Institutional Capacity For Climate Change Response

In a period of rapid climate change and climate governance failures, it is crucial to understand and address how effectively different political institutions can and should react to climate change. The term 'institutional response capacity' can be defined as a measurement for how effective political institutions may respond to threats and challenges such as climate change. This book sets out to provide a venue for the discussion of how to conduct climate politics by offering new perspectives on how social and political institutions are capable of responding to climate change. In doing so, the book explores how democracy, institutional design and polycentric governance influence social and political entities’ capacity to mitigate, adapt, address and transform climate change. The book offers building blocks for a new agenda of climate studies by focusing on institutional response capacity and by offering a new approach to climate governance at a time when many political initiatives have failed. This interdisciplinary volume is a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policy-makers in the areas of anthropology, political science, geography and environmental studies.

Climate change places demand on existing governance structures to reform and work more effectively than in the past. In response, greater attention to and funding for climate change adaptation—including the efforts of National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs), the Least Developed Country Fund, the Special Climate Change Fund, the Adaptation Fund, and the E.U. Global Climate Change Alliance—provide an opportunity for institutional, organizational, and human-capacity strengthening. This study was conducted to explore the challenges and opportunities for building human, organizational, and institutional capacity for more effective climate change adaptation in developing countries. It is part of a larger research project titled “Enhancing Women’s Assets to Manage Risk under Climate Change: Potential for Group-Based Approaches,” which is being conducted to help organizations better understand ways in which development projects can assist rural households in adapting to and managing the effects of climate change. This report provides some reflections and insights on the level of awareness, practices, and organizational and institutional issues being faced by countries as they adapt to climate change, based on interviews with 87 practitioners working in government agencies, local organizations, international organizations, and think thanks reporting involvement in climate change adaptation. Data were collected in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Mali using both an e-survey platform and face-to-face interviews. Responses reveal active work within these organizations on climate change adaptation and emphasize their important role in the countries’ efforts to address and adapt to climate change. Responses also reveal strong awareness among these organizations of different aspects of climate change adaptation along the different stages in a climate change adaptation project cycle, which may be a reflection of the active discussions and awareness campaigns during NAPA development in these countries. However, despite the awareness and presence of national strategies and action plans, there seem to be no explicit and clearly defined policy and strategy within these organizations outlining their role in and contribution to the national and collective efforts and, more importantly, no explicit and measurable targets and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system to track progress and outcomes over time. Reported capacity gaps can be grouped into two categories: training needs and institutional challenges. In many organizations, there is limited awareness of and emphasis on the need for participation of target groups and beneficiaries during design and planning of climate change adaptation projects. In addition, many respondents reported a need for greater attention to issues related to profitability, financial sustainability, and market access from climate change project design to M&E. Finally, respondents emphasized that climate change projects should pay greater attention to gender, social, political, and cultural issues in their design and implementation. Reflections of respondents also highlighted the need for organizational capacity strengthening for those local organizations working in and providing services to rural communities, and for promoting a culture of impact and M&E within these organizations, in addition to the reported training needs in climate change management and in gender and social analysis. While this report provides some insights, further empirical analyses are needed to discover more details on strategies that could help trigger mind-set and organizational culture change and to capture the complexity of organizational and institutional issues hindering climate change adaptation efforts that aim at reducing vulnerability and contributing to development outcomes.

The overwhelming scientific consensus is that the earth is warming because of human activities. Adaptation will be necessary even if mitigation efforts are markedly increased, because we are already locked in to climate change as a result of historic greenhouse gas emissions. Projections show that it is likely that global average temperatures will rise by 2 degrees C, and there is the potential for a 4 degree C rise by the end of the century. UK projections suggest warmer, drier summers and warmer wetter winters. The consequences are likely to be profound, even devastating with more extreme events - floods, drought and heat waves - coupled with sea level rises. Policies and practice on water management, coast protection, and nature conservation will need to change. This report explores how institutions should adapt their policies to a changing climate and offers a ten point check list to be followed by all organisations. The Commission found many institutions are poorly prepared to adapt to climate change and many have simply not started to consider it. The Commission makes recommendations designed to help institutions develop their capacity to respond to this challenge. In contrast to climate change mitigation (where local actions have global benefits), adaptation is primarily about local action with local consequences that may differ markedly in different parts of the UK.

Climate change is the single largest threat to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and sustainable development. Addressing climate risk is a challenge for all. This book calls for greater collaboration between climate communities and disaster development communities. In discussing this, the book will evaluate the approaches used by each community to reduce the adverse effects of climate change. One area that offers some promise for bringing together these communities is through the concept of resilience. This term is increasingly used in each community to describe a process that embeds capacity to respond to and cope with disruptive events. This emphasizes an approach that is more focused on pre-event planning and using strategies to build resilience to hazards in an adaptation framework. The book will conclude by evaluating the scope for a holistic approach where these communities can effectively contribute to building communities that are resilient to climate driven risks.

This volume uses a case study approach to present data on the relevance and effectiveness of the strategic actions implemented by NGOs, IGOs and governments at national, regional, and international scales, drawing lessons and recommendations to enhance the capacity of governments and institutions to deliver on climate change adaptation and sustainable development initiatives. The authors provide insights to policymakers, community leaders, students and researchers working on climate change adaptation and resilience-building practices and strategies in vulnerable communities, including small island developing states and post-conflict states, focusing on innovative management practices and institutional capacity building. The cases presented here provide insights into how institutions can strengthen local, national, and regional capacities to adapt to climate change and other calamities.

As climate change adaptation rises up the international policy agenda, matched by increasing funds and frameworks for action, there are mounting questions over how to ensure the needs of vulnerable people on the ground are met. Community-based adaptation (CBA) is one growing proposal that argues for tailored support at the local level to enable vulnerable people to identify and implement appropriate community-based responses to climate change themselves. Community Based Adaptation to Climate Change: Scaling it up explores the challenges for meeting the scale of the adaptation challenge through CBA. It asks the fundamental questions: How can we draw replicable lessons to move from place-based projects towards more programmatic adaptation planning? How does CBA fit with larger scale adaptation policy and programmes? How are CBA interventions situated within the institutions that enable or undermine adaptive capacity? Combining the research and experience of prominent adaptation and development theorists and practitioners, this book presents cutting edge knowledge that moves the debate on CBA forward towards effective, appropriate, and ‘scaled-up’ adaptive action.

To date, climate change adaptation and mitigation have been treated separately both in research and in the climate negotiations. However, a growing body of literature is now being developed that points to actual and potential synergies and trade-offs between responses to climate change and sustainability. This literature has evolved in a spontaneous way with diverse approaches and no common methodology to help practitioners explicitly plan for these synergies. This special issue of the Climate Policy journal addresses this gap between scientific knowledge and practitioners' needs by focussing on linkages between climate change and sustainable development at the level of conceptual framework and methods. In particular, the papers address in an integrated way local development options involving both adaptation and mitigation in order to promote resilience to climate change in human and natural systems. The special issue provides policy and methodological guidelines for linking local deveopment pathways with responses to climate change, based on collaboration between local practitioners, the public and scientists.

This book presents a comprehensive, authoritative and independent account of the rules, institutions and procedures governing the international climate change regime. Its detailed yet user-friendly description and analysis covers the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and all decisions taken by the Conference of the Parties up to 2003, including the landmark Marrakesh Accords. Mitigation commitments, adaptation, the flexibility mechanisms, reporting and review, compliance, education and public awareness, technology transfer, financial assistance and climate research are just some of the areas that are reviewed. The book also explains how the regime works, including a discussion of its political coalitions, institutional structure, negotiation process, administrative base, and linkages with other international regimes. In short, this book is the only current work that covers all areas of the climate change regime in such depth, yet in such a uniquely accessible and objective way.