COP 19: Ny forskning afslører begrænset held med klimatilpasning i en række lande og opfordrer til øget handlekraft blandt politikere for at imødegå de negative effekter af klimaforandringer – og hvordan skal man egentlig gøre tabene op – bringer hele 2015 Målenes fattigdomskamp i fare.
JOHANNESBURG, 8. November 2013 (IRIN): Climatic stressors like recurrent (tilbagevendende) droughts and floods are already causing real damage to livelihoods, eroding people’s ability to adapt (tilpasse) or improve their lives, says a new series of studies.
The authors urged negotiators, gathering in Warsaw on 11 November for talks under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC = COP 19), to redouble their efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.
“Loss and Damage” (tab og skader)
They also made a case for building an “institutional home” under the UNFCCC for “loss and damage” caused by climate change.
There is no agreed-upon definition for “loss and damage”, but the phrase broadly refers to a range of harms incurred in developing countries that cannot be avoided through efforts to mitigate or adapt to climate change.
The negotiators in the Warsaw meeting have to decide what kind of institutional set-up could address loss and damage, including how it would be evaluated and whether there should be financial redress for countries experiencing it.
The need to address loss and damage was first acknowledged at the UN climate talks in Cancun in 2010. In the last talks, in Doha in 2012, countries spoke of considering a mechanism to address the issue – such as instituting financial compensation – at the UNFCCC process in Warsaw.
Any new climate change treaty would only come into effect in 2015, at a UNFCCC meeting in Paris.
“While addressing loss and damage is not yet part of the 2015 negotiations, the main variables of loss and damage – mitigation ambition and adaptation implementation – are core areas of the 2015 agreement,” noted the authors of the study, led by Koko Warner, a scientist at the UN University (UNU) in Bonn.
“Therefore, it is expected that addressing loss and damage will feature either formally or as a reflection discussion, in the run-up to the Paris meeting.”
Unable to adapt (ude afstand til at tilpasse sig det nye klima)
Published in the International Journal of Global Warming, the studies are the second in a series to gather evidence of loss and damage from the perspectives of affected people. The first of the series was published in the run-up to the UN climate change talks in 2012.
Four of the studies, conducted in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Burkina Faso and Nepal, found that efforts to adapt were failing.
In certain districts surveyed in ETHIOPIA, for instance, 96 percent of households reported their efforts to adapt to recurrent floods were unsuccessful.
Seventy-eight percent of households surveyed in selected areas in NEPAL, 72 percent of households surveyed in parts of BURKINA FASO and 69 percent of those in MOZAMBIQUE said that, despite efforts to adapt to climatic shocks, they still experienced severe negative impacts on their household budgets.
Three out of four surveyed households across the study sites reported they had to cut down on the number of meals or reduce portion sizes – a clear sign that coping capacity (modstandskraften) is inadequate.
For instance, surveys in 10 villages of mostly Fulani pastoralists in northern BURKINA FASO, which experienced droughts in 2004 and again in 2010, revealed that most of respondents were forced to sell property, land and livestock (husdyr) to buy food.
Some received food aid, while others adapted by migrating to neighbouring countries like Ivory Coast to support their families back home. Despite their best efforts, 87 percent of households “had to severely restrict their food consumption.”
The sale of assets (værdier) erodes a community’s efforts to cope (klare sig) in the long-term, notes the main report summarizing the findings.
As the cycle of drought continues, their limited livestock is being depleted and the households are unable to replenish (erstatte) it, ultimately leading to a loss in their cultural identity and lifestyle.
Diminished quality of life
IRIN found similar stories in NIGER’s Diffa region, where recurrent droughts have forced members of the WoDaabe community, a sub-sect of the Fulanis, to give up their nomadic way of life and live on the fringes of Diffa town with a considerably diminished quality of life.
“Following a severe flood in ETHIOPIA in 2007, 94 percent of respondents reported that their crops were severely damaged or entirely destroyed. Large-scale destruction of crops also led to higher food prices, which made staple foods such as maize unaffordable,” Fatima Denton, coordinator of the African Climate Policy Centre, a partner for the African case studies, said, adding:
“Time and time again, the study found that households that are already struggling are forced into deeper poverty due to climate change impacts. When adaptation is insufficient to manage climatic stressors, the loss and damage that results will undermine human well-being and sustainable development.”
The studies echo what a recent Overseas Development Institute study showed: that climate shocks will hurt the Millennium Development Goal (MDG = 2015 Mål) target to reduce poverty.
People “already appear to be approaching the biophysical (biologiske og fysiske) and social boundaries of adaptation”, compromising human well-being or sustainable development for good, said a report published by the UNU.
Looking ahead
Læs videre på
http://www.irinnews.org/report/99081/new-climate-change-findings-up-pressure-on-warsaw-talks
