Adaptation to Climate ChangeGuidance to Programming Opportunities

Energy and Environment Practice Meeting27-28 September, 2005

Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Definitions:

• Adaptation: adjustment…in response to actual climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities

• Adaptation is a process by which strategies to moderate, cope with, and take advantage of the consequences of climate events are enhanced, developed and implemented

• Adaptive capacity is the ability of a system to adjust to climate change, including climate variability and extremes….

• Adaptive capacity is the property of a system to adjust its characteristics or behavior, in order to expand its coping range under existing climate variability, or future climate conditions

Rationale and ObjectiveObjective is “to address the adverse impacts of Climate Objective is “to address the adverse impacts of Climate

change by building adaptive capacity, the capacity to change by building adaptive capacity, the capacity to assess vulnerability; to identify and implement suitable assess vulnerability; to identify and implement suitable adaptation measures; to increase ecosystem resilience to adaptation measures; to increase ecosystem resilience to the adverse impacts of climate change”. (GEF/R.4/Inf.7)the adverse impacts of climate change”. (GEF/R.4/Inf.7)

• Coping with climate change impacts imposes additional cost on countries;

• “additional cost” principle – cost of additional measures needed to increase the coping range and build adaptive capacity;

• When additional cost incurred to deliver global environmental benefit it is viewed as the additional incremental cost

GEF Adaptation Funds

GEF manages 4 categories of adaptation funds:• GEF Trust Fund

– Enabling Activities: Second National Communications

– Strategic Priority on Adaptation (SPA) new!

• Least Developed Country Fund (LDCF) – NAPAs for the 48 LDCs

• Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF) new!• Adaptation Funds not yet operational – 2% of the

share of the proceeds from CDM projects

Strategic Priority on AdaptationSPA is to support demonstration projects that both address local SPA is to support demonstration projects that both address local

adaptation needs and generate global environmental benefits in the GEF adaptation needs and generate global environmental benefits in the GEF focal areas.focal areas.

Eligibility criteria: – All countries– Vulnerable ecosystems and protected areas; ICZM; risk management in

land management planning; etc.– Be based on priorities identified by the NCs and Adaptation strategies; – Must deliver global environmental and development benefits– Be based on existing GEF criteria for M&E, country driveness,

incremental reasoning, and co-financing

Operational 1 July 2004$75M ($30M GEF-3; $45M GEF-4)

Strategic Priority on Adaptation

UNDP 70%: World Bank 30% of GEF-3 funds programmed

Many UNDP approved projects are agriculture and water-related:

– Southern and East Africa: Coping with Drought (LD)– Kenya: Mainstreaming Climate Change & Adaptation into

Integrated Water Resource Management (BD)– Hungary: Lake Balaton (BD)– West Africa: Responding to Shoreline Change (BD/IW) – Global: Community-based adaptation

• GEF-4 programming paper states that the pilot will be reviewed before additional funds are allocated

Special Climate Change FundThe SCCF supports projects in water, land management, agriculture,

health, infrastructure development, fragile ecosystems, coastal zone management, disaster preparedness (prevention not mitigation). Unlike the LDCF, it focuses on longer-term strategic approach to coping with climate change (GEF/C.24/12).

Eligibility criteria:– All countries– Mainstreaming into above sectors– Development (not global) benefits are required– Sliding scale funding for medium and full size projects

• $1M – 50%; $1-5M -33%; $5-more -25%– Should not be lead by environment

First Pipeline September 2005Pledged $34M, additional pledges expected

Least Developed Country Fund

LDC are most vulnerable to climate change. The LDCF supports (a) preparation of National Adaptation Programmes of Actions (NAPA), for identifying urgent and immediate needs; (b) implementation of NAPA

• Operational 2002 (NAPA); Fund most likely to grow: $62M ($30M GEF-3;

$30M pledged)

AF – the same as SCCF. AF will be financed from the share of proceeds on the CDM.

UNDP-GEF Approach

• The key approach of UNDP is to work from "current climate variability and hazards as the starting point for assessing national needs for coping with future climate change....to strengthen adaptive capacity to deal with current climate variability as a first step towards developing national response measures for future climate change".

Additional Guidance to identify eligible project

• Adaptation Polciy Frameworks that will provide a useful guidance for your project formulation. http://www.undp.org/cc/apf.htm

• NCSAs, INCs, FNCs… NAPs, BSAPs, disaster management, drought preparedness, Sectorial strategies etc.

•

Continued

The basic Objectives of an adaptation project might be to:

• Increase the robustness of infrastructure designs and long-term investments

• Increase the flexibility and resilience of managed natural systems

• Enhance the adaptive capacity of vulnerable groups• Reverse trends that increase vulnerability• Improve societal awareness and preparedness for future

climate change• Integrate adaptation in national and sectoral planning

ContinuedWhere to look at in assessment for project formulation? The following elements and trends need to be assessed in order to make a comprehensive judgment:

• Climate change trends and climate hazard trends (droughts, floods other climate calamities) based on current and future scenarios;

• Environment and natural resource management trends (air pollution, land-use, deforestation, water logging etc) that exacerbates or mitigates climate impacts;

• Socio-economic trends and risks (current economic development tendencies, impact on environment, current impact of climate variability and potential impact of climate change on socio-economic development);

• Barriers to adaptive capacity building (legislation, rules, regulations, standards, integrated approaches, institutional measures, fiscal measures: taxes, insurance etc; awareness and expertise etc)

Continued

• Prioritization of key systems:

• Human Vulnerability (sample system – smallholders);

• Economic Vulnerability (sample system – water resources);

• Physical Vulnerability (sample system – coastal region);

Adaptation Learning Mechanism: Learning by doing

• The project will maximise adaptation learning through implementation of projects under the GEF’s Strategic Priority on Adaptation (SPA), and will generate knowledge to help further guide implementation and improve impacts of GEF adaptation projects.

• The objective of the project is to provide tools and establish a learning platform for mainstreaming adaptation to climate change within the development planning of GEF eligible countries.

• The project proposes to: capture the current state of knowledge on planning, implementing and mainstreaming adaptation; identify key gaps in adaptation knowledge gaps; and develop responses to the knowledge gaps. An adaptation knowledge base will be designed, and operationalized though this project.