with its potential effect on future negotiations.

Download the report

Author: Jennifer Helgeson

Betio village, Kiribati. 10 February 2005. ©Greenpeace / Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert

The Kiribati delegation made a powerful public presentation of the extreme risks faces by their atoll nation in the near future by climate change effects.  Climatico analyst Jennifer Helgeson had the opportunity to have a discussion with Kiribati’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Immigration, Tessie Eria Lambourne, as well as legal Solicitor-General, David Lambourne.

The presentation preceding this conversation combined scientific discussions alongside cultural themes and socio-economic projections to put what Mr. Lambourne notes as a “human face” on climate change.  This human face includes issues such as quickly disappearing corals, loss of infrastructure, lack of potable drinking water, and extensive health issues.

Sea level rise is so serious for this nation that it is described as “inundation risk” by the risk management specialists brought in by the Kiribati government to assess the nation’s environmental situation.  These specialists have described two options for changes to Kiribati in the coming century:  1) Temporary inundation; or 2) Permanent inundation, with many changes already triggered and slowly evolving.  In the most modest model proposals (following IPCC projections), there is major coastal loss to the nation by 2030 and by 2050 there is a proliferation of swampy area throughout the mid-lands of the country. Finally, by 2100, there will be major permanent inundation of areas throughout the islands.

Such a situation would necessitate major evacuation of Kiribati’s citizens to other nations.  But, Ms. Lambourne makes it clear that if evacuation and relocation becomes realistic, the people of Kiribati will not go as environmental refugees: “We are a proud people.  We want to offer skilled individuals to other nations; we have no interest in our people living off of welfare.”  In this spirit, the government is committed to merit-based relocations (e.g. agreements to train Kiribati women as nurses in order to fill employment gaps in developed countries).  The programs already in development with Australia and New Zealand ensure long-term Kiribati communities in those nations.  Mr. Lambourne explains that historically other Pacific Island nations have had migration due to socio-economic factors.  So, they have seed communities of their indigenous people in places like New Zealand and Australia.  We need to develop those kinds of seed communities to absorb Kiribati people if climate change forces it to be so.”

When asked why he and his wife are so knowledgeable on climate change, Mr. Lambourne states that all the heads of state know about climate change because it is pervasive in all issues faced by Kiribati.  Kiribati has ordered village by village risk assessments and the reported outlook is grim.  The only airway to the country is likely to be totally inundated by 2030.  There is a key data gap in how coral will react over time; the excellent records kept since the 1990s does not allow for accurate projections.  The most densely populated island of the atoll is Tarawa (45,000 people) and poverty as well as health issues will only be exacerbated by climate change.   The one fresh water lens for the community’s drinking water has also begun to see minor salination.  Ms. Lambourne shakes her head and asks rhetorically: “do you know how expensive it is to maintain a desalinization plant?”

Kiribati is asking the world for help, but at the same time, Ms. Lambourne is quick to point out that they are taking hold of their own fate.  The Clean Development Mechanism hasn’t really made it into Kiribati because of the costs involved in setting-up the process.  “Who would do a single project in Kiribati when economies of scale let them do thousands cheaply in China?” asks Mr. Lambourne.  “We don’t have the technology to promise specific targets but we are working hard to get towards the use of more sustainable fuel types and seriously reducing the atoll’s carbon footprint.”

Kiribati is tackling the hard issues.  Mr. Lambourne admits that “relocation at all is not a comfortable topic, but we have to be realistic.”  He looks at me and jokes that, after all, our President is an economist; he is practical.”  Asked about how other Pacific Island nations feel about the merit-based migration program Kiribati is striving towards, the answer is that not all nations think it is the best way.  “Of course, it takes work on our part and on the part of our people.  But we are part of the AOSIS [Association of Small Island States], and we agree with the common message.  Each nation might choose to get there differently, but we agree.”

Complemented on the lovely Kiribati bird song shared during the initial presentation, Ms. Lambourne smiles and says that “the frigate bird is a prime example of national identity; that is why it is so hard to think about moving our people; the spiritual connection to the land is so intense.  The suggestion guides to adaptation all say that the easiest thing for individuals’ to do is to move away from coastal areas, but what happens when your entire nation is a coastal area?”

For more on Kiribati’s climate change plan for adaptation and potential evacuation, see: www.climate.gov.ki

The clock is ticking. The UNFCCC’s Copenhagen summit is just 7 days away, and recent reports have been encouraging. Shortly after China and the US made announcements on commitments to reduce their GHGS, Commonwealth leaders backed a $10bn Climate Change fund. Proposed by UK PM Gordon Brown, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the fund seeks to provide immediate financial support to those States most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

UK PM Gordon Brown said on Friday that half of the fund should be aimed at helping the most vulnerable states to adapt to climate change, whilst the other half should be targeted at measures to reduce GHGs in the least developed countries.

The first funding would be made available early next year, before any international agreement could take effect, whilst there are suggestions that funds for the most vulnerable small island states would be fast-tracked and made available immediately.

This agreement by the Commonwealth demonstrates how climate change can unite different countries - small/large, rich or poor to find a resolution; and delivers some promise for next week’s summit.

The Commonwealth leaders also agreed to seek a legally binding international agreement, though it is widely believed that “a full legally binding outcome” might have to wait to 2010.

The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, added that any commitments they would announce would be “ambitious”, though it is highly likely that will be subject to significant commitments by other influential nations too.  This prisoner’s dilemma characterises the negotiations, and also represents the biggest threat to a global deal.  However, the recent flurry of announcements for GHG reduction commitments from many of the key players has sparked hope that all is not lost yet.

The countdown begins. I will attend the final week of negotiations with a focus on proposals from the developed nations.

Bang it on the table, Gordon!

The Guardian has it that the EU is once again stalling on adaptation finance being additional to aid (see previous Climatico posts on this issue here and here). Someone has forwarded them “confidential papers” where key lines of negotiating text have been removed. Apparently it says, “Cannot accept reference to ‘additional to’, and ’separate from’ ODA [official development assistance] targets.”

This has of course brought howls of complaint from the development NGOs, who argue, rightly in my opinion, that adaptation finance is a justice issue. Climate change was mostly caused by rich countries, the argument goes, and so any costs that poor countries incur in adapting to it should be financed by rich countries. Meles Zenawi (Ethiopia’s PM) puts it best, saying,

“[Climate change] has created a more hostile environment for development. No amount of money will undo the damage done. But adequate investment in mitigating the damage could partly resolve the problem. … Developed countries are thus morally obliged to pay partial compensation to poor and vulnerable countries and regions to cover part of the cost of the investments needed to adapt to climate change.”

Aid has completely different objectives (as well as different political economy questions around it), and should be protected from mission creep. Developing countries have consistently argued that a fair deal on finance is necessary for them to accept anything on the table at Copenhagen. If they are to get no additional funds, they might walk, and rightly so.

International Development is one of the few areas in which Gordon Brown still claims moral authority. He has banged his “big clunking fist” on the table before, to prevent rich country backsliding on development assistance - let’s hope he does it again. What he proposed last year is the least worst option - it acknowleges that adaptation and development do cross over to an extent, and therefore promises that 90% of adaptation finance from the UK will be additional to ODA. Along with the £10bn global fund he annoucned on Friday, this provides a useful framework for the EU.

A woman builds a fuel-efficient stove in DRC (credit: worldvision.org.uk)

There was a meeting on climate technology transfer in Delhi a few weeks ago, and the G77+China made their feelings known that an agreement on technology transfer is crucial to a fair global deal.

At issue is the fact that rich countries are demanding that poorer countries like India and China reduce their emissions, even while their per capita emissions are far, far lower than theirs. Part of rich countries’ side of the bargain, therefore, has to be to help provide these low-carbon technologies to poor countries. By low-carbon technologies, I’m talking about CCS, fuel-efficient stoves, solar water heating - anything that is a tool in the journey towards low carbon economies across the world.

Whilst India’s emissions are rising fast, and the highest-profile climate disputes have been between the US and India, we should remember that 400 million Indians still live without electricity, some 25% (!) of world’s total. Technology, and sometimes technology transfer, will need to be part of the solution.

It sounds easy, but actually it is quite hard for poor countries to even assess their needs. Foreign technologies do not necessarily fit different contexts (this has been a long and hard lesson learnt in the water supply sector)

NGOs often trumpet the superiority of “indigenous technologies”, and usually rightly so. But they also always face the perennial problem of scaling up, and scaling up fast. “Upward” dissemination of successful technology options is often fragmented. Furthermore, it must be remembered that this isn’t simply the case of funding a few research institutes to come up with gizmos and then the money running out, but also training the next generation of local technicians.

So, perhaps it’s wrong to talk about technology “transfer”. Collaboration is probably a better way to put it, especially since much of the best new “cleantech” is coming out of the global south. India has suggested a network of climate or technology innovation centres in developing countries (the kind of south-south technology collaboration I wrote about here). These centres could identify locally relevant technologies, deploy them faster, and build capacity.

Furthermore, this isn’t only about the poorest countries and relatively simple technologies. Recent research carried out in China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand found that there wasn’t enough R+D going on in the fields of clean coal, biofuels and solar power. This was due to a number of reasons, but particularly due to skills, high capital costs, intellectual property rights, and cost. Copenhagen needs to address the latter, at least to a degree.

In the end, it doesn’t matter where the technology comes from (transferred, collaborated upon, or indigenous) as long as it is appropriate and the price is right!

 EU leaders failed to agree on a financing proposal for developing countries after their two-day summit this week, leaving the EU’s negotiating position on the issue open-ended.

A Kenyan riverbed: developing countries are expected to bear the brunt of climate change because of their geography and their lack of capacity to adapt to change (Image: Matt & Kim Rudge @Flickr)

In a set of conclusions that were long on rhetorical concern about accelerating climate change but short on any new commitments for the EU, the European Council effectively endorsed the views set forth in the Commission communication on funding that I discussed a few weeks ago. This means that the 27 Member states have agreed a common view of the amount of funding required for adaptation and mitigation in developing countries – €100bn annually by 2020 – but not over how much of this should come from the EU and its members.

One of the reported reasons for the failure to reach an agreement is reported to be, as usual, down to differences between the richer and poorer members of the EU. A coalition of East European countries allegedly resisted specific commitments due to concern over their ability to afford the proposals. But the BBC also reported differences over negotiating strategy as a cause for the ambiguity of the Council’s position. Germany, it is suggested, believed that providing an explicit figure would provide less of an incentive for other developed countries to make similar commitments.

How much the EU is really willing to pay for climate change mitigation and adaptation in developing countries, then, remains to be seen. But the failure of EU leaders to establish a common position underlines the political difficulty associated with large transfers of wealth to countries whose citizens don’t vote in European elections.

expect more photos like this...

“Unless we see an advance on ambitious industrialised country targets and significant finance on the table, it is very difficult for negotiators in this process to continue their work in good faith” - that’s how Yvo de Boer summarised the current situation today.

But what’s frustrating de Boer (and I’m inclined to agree) is that most rich countries are letting negotiations go to the wire. They’re holding back their final positions, for fear of losing an advantage in the negotiations. And that’s despite poorer countries, most notably the BRICS+, putting lots of constructive stuff on the table. Here’s just a few:

• Brazil - 80% percent reduction in deforestation by 2020
• Indonesia - 26% percent by 2020 from “business as usual” levels
• China - carbon intensity reduced “by a notable margin” by 2020 on 2005 levels.

It’s fine to keep your cards close to your chest during the fun and games a year before the summit, but now there’s only the Barcelona meeting to go before Copenhagen. That’s really not very much negotiating time left… and there’s still no consensus on emissions cuts or a serious commitment on finance on the table.

Admittedly Gordon Brown got the ball rolling a few months ago by putting a figure on it, but there is still no agreement on the size of climate funds or how to manage them.

And there’s no sign of things changing any time soon, especially with Waxman-Markey unlikely to pass through the senate before Copenhagen. So, I’m sure we’ll be seeing many more photos like above one over the next few months. But with initiatives like this currently rumbling back in the House of Representatives, perhaps that’s a good thing?

Rich countries, led by the US, have opposed discussing proposals from various poor countries around the reform of intellectual property rights (IPR). These discussions are crucial to technology transfer efforts. This document is quite useful as a primer on IPR and climate change.Technology transfer (as I’ve written before) will be crucial for helping poor countries develop clean technologies. However, current IPR regimes are quite restrictive, and much IP is owned by private companies who don’t want to give it away for free.

This isn’t the first time these issues have come up in a global social justice context. A few years ago there was uproar when big pharma tried to stop generic drugs companies copying their HIV/AIDS treatments and selling them at prices which poor people in developing countries could afford.

G77+ China have been arguing that rich nations should buy cleantech IPR from private companies in their countries and make it available to all, in the name of climate justice. This move would also prevent those companies from making huge profits out of the necessity of the world moving towards less carbon-intensive growth.

It is essentially another row about market-based mechanisms - countries like India are arguing that the market can’t be trusted to provide a consistent flow of technologies, which is fair enough. Of course, there is another side to the argument. It would be very difficult to change the IP regime to accommodate free transfer of clan technologies - the whole thing could need to be rewritten.

Furthermore, it would remove the profit motive for companies to develop the technology in the first place. Therefore, rich countries are sceptical because if the idea was put in place it would essentially involve them massively subsidising green industry, distorting markets, and generally holding back the “invisible hand” that is supposedly going to solve all our climate problems.

In any case, there has to be a way around this issue that lets technology transfer happen in both a fast and fair way. Just don’t expect rich countries to budget on IPR reform…