Sponsor(s): Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research
Completion Date : August 2008
Climate change is one of the gravest catastrophes in the history of mankind, posing a threat to both present and future generations. Scientific research indicates that it could lead to intense and frequent extreme weather events such as hurricanes, acute heat waves, floods in some areas and drought in others. It may also trigger natural disasters such as tsunami and disease outbreak more frequently.
Expected impacts of climate change
Climate change is expected to further aggravate its impacts in developing countries, whose economies are closely tied to climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture, and which are already facing multiple stresses due to population growth, urbanization, industrialization, and globalization. In the tropics and subtropics, where some crops are already near their maximum temperature tolerance and where rainfed agriculture dominates, yields are likely to decrease for even small changes in climate, which could lead to increased risk of hunger. Often, the poorest in rural areas occupy the most marginal lands, and this forces people to rely on highly vulnerable livelihoods in areas prone to drought, flooding, and other hazards. Developing countries also lack the financial mechanisms and technical resources to effectively defend themselves against natural disasters. Thus, regions and communities that are unable to cope with current climate hazards are also likely to be the most poorly equipped to cope with the adverse impacts of climate change.
The impacts of climate variability or extreme events have traditionally been tackled through government assistance or informal risk sharing at the community level. Rural households respond to the lack of formal financial services by turning to moneylenders, by selling assets, reducing inputs in farming or diversifying their activities. Another strategy is to send family members to work elsewhere and remit payments. However, such traditional risk management strategies, while reducing vulnerability in the short term, can increase vulnerability over the longer term by promoting sub-optimal asset allocation. For instance, small farmers may opt for multiple cropping to reduce income variability rather than risk growing the most profitable crops. Without adequate recourse to formal credit and insurance, small and marginal farmers in particular become caught up in a vicious cycle of indebtedness and impoverishment.
Clearly, relief is not enough to restore those most affected to their original economic status making risk-transfer tools like insurance in the light of India's disaster vulnerability, very important.
Building capacity to protect the most vulnerable
The rural poor in developing countries can be made less vulnerable
to the adverse impacts of climate change through judicious natural resource
management policies and access to risk transfer mechanism. However, this
requires capacity building of policy-makers and practitioners not directly
dealing with climate change issues. These include finance or agriculture or
water ministry officials, insurance regulators, and micro-finance institutions.
The present project aims to build capacity of policy-makers and practitioners in
developing countries:
To systematically screen new risk presented by climate change To make available
affordable and innovative risk-transfer mechanisms to the most vulnerable
communities
This modular web-based learning package aims to build the capacity of stakeholders to address the changing risks. The package uses ongoing research findings, case studies/success stories from developing countries to explain the strategies that need to be adopted by both public and private players. In particular, it attempts to build capacity to enable stakeholders to systematically screen climate change risks, and modify currently available risk-transfer mechanisms (like insurance) so that affordable products and innovative delivery mechanisms are made available to the most vulnerable communities (like poor rural farmers).
Relevant information like current state of knowledge, latest climate change science findings, disaster trends and unanticipated changes, and strategic opportunities were collated and developed in these web-based learning packages. Stakeholders were consulted to make the package user friendly and acceptable. The developed modules are listed below.
Module 1 Understanding climate change and impacts
Module 2 Climate risk
screening methods
Module 3 Building coping
strategies
Module 4 India's action on
climate change
Module 5 Vulnerability index and
hotspot mapping
Module 6 Understanding the
Southern perspective for adaptation and mitigation
Module 7 Mitigation
and CDM: facts and figures
Module 8 Information and
communication technology for awareness and capacity building for enhancing
adaptive capacities of vulnerable communities