This report examines the challenges of managing water resources for agricultural use — specifically in the context of food production — in the face of a changing climate. It provides an overview of climate change impacts in different parts of the world, details options for adaptation and mitigation, and offers practical recommendations on how developing countries can cope with these impacts.  

The report outlines methods to assess impacts on water and agriculture, and stresses that water and agricultural policies must be more closely aligned. It concludes with suggestions for action to help countries in carrying out such assessments and adapting agricultural water management. These include using methods such as decision analysis to improve predictions; developing and applying downscaling techniques to build capacity for better analyses and climate adaptation; and coordinating analyses of the level of investment required for different solutions.

This report documents the proceedings of the AfricaAdapt 2011 Climate Change Symposium that include research, experiences and knowledge about how to coordinate efforts to address climate change in Africa in anticipation of negotiations at COP-17 to be held in Durban, South Africa.

It includes summaries of and links to presentations, experience notes and comments offered by participants, as well as photos, videos and reports from the symposium's interactive plenary sessions. The topics covered include community-led responses to climate change and the role of media in translating and sharing information about climate change.

The report highlights ten overarching conclusions and lessons learned from the research presented. These include the need for improved research into indigenous knowledge and deeper links between adaptation, mitigation and low-carbon development; creating more African forums for knowledge sharing; and strengthening the availability of non-Anglophone researchers and practitioners.

AfricaAdapt is a network dedicated to promoting and facilitating the sharing of knowledge on climate change adaptation in Africa.

This report aims to identify strategies that the agricultural sector can adopt to mitigate and adapt to climate change, ensure food security, and improve the livelihoods of poor smallholder producers.

Agriculture is the main source of livelihood for poor people in developing countries, and improving agricultural productivity is key to achieving food security and meeting most targets set as part of the Millennium Development Goals. In Sub-Saharan Africa, climate change is adding to existing development challenges, making it essential that mitigation, adaptation and rural development strategies are developed together.

By focusing on the example of smallholder farmers in Kenya, the authors suggest "triple win" agricultural practices that promise the greatest payoff in terms of increased resilience of the agriculture sector to climate change mitigation, adaptation, productivity and profitability. They include irrigation, soil and water conservation, integrated soil fertility management and improved livestock feeding.

This report considers whether biochar — a charcoal-like substance made by burning biomass in oxygen-deprived conditions — is a silver bullet for meeting the global challenges of climate change mitigation, soil fertility and sustainable energy production. Biochar buried in soil can capture and store atmospheric carbon.

The report assesses the prospects of biochar becoming part of sustainability measures, and whether it can meet the livelihood priorities of small-scale farmers in rural Africa, for example.

It provides an overview of current arguments and interested parties in the polarised debate about whether biochar could contribute significantly to climate change mitigation. The authors argue that there is a "politics of promise" around its potential, and although this is driving research and investment, biochar has yet to make significant impact on the ground.

This report provides guidance to developers of forest carbon projects. It outlines the requirements for analysing and documenting carbon benefits, as well as legal, business, and community relations issues. The document also includes a guide to creating carbon benefits through reforestation, forest and land management activities.

It proposes steps for projects aiming to produce marketable emissions reductions under the most widely utilised carbon standards: the Voluntary Carbon Standard, the Clean Development Mechanism, and, as co-certification to verify additional benefits, the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards.

The report states that although the future of projects in REDD+ forest-protection schemes is unclear, the approaches currently used will continue to be relevant to afforestation and reforestation activities that aim to generate and quantify carbon benefits effectively.

This report from the IPCC, provides a complete and comprehensive overview of the current knowledge and understanding of climate change. The report includes four separate documents that cover the physical science basis for climate change, projected impacts, adaptation and vulnerability of different populations, mitigation strategies, and a synthesis report for policymakers.

This technical paper from the IPCC provides a comprehensive overview of the impacts of climate change on water resources, including a summary of the links between climate and water resources, projected changes in the availability and accessibility of water, potential mitigation and adaptation strategies, implications for policy and gaps in our current knowledge.

This report from the Chinese branch of the UN Development Programme investigates how China can reduce its heavy dependence on energy and resource consumption and move to a low-carbon economy. The authors suggest that the key lies in strengthening institutions, integrating policies, and enforcing implementation.

This report reviews four types of measures used in activities to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) to promote environmental benefits beyond mitigating climate change. These measures are: non-binding recommendations, support, minimum standards and incentives.

The authors conclude that national policies on REDD are key to determining the extent to which co-benefits are promoted.

This guide, published by Tebtebba (Indigenous Peoples' International Centre for Policy Research and Education), outlines the expected impacts of climate change on indigenous peoples around the world, and showcases traditional methods of climate change mitigation and adaption.

Following a basic introduction to climate change and the bodies, mechanisms and processes used for addressing it, the authors outline how climate change is impacting indigenous peoples in diverse ecosystems. For example, food and water insecurity arising from increased flooding or drought, and loss of biodiversity and traditional knowledge from rising temperatures.

The authors discuss the likely impacts of climate change mitigation measures highlighting, for example, the limitations of market-based strategies such as the Clean Development Mechanism. They discuss a range of alternative adaptation measures already being practiced by indigenous people, providing several case studies and examples of innovative strategies used in different regions. For example, African farmers using zero-tillage practices to moderate soil temperatures, Asian farmers growing varieties of crops to minimise the risk of harvest failure, and Honduran farmers using agroforestry and terracing to reduce erosion.

The authors go on to discuss measures for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) and emphasise the need for indigenous people to be fully engaged in the debate.

This comprehensive report on the options for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) under consideration for an international deal on climate change was prepared by the Meridian Institute for the Government of Norway.

The authors focus on four critical areas for successfully developing REDD measures: finance, reference levels, monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) and promoting indigenous peoples' effective participation. They propose a three-phased approach for REDD projects, to account for countries' widely varying capacities. This would start with countries receiving funds to develop national REDD strategies, followed by support to implement those strategies, which finally leads to payment for verified performance compared to agreed reference levels.

The report concludes that successful REDD implementation requires global partnership, led by REDD countries, in which indigenous peoples and local communities are fully engaged.

This report, published by Centre d'Économie Industrielle (CERNA) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), examines the distribution of climate mitigation inventions since 1973 and their international transfer.

Based on an analysis of patent data, the authors find that innovations are mostly made — and exchanged between — developed countries, although China and South Korea are found among the top ten inventors. Only 18 per cent of climate mitigation technology exports come from emerging economies, but this proportion is growing rapidly and offers huge potential for North–South and South–South exchanges.

Technologies considered in the report include wind, solar, geothermal and biomass energy, energy conservation in buildings, motor vehicle fuel injection, and carbon capture and storage.

The authors use graphs and tables to present their results. Their findings suggest that the Kyoto protocol has induced innovation but has had no effect on technology transfer.

This report, published by E3G and Chatham House proposes an institutional framework for the innovation and transfer of low carbon and adaptation technologies, and suggests key features for the international agreement due to be signed at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen in December 2009.

The authors include an executive summary and an analysis of key issues including technology options, capacity in developing countries and intellectual property rights (IPR).

They also make recommendations for action, calling for objectives to be set in terms of critical technologies that need developing. Other suggestions include creating a multilateral innovation and diffusion fund, using sectoral approaches to accelerate technology development and deployment, and establishing a 'protect and share' agreement for IPR.

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.