r e p o r t Weathering the Storm Options for Framing Adaptation

Abstract

Climate change is upon us. The Earth is warming, seasons are shifting, species are moving, and water is flowing at different times and in different amounts. The accelerating and deepening impacts of climate change will touch everyone on Earth in some way, but those who stand to suffer most are the poor. Poor people already live on the margins; they have limited resources with which to adapt to changes in the climate. Most of the worlds poor depend for their livelihoods directly upon highly climate- sensitive resources: fields, forests, fisheries, and other natural assets are the wealth of the poor. Climate change will make these resources less reliable in many places, lowering the prospects for many poor communities to escape from poverty. The people of the world and their governments must find the will and the means to slow, stop, and reverse the buildup of global warming gases in the atmosphere to avert catastrophic warming. But it is too late to avert serious consequences, so we must also learn to adapt to a warmer world. The question of how humanity adapts to climate change is a pressing development issue. As leaders begin to consider policies and measures to respond to mounting climate effects, it is critical that adaptation efforts be designed to reach the poorest communities to safeguard their development efforts. Likewise, development must foster adaptation if it is to succeed under a changing climate. That the poor are the people least responsible for global warming makes these efforts all the more imperative. In Weathering the Storm: Options for Framing Adaptation and Development, Heather McGray, Anne Hammill, and Rob Bradley review examples of adaptation efforts drawn from throughout the developing world. They describe strategies of adaptation and development on an encouraging trajectory of convergence: adaptation efforts that reflect an awareness of how the effects of climate change intersect with poverty, discrimination, resource degradation, and other underlying sources of vulnerability; and development that is devising ways to account for the changing climate in decisions. Unfortunately, the merging of the development and adaptation agendas has a down side. Most existing mechanisms for funding adaptation to climate change have been designed to distinguish carefully between normal development activities and the additional activities needed to adapt to climate change. Such mechanisms do not fit well with a world that calls for integrated approaches to these problems, and one result has been a paucity of resources available for adaptation. It is imperative that support for adaptation be scaled up significantlyand soon. The framework of adaptation approaches proposed in this report contributes to breaking down the either/or thinking that has constrained adaptation funding, by providing a practical alternative for thinking about when and how adaptation and development intersect. Weathering the Storm is among the first global reviews of adaptation efforts to date and, as such, takes a relatively early step in understanding how adaptation and development can best support one another. There is much left to learn. The report also represents the World Resources Institutes first major engagement in the global dialogue on adaptation. In this respect, as well, it is an early step; much scope remains for applying WRIs expertise on environmental governance and ecosystem services to this critical emerging issue. I hope that readers within both the climate change and the development communities will find it a valuable contribution as they consider how best to support adaptation efforts in the context of the need for development, and I would welcome readers thoughts on approaches to this issue.