Linking Adaptation to and Mitigation of Climate Change in

Policy and Practice: Some Considerations

by Leisa Perch Coordinator – Rural and Sustainable Development

IPC-IG

Forest Day Central Africa (May 28th, 2011)Brazzaville, Congo

Email: leisa.perch@ipc-undp.org

Introduction to IPC-IG

• IPC-IG is a partnership of the Government of Brazil and UNDP based in Brasilia, Brazil.

• Focus of our research is international; specifically focused on the South and on South-South Cooperation and Learning.

• Themes for IPC’s applied policy research: Macro-Economic Policy, Rural and Sustainable Development, Social Protection, Development Innovations.

• In Rural and Sustainable Development, the focus in on 3 key areas:• Climate Change• Food Security• International Environmental Governance

*See more on our webpage: www.ipc-undp.org

Our CC research and this presentation

Our focus on Climate Change is both as an added and critical further distortion to and opportunity for reconciling environment, social and economic imperatives in policy and in the context of inclusive growth.

This presentation is based on research published in 2 IPC working papers:i) Maximizing Co-Benefits: Exploring Opportunities to Strengthen Equality and Poverty

Reduction through Adaptation to Climate ChangeLeisa Perch. Working Paper # 75. December 2010.

ii) Mitigation of What and by What? Adaptation by Whom and for Whom? Dilemmas in Delivering for the Poor and the Vulnerable in International Climate PolicyLeisa Perch. Working Paper # 79. February 2011.

*Findings based largely on literature review and specific analysis of 32 NAPAs world-wide and 4 Adaptation Fund proposals. It also leverages analysis from other research areas – Social Protection and Development Innovations- which have potential for informing efforts to link adaptation and mitigation .

Uneven Development + climate change = more challenges for Africa

© Asha Nsasu. ALERTNET/Felix MwakyembeRungwe District malaria coordinator, Gideon Ndawala, oversees a nurse attending malaria patient

According to the WB Africa Strategy document – Malaria costs Africa USD 12 billion (including lost productivity) annually (2011: 19)

• Where growth, gender, poverty and environment meet:

• Maintaining adequate levels of food is important for household security, and for health and education gains for production and productivity.

• Continued food production both as a source of good food, economic security and growth depends significantly on adequate and consistent access to water.

• Given the high participation of women in agriculture, small farm production and fish processing, the failure to address structural inequalities will likely result in it being that much harder for them to sustain a livelihood and for these activities to contribute to growth.

• The enhanced production of food and the expansion/diversification to non-farm and other productive sectors is constrained significantly by the lack of access to energy.

Whose vulnerability and whose opportunity

Making sense of vulnerability and resilience:

•Scope:

– Levels: Susceptibility (Exposure +sensitivity) and Resilience

– Capacity to resile: Resource availability, entitlement to call on these resources •Scale:

– Location: classifications within sensitive biophysical systems ignore varying levels of vulnerability (Adger et al.,2006 and Schneider and Lane, 2005)

– Countries/People or both: Vulnerabilities of poor countries are not necessarily those of poor people (Kates, 2000).

– 75% of the bottom billion is in Low Middle Income and Middle Income Countries ( Andy Sumner) suggesting that growth has not been fully inclusive of the poor

Figure 1: IPCC Framework of Vulnerability, 2001. Source: Tincani, Murray and Perch, 2007; redrawn from Ionescu et al. (2005).

Inclusiveness is both process and outcome

Inclusive growth is both an outcome and a process. On the one hand, it ensures that everyone can participate in the

growth process, both in terms of decision-making for organising the growth progression as well as in participating in

the growth itself. On the other hand, it makes sure that everyone shares equitably the benefits of growth. Inclusive

growth implies participation and benefit-sharing. Participation without benefit sharing will make growth unjust

and sharing benefits without participation will make it a welfare outcome (IPC-IG).

Climate Change and Growth

• CC presents a fundamental challenge to inclusive growth processes within states and between states – limiting opportunities for productive inclusion), – potentially de-stabilizing growth, – changing the nature of growth and economies and – destroying the scarce and fragile assets available to the poor.

• Getting the mix right between CC and Inclusive Growth requires policy efforts at a number of levels:

– Reducing the burden on the poor from macro level risks in growth;– Allowing the poor and vulnerable to be heard and to define and contribute to defining

new forms and growth and participating in the transformation;– Helping the poor build and sustain assets which help them to weather shocks, whether

one time intense events or as part of long-term change where shocks will be more frequent;

– Ensuring that women, youth, farmers, the urban poor, indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups have access to opportunities in order to productively contribute to growth.

Current Policy and Practice: Are we there yet?

Linking Adaptation and Mitigation

• Conceptually:• Adaptation largely socially/developmentally-defined, linked to concepts of vulnerability

•Mitigation is usually instrumentally defined and largely market-driven Source: alertnet // Geoffrey Kamadi

A Kenyan woman peels a potato at the Teret settlement scheme of the Mau Forest Complex in the Rift Valley on July 29, 2009. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

*One could easily make a number of assumptions about the circumstances of this Kenyan farmer as does mitigation……e.g. suggesting she move to another crop when she may already have “adapted” by moving to potatoes; and also by thinking she needs to improve production – mechanization - without considering affordability or reliability of access to energy including renewable options.

Even so, current adaptation practice has its limitations in application

Table 1. Analysis of inclusion by group or by vulnerability in NAPAs to-date

* 10 NAPAs did not make it clear if they were participatory

Though the NAPA Guidance speaks to the poor and women and gender and participation – the above suggests a policy struggle exists in making this a reality. And though these issues are being considered they are not always succeeding at the level of prioritization. And the poverty figures and GINIs for many of the countries considered tell a different story to above.

Inclusivity factor

YES - % of all NAPAs reviewed

NO - % of all NAPAS reviewed

Yes- % of all African NAPAs

No - % of African NAPAs

Mentions Gender

78 22 80 20

Prioritizes Gender

37.5 62.5 45 55

Mentions poverty

97 3 100 0

Prioritizes poverty

81 19 100 0

Mentions ethnicity

22 78 15 85

Prioritizes ethnicity

97 3 0 100

Lists vulnerable

groups

65.5 34.5 75 25

Identifies Participatory

actions

56 6 55 45

Disconnects in benefits-sharing in adaptation strategy

Table 2. Adaptation Strategic Entry Points in select African NAPAs (Source: Perch, 2010)

What stands out: Largely food security (distribution and access to food?); urban poverty dynamics not clearly defined. Interesting choices – Eritrea on social protection, Sierra Leone on education and HIV/AIDS, Malawi on HIV/AIDS. A number of opportunities for mitigation through emissions reduction as well as the mitigation of social risk could be exploited..

Country Total proposed projects

Projects addressing gender, poverty reduction and sustainability

Strategy/entry points identified for co-benefits

Burundi 12 1 Poverty reduction

Eritrea 5 1 Most vulnerable – women and the poor – social protection program

Guinea-Bissau 14 2 Food security

Lesotho 8 2 Development and Poverty reduction program

Malawi 5 1 AIDS/HIV

Niger 14 6 Food securityPromoting peri-urban marketsDiversification of income-generation activities

São Tomé e Principe 20 4 Poverty reduction Food security

Sierra Leone 24 5 Education HIV/AIDS

Sudan 5 1 Food security

……with the implication that :

• More successful in responding to scope as opposed to scale:• “Who participates and why (re the interests they represent)” was often not

fully reflective of the inter-secting realities of poverty, gender and ethnicity.• Countries, as represented by their NAPAs, were generally able to define the

link between climate change and the environment (the largest group by a wide margin), a little less so on climate change and poverty (second largest) and the least on climate change and gender (the smallest number).

• African NAPAs seemed to do better on tackling climate change and poverty more consistently and also on vulnerability. Though they were largely consistent in recognizing women’s specific needs and gender differences, assigning this priority was only slightly better than non-African NAPAs.

• Of the 12 NAPAs which addressed (CC+Poverty+gender+environment), 11 were from African countries.

• Where NAPAs from Africa seemed weakest was on the intersection of ethnicity, climate change and natural resource management.

• There is no clear or broad-scale effort in NAPAs to-date to address “safeguards” as a risk management approach as seen in REDD more than elsewhere (lessons from mitigation to adaptation).

• There were also not much clarity on where adaptation and mitigation met e.g. adaptation linked to emissions reduction or the role of energy in the adaptation of food production

Analysis of mitigation practice finds that ............

1) There is a real potential for conflict resulting from the lack of clarity and unresolved inconsistencies between “emissions reduction” and development. Brody et al. (2008) raised this issue in the context of the growing scarcity of natural resources such as water and arable land in some parts of the world.

2) Monitoring and evaluation approaches and criteria remain generalized inmitigation practice. Many of the guidance documents are still unclear about what constitutes a “good project” and what does not.

3) There is much room for interpretation of the guidelines, which state that “project participants (in a LULUCF activity) will only have to conduct an environmental impact assessment if they themselves, or the host country, consider the impacts ‘significant’” (UNEP, 2004). It is now clear what constitutes ”significant”.

4) The lack of coherence between global policy frameworks is potentially costly. Logically, it is possible that climate-change measures could negatively affect biodiversity, and that biodiversity policy could be inconsistent with climate change goals, and the same with efforts to combat desertification and degradation.

5) There are no guarantees that the benefits will be accessible to all. The literature and discourse is clear that “trickle-down” has often not been “effective”.

6) “Low-carbon” will not automatically mean “effective” in a development sense unless clear definitions, governance and means of measurement are put in place to manage such processes better.

And REDD???

• Concerns exist about the access of local communities to REDD finance (normally negotiated between countries), as well as the engagement and participation of all users, including women (Kant, 2010; Gurung and Quesada, 2009; Elisara, 2009).

• True engagement by indigenous peoples in REDD processes remains a question of debate (Elisara, 2009); with ongoing debates around the role of Prior Informed Consent.

• Valuing forests beyond climate sink capacity: Kant (2010) suggests there is a lot to learn from these recent efforts, pointing out that the second approach under REDD focused on reducing extreme poverty, without realizing that this leads to an increased demand for agricultural land and other forest resources as the poor earn more money.

• Inevitably, a dilemma of poverty reduction and survival (individual interests) vs. conservation and carbon-offsetting (public goods) emerges. Its implementation will inevitably place “public goods” and private consumption into the forefront.

* At the core of REDD, perhaps unacknowledged, is the need to seek to resolve these tensions with measurable benefits being derived for developing countries as well as their poor and vulnerable populations. By implication also is that governance systems for the management of forests, including who has the legal right to negotiate the use of and conservation of these lands as well as the issue of secure tenure. Much of this requires synonymous treatment and remain unresolved.

Looking at Adaptation and Mitigation Side by Side:

Source: Perch, 2011

Not quite!Some considerations for making adaptation and mitigation more

inclusive, more sustainable, more effective and pro-poor

……without purposive policy

•Social risks will mount and multiply:–Likelihood that the poor will have less access to land due to their inability to compete on a financial basis;

–Resource conflicts likely to increase–Mitigation actions may reduce emissions but not stimulate a transformation of industrial policy;

–Fossil-fuel demand reduction and new forms of energy may contribute in limited ways to the reduction of energy poverty

–Ignore gendered access to technology–Under-value differentiated uses and the impacts of loss of access to resources for men and women

–Affects the level to which participation and benefits gains can be sustained.

Who, when and how

• It is also important to recall that poverty and gender inequality are not absolutes but are relative concepts, since they refer to the status of one group relative to another in a specific context.

• Not all rural people are poor, not all women are disempowered in the same ways, and not all environmental benefits are sustainable.

• Those who have access to resources, education and opportunities are certainly vulnerable to climate change, but in a different way; they are much less vulnerable than the poor because of their capacity to cope, and to identify or create other opportunities for themselves.

Consideration (1): The Viewing Lens: Scale and scope

Recognize the need for policy interventions to respond to both scope and scale:

In some cases, projects have touched on scope but have neither requested the scale of funds needed nor demonstrated such considerations of scale in the strategies proposed to confront adaptation. •The incidence of extreme rural poverty in 2008, according to IFAD’s Rural Poverty Report (2010) is highest in Sub-Saharan Africa at 61.6% as compared to 45.2% for S. East Asia (the next highest) but the actual numbers of people in extreme rural poverty are less in SSA than in East Asia (second highest) or Asia and the Pacific (highest). •The fact that the numbers of rural people in poverty and extreme poverty has increased between 1998-2008 and that incidence in both categories has remained steady is also note-worthy.

Recognizing depth, therefore, remains a critical step in balancing both short-term practical needs and long-term strategic ones, particularly when negotiating at the international level.

Consideration (2) - Move towards a development-oriented approach

The linking of sustainable livelihoods approach, the social responsibility risk reduction model/ social risk management mechanisms, writ large, can potentially close the gap by facilitating the recognition of the links, the necessary mediation between short and long-term and direct (micro) and in-direct benefits (macro) and by ensuring that benefit-sharing is complemented by risk-sharing. 

Figure 2. Proposed conceptual framework for linking adaptation, mitigation and climate-compatible development

Source: Perch, 2011

Consideration (3): Anticipatory planning/policy:

Co-linked urban and rural planning:– Anticipatory policies which support rural-

urban migration, access to housing and expanded sanitation can reduce the risks of expanded and persistent flooding as well as health outbreaks.

– Expanding rural income opportunities and access to energy not only helps rural development it also helps urban development by proxy. It can significantly reduce the scope and scale of pressures on the urban environment itself, the urban economy and the demand for urban services while expanding those resources in the rural sector.

– Renewable energy: Can the need for land for energy production e.g. wind be a source for rural economic regeneration i.e. Non-far income source as well as helping to reduce emissions in agriculture?

A resident of Lusaka's Misisi township wades through waterlogged streets on February 1, 2008. REUTERS/Mackson Wasamunu. Accessed from AlertNet- http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/changing-rains-poor-urban-planning-expose-zambian-capital-to-repeat-of-2010-floods/

Consideration (4): Reducing energy poverty, empowering women and reducing emissions – the Barefoot College example

• Started in India but now worldwide including Africa:• Simple and focused largely on women (middle aged and older women including grand-mothers) making them actors in the response to climate change

• Finalist for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge in 2010, awarded the Alcan Prize for Sustainability in 2006

• In Africa, started in Ethiopia in 2004 and extended to other countries including Cameroon and Rwanda

• Has saved 30,000 litres of kerosene per month from polluting the atmosphere and reduced significantly the use of firewood in participating communities.

Transport of solar panels in the village of Tindjambane, in the region of Timbuktu, Mali (From BC webpage)

More information: http://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2009/03/article_0002.html

Consideration (5): Linking Mitigation and Productive Inclusion (examples from Brazil and Ethiopia )

Source: Perch (2010).

Programme summary Growth co-benefits

Gender co-benefits

Poverty co-benefits

Environmental co-benefits

Unique structural elements

1. Brazil’s PNPB adopts an explicit policy to incorporate family farmers into the biodiesel value chain. Incentives by GOB included distribution of seeds, technical assistance, credit and formal contracts for small-scale family farmers. Special economic incentive instruments target the less developed Northeast region (Zapata, et al., 2010).

Structures the supply chain of biodiesel in Brazil and expands the sources for the production. Linked to a regulation that demands biodiesel/diesel blending into gasoline (of at least 5 per cent) (Zapata et al., 2010).

Gender is not an issue that has been identified in the policy design of the PNPB. However, several women are small-scale farmers and take part in the programme.

Directly integrates small farmers in new markets and provides a guaranteed additional source of income for them and their families.

Expands low-carbon path of development.

The Selo Social (Social Label) certification for purchases, gives tax exemptions to the refineries purchasing a minimum required amount from smallholder farmers, and full tax exemption to those purchasing from farmers in the Northeast region. (Zapata et al., 2010).

2. Ethiopia’s PSNP provides cash and food in exchange for work during the food insecurity and hunger period, (Davies et al., 2008).

Maximises benefits across sectors; reduces need for emergency welfare mechanisms in times of drought.

Includes focus on women and gender dimensions of poverty.

Cash transfers alleviate stress and insecurity; build assets and gather funds for mitigating climate-related risks.

Prevent the use of environmentally-damaging coping strategies particularly in times of drought.

Safety net programme – linking social protection and climate change.

Consideration (5): Benefit-sharing across sectors

• Multi-dimensional policies such as public works programmes e.g. National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (India), Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) and Working for Water Programme (WfWP) in South Africa, offer important opportunities for combining adaptation and mitigation efforts through the potential to: –mitigate social risk by reducing sensitivity to shocks, –enhance income security and savings - potentially increasing the capacity for the poor to be “green consumers”;

–enhance adaptive capacity through reduced poverty vulnerability;

–reducing dependency on raw natural resources.

Consideration (6): Broadening the analytical framework

• This framework focuses on optimizing co-benefits in a multidimensional context (growth, gender, poverty and environment, or GGPE) and stresses harmonized and convergent policies to achieve multiple outcomes and can be applied for linking adaptation and mitigation.

• “Development” is defined in such a way as to ensure that that pro-poor, engendered and equality-driven elements are disaggregated and that “beneficial to climate change” is not seen as being automatically “beneficial to the environment”

Figure 3:Adjusted Co-Benefits Framework Based on GGPE Considerations

Source: Prepared by the author on the basis of World Bank framework (Perch, 2010).

Getting the Policy Right – Final thoughts………

• Triple challenge for sustained and sustainable development: (i) anticipate and mitigate the worst; (ii) safeguard progress; and (iii) ensure the compatibility of development actions at various levels.

• Socially-sustainable development (participation and benefit-sharing) require strong public policy - a delicate balance of effective steering by government and rowing by the private sector and civil society.

• Both process and outcomes are important. With NAMAs coming on board – lessons from NAPA should inform NAMA guidance and there should be clear policy coherence between the two.

Thank You!!!!!

Contact information:

Leisa Perch, IPC-IGEmail: leisa.perch@ipc-undp.org

or leisa.perch@undp.org