Adapting to climate change: International organizations

One motivation for studying patterns caused by climate change is to provide information to those people whose lives and livelihoods are most seriously affected. Indigenous people and people in developing countries are especially vulnerable. Lacking the resources of many developed nations, such populations will likely suffer more than their counterparts as the climate changes.

The World Bank, the International Federation of the Red Cross, and other organizations often provide aid in the wake of natural disasters. To the extent that climate change is predictable, creating climate uncertainty forecasts for developing countries is vital for assessing appropriate action. And the strategic allocation of resources requires careful analysis. To that end, several global research initiatives are now in place to quantify the locations most in need of aid.

According to the World Bank’s 2010 World Development Report, the Earth could warm by 5°C by the end of the century. When we compare that rise with the slower shift of pre-industrial times, we realize that we are facing a vastly different world in the relatively near future. Even a 2°C increase would require substantial adaptation. That change is coming seems clear: The question now is, how to deal with it?

Planning for change: Early warning, early action

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report cites examples by which a warming world has more frequent natural disasters, and suggests that measures will need to be expanded and transformed to mitigate the outcomes of coping with extremes.

Maarten van Aalst, director of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Climate Centre , works to bridge the gap between available information and decision making inside the Red Cross, but also toward local communities in developing countries. People over-emphasize short-term trends when planning for long term change but in actuality, decadal variability might bring adverse conditions sooner than they think.

“It’s very difficult to get people to act on probabilistic information,” he says. “Once a disaster happens, everyone in the Red Cross knows what to do. We also know about reducing risk in the long-term.” But implementing procedures based on forecasts becomes more complicated.

In 2007 areas of West Africa flooded disastrously, prompting the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to look at changing risks in the region. Faced with high uncertainties regarding long-term risk trends, the IFRC focused on better disaster preparedness, better interpreting climate information at shorter timescales, and thus better managing rising uncertainty in a changing climate.

The next year, in May 2008, heavy rainfall was forecast during the July–September rainy season. When the forecasts materialized and heavy floods hit the region again, the IFRC was ready to act quickly. Advance positioning of supplies allowed National Red Cross Societies to respond within 48 hours—a vast improvement on the 40-day response time for the 2007 floods. The Togo Red Cross, for instance, said their response was better because they received forecast information early via the IFRC office in Senegal.

“If we look at climate change as something that will occur over a century, that’s not relevant to the communities we work with,” says van Aalst. To underutilize scientific information across timescales is to deprive local people of variability data on annual, seasonal, and shorter timescales, and the associated opportunities to anticipate hazards.

In the 2007 West Africa flood season, Ghanian fishermen were inundated when a hydropower dam reservoir overflowed. In 2008, warned by the seasonal climate forecast, the Red Cross monitored conditions and was able to liaise with authorities when the dam was expected to release, so locals could warn their peers. Simple information sharing saved lives.

Success lies in fostering dialogues between different actors in order to bridge science, policy, and practice. A Boston University study has analyzed a Red Cross Red Crescent tool: the use of games to improve climate risk management. “This puts people into the decision-making context that we have in real life, and they have to make decisions based on rolling a dice,” explains van Aalst.

Faced with uncertainty, but motivated by the desire to win in a game, people are encouraged to strategize. The IFRC used the games with farmers in Senegal as a starting point for real life discussions. The initiative led to mapping options to solve risks, and understanding which actions suited different levels of forecast certainty.

“We still need to convince the donor community to fund early action in advance of disasters based on probabilistic forecasts,” says van Aalst. “If you spend money before a disaster and it doesn’t happen, taxpayers feel you’ve wasted their money.” He hopes to increase accountability by making information more available, and by building the evidence base. Even we occasionally act in vain, early action statistically yields both better humanitarian outcomes and higher cost effectiveness.

Distributing aid: Quantifying vulnerability

With limited resources, quantifying the most relevant places to provide aid becomes vital. The nonprofit organization Global Adaptation Institute (GAIN) aims to do this.

“The original concept was to develop an index that could be used to gain attention,” says Ian Noble, chief scientist at GAIN and former lead climate change specialist at the World Bank. “We assessed not just vulnerability [to climate-related hazards], but also how ready a country was to absorb money and apply it to adaptive actions.”

“Vulnerability” is defined by quality and quantity of water, food, health, ecosystems, human habitat, and infrastructure, with infrastructure further divided into energy, costs, and transportation. “Readiness” comprises economic, social, and governance abilities. As of 2011, the GAIN index also included an “ecosystem services” component to include those processes that humans rely on to provide food, regulate climate, support nutrient cycling, and supply cultural experiences. Selection of urban sector indicators completes the GAIN index.

“We have talked to several corporations who are shaping their investment strategies based on the GAIN index,” says Juan Jose Daboub, founding CEO of GAIN. “Some insurance companies are beginning to use GAIN index metrics to inform their risk profiles.” In 2012 GAIN awarded money to countries whose index placed them in a high vulnerability category in need of investment. The funding supported an irrigation project in Peru carried out by Engineers Without Borders to increase food security, and Positive Innovation for the Next Generation , which uses technology to increase the efficiency and productivity of healthcare workers in Botswana.

“Regardless of whether climate data and projections are accurate, the impacts these changes will have are hard to predict,” adds Daboub. But communities and governments can take concrete actions despite uncertainty. Strengthening basic development objectives, such as reliable infrastructure and water/energy efficiency, can make communities more resilient to natural events.

Mitigation versus adaptation

In addition to adaptation and increased resilience, we must mitigate problems that lead to climate change in the first place. The World Bank tries to provide simple and easily accessible technical knowledge of climate change. One main approach to this task has been to develop carbon markets and mitigation strategies.

“But fundamentally, the Bank is dealing with developing countries,” cautions Noble. “If we put too much emphasis on mitigation, the Bank comes under criticism for shifting the burden back to the developing world.” Because the World Bank can only work with what countries are prepared to pay for or use their loans for, the amount of mitigation that can occur in the least developed countries is minimal: providing basic energy access to these countries is a higher priority. Providing clean energy, if it is available and practical to implement, becomes a solid second priority.

The real challenge for organizations like the World Bank will be to work with multiple large economies, as it will be harder to gain leverage with those countries to act appropriately. And though mitigation stands at the root of change, adaptation to a changing world cannot be treated as a separate issue. That is one reason the Bank has pushed to see adaptation incorporated into normal development planning, and provides money to substantial trial projects such as green energy schemes and policy management.

Where to start?

“You can pick areas of the world that are most likely affected, but everyone has a big problem,” says Noble.

Arctic societies , for instance, can no longer rely solely on past environmental measurements and climatic records to plan for their present way of life. However, “GPS and communications technology can help communities . . . predict shorter-term weather events,” suggests Daboub.

Climate change-related threats to traditional lifestyle are less severe for developing societies at lower latitudes than for Arctic communities. The intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) is affected by climate patterns that flip back and forth across the equator. The collective stress of changing precipitation levels, more frequent storms, change in crop patterns, and increasing ocean levels can combine to create negative effects through these regions.

Poorer countries lack the resources to respond properly to climate change. But in developed countries, regulations, conflict, and corruption take away “precious energy and resources that could be devoted to building more resilient societies,” adds Daboub.

High or low latitude, developed or developing country, scientist or policy maker, all have their role in the ongoing issue of how to adapt to a warming world.