SciDev.Net

This paper, prepared for the Global Urban Summit, proposes a framework for building climate change adaptation and mitigation measures into India's urban renewal programmes. This involves multiple government stakeholders at national, state and city levels.

The author begins with a description of the urbanisation trends in India and outlines the climate risks facing the subcontinent, including changing rainfall patterns and the potential for more drought, flooding and extreme weather events like cyclones.

The author outlines the vulnerability of urban populations and suggests that reducing it requires a public policy shift towards mainstreaming climate change risk assessment, adaptation and mitigation measures into ongoing national hazard mitigation programmes, and linking them to urban renewal in the largest cities.

Specific measures highlighted by the author include making building data public, building flood defences, strengthening existing infrastructure to withstand disasters and relocating highly vulnerable populations.

This report by the Institute for Development Studies details the results of a pilot project in Bangladesh aimed at developing a screening process for the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to identify and manage climate change impacts on development investments.

The authors highlight predictions that climate change in Bangladesh may lead to stronger cyclones, increased flooding during the monsoon rains and exacerbated drought in the dry season.

They suggest that raising roads and improving drainage could be a cost-efficient way to reduce the impact. Other options recommended for managing risks include paying greater attention to infrastructure design in health, education and private sector development programmes; and to non-structural measures such as livelihood diversification, education and training about disaster risks and adaptation, and improved research and monitoring.

The authors conclude that DFID should support dialogue on disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, integrate priorities identified by the Bangladeshi government, increase emphasis for assistance on urban areas, and stimulate a multi-donor dialogue about water issues.

This document summarises the outcomes from the twelfth UN Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the concurrent Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Nairobi, Kenya in November 2006.

Parties to the conference discussed the adaptation fund, deciding on a governance mechanism for it, but they sidestepped the issue of where it should be administered. They also considered how to promote Clean Development Mechanism projects in developing countries, ultimately stressing the need for more of these in Africa.

Wide debate on the mandate of the Expert Group on Technology Transfer led to a decision to reassess the group's work next year. Discussions on how to use incentives to 'avoid' deforestation in developing countries and reduce emissions also proved difficult to reconcile.

The summary is an accessible and authoritative guide to recent events at the climate negotiations, even for those unfamiliar with the UN climate change process.

This independent review, commissioned by the UK chancellor of the exchequer, examines the economic impacts of climate change, the economics of stabilising greenhouse gas emissions and considers policymaker's challenges in adapting to climate change and moving towards a low-carbon economy.

The review uses scientific evidence to highlight the risk of irreversible climate change impacts in normal emission scenarios. Evidence of threats to the basic elements of life around the world, including access to water, food production and health are presented, with poorest countries projected to suffer the most.

The review also shows that, left unabated, climate change will damage economic growth. Mitigating climate change effects must be seen as an investment. Moving towards a low-carbon economy may have a significant cost and challenge competitiveness, but it will also bring opportunities for growth.

In discussing the policy challenges for reducing emissions, the review emphasises the need for strong international cooperation and collective action. Climate change policy, says the author, will need to focus on carbon pricing, low-carbon technology, and the removal of barriers to behavioural change across the world. Developing countries in particular will need carbon finance to support emission reductions and curb deforestation, as well as international aid to implement adaptation efforts.

The Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol makes it possible to carry out projects that reduce carbon dioxide emissions in developing countries with funding from the North. Using case studies from Barbados, Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa, this report examines the contribution of solar water-heating projects to reducing carbon emissions. 

The report suggests that in these six countries, there is good potential for solar water-heating projects. However, the report also points to several obstacles including institutional inertia and a lack of communication between manufacturers and the building industry.

While somewhat technical, the report provides an interesting assessment of the potential opportunities of a specific alternative energy technology in a carbon finance context. It can serve as case study reading for those interested in carbon finance in the South.

The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change ends in 2012; at the time of writing, it remains unclear what will follow. Various approaches have been suggested, and the authors of this report analyse current thinking on future climate policy and make their own recommendations.

The report considers long-term climate policy targets, climate policy frameworks and their architecture, issues related to adaptation and sustainable development. The major challenges, issues and questions concerning the design of future climate policy are addressed throughout.

While somewhat lengthy, the report provides a thorough theoretical background for anyone interested in the intricacies of future climate policy. It is complementary reading to the Pew Center report International Climate Efforts Beyond 2012 (see above).

The emerging discussion on international climate policy after 2012 (the end of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol) has generated a number of approaches. Many of these are only now being analysed.

This report provides a comprehensive yet succinct overview of 43 different approaches to international climate efforts. Following an overview of key issues, each approach is explained in terms of its rationale, forum, time frame, mitigation commitment, institutional arrangements and other elements.

The document provides a reference guide to the essential characteristics of post-2012 climate approaches. It is most useful, and key reading for anyone interested in climate policy.

On 9 May 1992, the world’s governments adopted the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Five years later, on 11 December 1997, governments took a further step forwards and adopted the landmark Kyoto Protocol.

Building on the framework of the Convention, the Kyoto Protocol broke new ground with its legally-binding constraints on greenhouse gas emissions and its innovative "mechanisms" aimed at cutting the cost of curbing emissions. Today, 186 countries (including the European Community) are Parties to the Convention, more than most any other environmental treaty, and the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol is expected soon.

This guide, prepared in the tenth anniversary year of the adoption of the Convention, explains in detail the commitments of both the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, along with the "rulebook" for their implementation.

This is the full text of the Framework Convention, which was adopted at the United Nations Headquarters, New York on 9 May 1992. The convention was open for signature at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro from 4 to 14 June 1992, and thereafter at the UN Headquarters in New York, from 20 June 1992 to 19 June 1993. By that date the Convention had received 166 signatures. The Convention entered into force on 21 March 1994.

Several factors influence the costs of greenhouse gas mitigation. This report illustrates the importance of one such factor — international emissions trading — in reducing the costs of carbon control. The authors argue that an international greenhouse gas emissions trading regime will significantly lower global mitigation costs.

This report, by Richard Newell and William Pizer of the independent nonprofit research institute Resources for the Future, highlights an important variable that often goes unexamined in current climate change models: uncertainty in future interest rates. Climate models incorporate discount rates to compare costs and benefits over time-in essence, they tell us how high future benefits need to be to justify spending today. Most climate models choose one rate and hold it constant over the time horizon of the model.

This study questions that conventional approach, arguing that future rates are uncertain. The authors demonstrate that acknowledging uncertainty about future interest rates leads to a higher valuation of the future benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions today — regardless of the initial rate one chooses. The authors conclude that, by ignoring uncertainty, current approaches used in economic modelling may be consistently undervaluing the future benefits of current climate change mitigation efforts. The report shows that including the effect of interest rate uncertainty in climate models could raise valuations of mitigation efforts by as much as 95 per cent relative to conventional discounting at a constant rate.

The Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in 2001, is the most comprehensive and authoritative source of information on climate change. Its conclusions confirm and strengthen those of the previous reports: human-induced climate change is a reality and most of the effects will be negative, but a range of mitigation opportunities is available to address the problem.

The Report finds that most of the earth’s warming over the past 50 years can be attributed to human activities, and that its effects are already being felt. Global temperature is expected to increase by 1.4 to 5.8ºC over the next century, a significant increase on the projections of the 1995 Second Assessment Report. This briefing paper summarises the findings of the Third Assessment Report and the debates underpinning them, and discusses the likely outcomes of the Report.