Climate change is one of the greatest challenges we will face in the coming century. According to the 2007 IPCC summary report, there is no question we will be impacted in myriad ways: “the warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level”. While global warming will affect all natural processes, from basic ecosystem dynamics to the spread of disease, one of the greatest impacts is expected to occur as a result of the predicted increases in the frequency and intensity of storms, floods and droughts. The fact that such disasters recur regularly will undermine the ability of individuals, communities, and nations to meet basic development goals.
Ajaya Dixit, Chairman, Nepal Water Conservation Foundation
12/07/2009 18:05
The Eastern Ganga Basin (EGB), consisting of parts of Tibet, North India, Nepal and Bangladesh, is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, in part because a large proportion of its population is engaged in primary sector livelihoods, like agriculture and fishing, which depend on favorable climatic conditions. A combination of geographic and climatological factors also exacerbates the region’s vulnerability: millions will be affected when the pattern of the monsoon and the hydrologic characteristics of EGB rivers alter.
While floods, droughts and high-intensity storms are normal features of life in the EGB, not all people have adapted to them with equal success. Variations can be attributed to differences in systems of governance and degrees of development, urbanisation and social stratification. Adding a complicating dimension to this physical, agro-ecological, development and institutional diversity is the prevalence of conflict. Together, diversity and conflict pose major challenges to our ability to identify strategic entry points for building the resilience and capacity of EGB denizens to adapt to climate changes.
We need to begin by making a key distinction: adaptation to climate change comprises far more than simply coping with it. If people are well-adapted, the environment and those dependent on it will fare well under changing climactic conditions. Individuals, households, and organizations in such a situation will act autonomously in response to the opportunities and constraints associated with climatic change and other stresses. Planned adaptation, in contrast, is not rooted in the independent actions of affected communities; instead, it is the introduction of targeted interventions designed to reduce the impacts of climate change by national governments and external donors.
Recent studies in India and Nepal suggest that it is the capacity of people to adopt new livelihood options as climatic conditions change that is at the heart of autonomous adaptation. Whether or not people have this capacity is determined by their access to and the resilience of : (a) knowledge, communication and economic systems and (b) asset baskets and by (c) the relationships among them [1] . Resilient and flexible systems for communication, banking, health, energy, safe drinking water, transportation and mobility can help families switch livelihood strategies by exploiting opportunities and overcoming constraints. Alternative livelihood options must be based on renewable energy sources that have low carbon footprints.
As uncertainties about the future increase due to climate change, we will increasingly find that historical data and past knowledge are limited in their ability to offer explanations. We need to generate and transfer new knowledge as well as to develop the capacity to refine learning iteratively as conditions change. Developing well-adapted systems accessible to those most affected by climate change impact is central to building adaptive capacity at the local level, where it matters the most. Whether or not such systems are accessible to local populations, particularly vulnerable groups like women and the poor depends on the type of governance in place.
We need to boost our understanding of climate variability by ensuring that the regional and local scenarios of climate change impacts we develop are robust and representative. We also need to introduce innovative ways of informing those most likely to be affected about weather forecasts and to help them establish early warning systems. To that end, we must help identify livelihood options and develop well-designed strategies to increase resilience and minimize risk, including local village-level responses, engineering measures and insurance.
The impacts of climate risks are location-specific, but the strategies for responding to them depend on regional and global systems that offer people opportunities to better understand the ongoing changes and, in consequence, to adapt effectively. Both autonomous and planed adaptations are opportunities for providing institutional support such as access to markets to community-based or other measures. It is also about galvanizing institutions to address constraints that emerge as a result of climate change.
The “climate change problem” in EGB has neither a single definition nor an easy solution. Any attempt at defining it would reveal nested and intermeshed layers of challenges that cross administrative, disciplinary and conceptual boundaries. Tackling such an intricate problem calls for thinking outside the box so that we can come up with flexible solutions that accommodate a wide range of physical and social uncertainties and that foster strategy switching. At the same time, the process of arriving at solutions must be informed by the concerns of the various disciplines involved. In particular, it must be informed by, and speak to, the officials of government departments, the cautionary and critical voices of civil society and the innovative agents of the market. [2]
Ajaya Dixit is Chairman, Nepal Water Conservation Foundation.
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