20140330_IP

Source: IPCC

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMIFBJYpSgM

Date: 30/03/2014

Event: Climate Change 2014 Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability

Attribution: IPCC

People:

• Vicente Barros: Co Chair, IPCC Working Group II
• Chris Field: Co Chair, IPCC Working Group II
• Leonard Nurse: Coordinating Lead Author, Chapter 29: Small Islands
• Joy Pereira: Coordinating Lead Author, Chapter 24: Asia
• Benjamin Preston: Coordinating Lead Author, Chapter 16: Adaptation Opportunities, Constraints and Limits
• Andy Reisinger: Coordinating Lead Author, Chapter 25: Australasia
• Debra Roberts: Lead Author, Chapter 8: Urban Areas
• Petra Tschakert: Coordinating Lead Author, Chapter 13: Livelihoods and Poverty

[IPCC Fifth Assessment Report - Working Group II - Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability.]

Female narrator: Climate change is a challenge of managing risks. Risks for people and infrastructure. Risks for ecosystems. Risks for freshwater resources and food production. Steps to build resilient societies can reduce these risks.

[Caption: Vulnerability Reduction.]

Adapting to climate change can benefit communities, economies and the environment.

[Caption: Restoring Ecosystems.]

Chris Field: The role of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is to assess what's known and what's not known, in the scientific body of literature, about impacts of climate change - what are the physical changes that have occurred, and will occur in the future? What's the vulnerability? Who's susceptible to harm, and why? And adaptation - what can be done to cope as effectively as possible with the climate changes that can't be avoided?

Vicente Barros: [translated]: There have been many advances as compared to earlier WGII assessments. Especially on how to understand the processes that produce climate-related risk - and how to manage that risk.

Female narrator: Substantial and wide-ranging impacts of climate change have occurred across the world. Climate change is already affecting ecosystems, human health, freshwater resources and agriculture. Over the past few decades, yields of major agricultural crops have not increased as much as they would have without climate change. Climate change poses risks for food security in the future.

Ongoing warming and acidification of coastal waters have impacts on marine ecosystems.

Joy Pereira: Climate change has affected both the land and ocean species. We find that species are changing, moving places, migrating. And in the case of trees, you find a higher rate of mortality.

Chris Field: The main message from all of these observed impacts is that many features of ecosystems and the economy are very sensitive to changes in climate. And when we look forward to the possibility of changes in climate that are much larger than the ones we're already seen, the risk of much greater impacts is also very clear.

Female narrator: The impacts of extreme climate events tell us a lot about current vulnerability and exposure of ecosystems and societies.

Andy Reisinger: What we're observing is a significant adaptation deficit in both developing and developed countries. Society at large is actually more vulnerable and more exposed to climatic extremes, even in the current climate, than one might expect. And that tells us something about this - the challenge of moving forward into a changing climate, where we have yet to catch up with where we're at now.

Female narrator: Poverty can intensify the impacts from climate change.

Petra Tschakert: Living at the margins of society, and being exposed by living in a floodplain or being homeless, makes people vulnerable to climate change - not the floods or drought or heat stress per se. It's about these inequalities that exist in every society, both in the north and the south, that make people vulnerable. And often they're associated to gender, to age, well-being, health, class, race, ethnicity, and whether or not people have access to resources and a stake in decision-making processes.

Chris Field: Risk from climate change really emerged from the overlap between three very different kinds of factors. One factor is hazard - how much does the climate change? What is the extreme events? The second is exposure - what kinds of assets are at risk? Property, investments - economic values. And the third is vulnerability - what's the sensitivity to harm, the potential to be harmed, for people and ecosystems? And if there are going to be damages from risk, they really emerge from the overlap between these three - the overlap between the climate hazard, the exposure and the vulnerability. That's what produces climate-related risk.

[Talking to a group of what appear to be students.] Risk - are we prepared for the challenges we face now? Are we prepared to deal with the challenges in the future? I'd like each of you to think about not only climate change but also changes in governments, in finance, in national security...

Female narrator: It's important to consider regional and local settings to understand the risks associated with climate change.

Debra Roberts: You know, when you look at the risk aspect of climate change, it almost seems that climate change is the only thing that brings risk, but if you work and live in an African city, our day to day existence is about risks, so what climate change brings is another layer of risk. And the question is: how do we look at this new risk in relation to existing risk?

Leonard Nurse: Risk is conditioned, for example, by people's world view - what level of damage or loss that a community or a nation is willing to accept, and risk is also important from the point of view of the choices that you make.

Benjamin Preston: So a key aspect of climate risk management is making choices under conditions of uncertainty.

Female narrator: Future greenhouse gas emissions and land-use change will determine the magnitude of future climate change. Risks for people, societies, economies and the environment increase with further warming. Mitigation can reduce risks. Adaptation to climate change is also important for reducing risks.

Leonard Nurse: One of the key messages from Working Group II is that adaptation and mitigation are complementary activities.

Chris Field: One of the real challenges we face is establishing the understanding that the benefits of adaptation and the benefits of mitigation play out on different time scales.

Leonard Nurse: Sure.

Female narrator: The effects of adaptation can be more near-term and immediate, but mitigation actions implemented early can make it easier to adapt more effectively in the long term.

Chris Field: Investments in mitigation in the short term will lead to an era of climate options in the long term.

Female narrator: Adaptation to climate change is starting to occur. Flood barriers and improved drainage reduce the risks of flooding in large cities. Farmers are managing their lands differently, for example changing their planting times or using different varieties. New climate-smart buildings make cities more resilient. Green roofs decrease the risks of flooding during heavy rainfall and keep buildings naturally cooler during heatwaves.

Benjamin Preston: So what we have here is new technology that's being implemented, that's effective and is attractive.

Debra Roberts: And I agree - I think the real challenge is: this is an experiment in a resource-rich environment, so the question is: how do we find similar lessons that we can scale up in places in the global south.

The global south are really dealing with so many challenges, they can't afford for climate-change adaptation to be a new agenda. So what we need to do is find ways of using existing resources, existing workstreams and existing people to tackle this new challenge.

Female narrator: Durban's most ambitious climate adaptation project is the reforestation in the Buffelsdraai Landfill Site. The project combines carbon sequestration and restoration of ecosystem services with community upliftment. The local community is paid to grow the trees, plant the trees and manage the future forest.

Woman 1: The project helps the community to change their livelihoods and also to improve the environment they are living in.

Man 1: For them it's not only to come here and work and earn money but to learn and go out to other communities and be like the ambassadors.

Debra Roberts: It's that fact that we can draw together quite simple things - trees and people, in a way that creates a better, more cohesive community, a cleaner community and a more functional city - that's the exciting thing.

Benjamin Preston: There are a range of response options, both mitigation and adaptation, at our disposal, to manage the risks associated with climate change. Now, regardless of which option we want to pursue, there's a common set of ingredients we need to facilitate implementation. So we need resources - that might include knowledge, it might include finance, we need governance and institutional arrangements to facilitate coordination, and we need effective leadership from the top down and the bottom up.

Chis Field [talking again to a group of what appear to be students]: In facing a future with climate change, where there's uncertainty, we need to view it as a challenge in managing risks. The way I look at it is that adaptation in response to these risks - some of which are well-known and some of which are not - is trying to find a way to build a society that's more vibrant, more secure, richer and fundamentally more resilient.

Well-versed female student: So then the question is: how are we going to achieve that?

Chris Field: The "how" involves a wide range of future steps that need to be taken at every level in society...