ClimateChangeWater Blog

New publication: Water rights in a changing world

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-11-03T07:29:41-07:00

The conflicts are familiar ones to regular readers here: the “stationarity” of policies that have implications for water management and the institutions charged with implementing or actively shaping water resource management. In effect, we see that many institutions are incapable of managing water resources effectively across institutional and political boundaries and shifting resource availabilities. Michael van der Valk at Hydrology.nl has just posted a free new publication on this issue, the result of a colloquium on the subject with many of the topical experts in the area. This publication is one of the few printed pieces to broach the subject. ...The right to water and water rights in a changing world  by Marguerite de Chaisemartin, Charlotte Herman and Michael van der Valk ...The current status of the human right to water  ...Sharing water – A necessity for peace in a changing world  ...What role can law play in safeguarding the right to water?  ...“I drink your milkshake!”: A short essay about water troubles and the promise of international law coming to the rescue  ...Can international law play a role in safeguarding the security of water supply in a changing world, and if so, how?: Concluding remarks 

A federal freshwater adaptation law in the US? Pat Mulroy - Part 3: Consensus & Economics

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-11-03T07:20:22-07:00

Called the “Water Infrastructure Resiliency and Sustainability Act of 2011,” the proposed legislation is intended to effectively create a “bank” for municipal water management infrastructure, such as water treatment, supply, and distribution systems. Over a four year period, US cities would be able to borrow from the fund and repay the federal government (through the US Environmental Protection Agency). ...They tend to be infrastructure operators and managers and groups that care about the ecological and sustainable management of water resources, such as the American Metropolitan Water Association (a group of cities and city water managers) and some environmental groups such as American Rivers and WWF. There is no mention of the causes of climate change and little or no mention of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This is all about making sure that cities in the US have sufficient water to cope with climate variability and long-term shifts in climate. ...In order to become law, a piece of federal legislation must be sponsored by a member in the House of Representatives (435 members, all elected every two years, and apportioned by the relative population size of each US state) and by a member of the Senate (100 members, each elected six years, and apportioned two to each US state). The law must be passed in each body, differences between the versions reconciled, and then the final law signed and enacted by the president’s signature. The law has been submitted in both the House and Senate for some weeks now but with little noise and fanfare. It is difficult to determine its fate — if it will come up for a vote, and if it does come for a vote if it will pass. ...For non-US readers who are unfamiliar with the western US, the Colorado River basin quite large and much of the area is arid or semi-arid, as shown in the map here. You can read a brief overview of the basin at this site, and you can also get a sense of how much infrastructure exists across the basin and the active role of drought there from this site, run by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).

Pat Mulroy - Part 2: Adapting the Invisible Utility

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-10-21T22:28:50-07:00

Some relevant links: The public site for the Southern Nevada Water Authority can be found here. For non-US readers who are unfamiliar with the western US, the Colorado River basin quite large and much of the area is arid or semi-arid, as shown in the map here. You can read a brief overview of the basin at this site, and you can also get a sense of how much infrastructure exists across the basin and the active role of drought there from this site, run by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).

ClimateWater: Final Symposium, Stakeholder Platform

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-10-20T05:02:58-07:00

The ClimateWater project, funded under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the European Union, has addressed these issues over the past three years. Last week, ClimateWater had its final symposium in Budapest; 11 project partners from nine EU Member States (Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Romania, Slovakia, United Kingdom) met to share their final outputs in multiple workshops over two days. The presentations of the final symposium will shortly be available on the project’s homepage: http://www.climatewater.org To keep up with the discussions on this topic, do not forget to register at the online ClimateWater Stakeholder Platform! http://www.climatewater.org/register.php Ömer

Pat Mulroy - Part 1: Adapting the Invisible Utility

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-10-20T04:50:40-07:00

The first adaptation-only climate change legislation in the US

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-10-17T04:51:36-07:00

The bill creates an process for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to prioritize places and to approve projects for retrofitting water infrastructure to adjust to new or anticipated hydrologic conditions. Over a four year period, beginning in 2012, the loan would authorize 200 billion USD in loans to cities for the retrofitting work. ...Each bill must be submitted to the US House of Representatives and to the US Senate by sponsors. Any differences between the two versions must be reconciled, and the final version would then be signed(if approved) by the president. The US House is a large body, with 435 legislators apportioned into districts with approximately equal populations. ...The primary sponsor in the US House is Lois Capps from south-central coastal California. ... A number of biologists have also projected that the famous regional wine industry may disappear or move north. ...Three individuals have co-sponsored the bill in the US Senate: Ben Cardin of Maryland, Harry Reid of Nevada, and Barbara Boxer of California. ...They tend to be engineering or infrastructure operator associations and groups of city water managers. ...But any climate change legislation will face some challenges ideologically, especially in the House, even if the funding is set up to be a loan rather than a grant. ...This blog will soon post a video interview with a major US water manager, discussing her challenges — and her hopes for this legislation.

Small Islands, Big Changes: Freshwater Scarcity in the South Pacific

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-10-14T10:58:31-07:00

It’s caused a severe drought in the southern U.S. — coal-fired power plants in Texas are close to shutting down because there hasn’t been enough water in the local rivers and lakes to cool their turbines. ...We’ve had a record wet year here, and the snowfall last winter was so high that a number of major roads were shut down for weeks because they couldn’t be plowed. Lake Mead near Las Vegas, Nevada, has more water in it than it’s had for more than a decade because of all of rain to the north. El Niño stages of the ENSO cycle tend to reverse many of these patterns — more rain in Africa, Texas and the South Pacific, less rain in places like Oregon. ...Most people think of warmer air temperatures when they hear about climate change (you can thank the term “global warming” for that) but in reality, every part of the global climate system is shifting, including the ENSO cycle. The science is still evolving about how climate change will alter ENSO, but right now it appears that ENSO is becoming more intense and extreme. ...For the people who live in the South Pacific, their water resources have always been limited; there’s never been very much fresh water on these little islands, since all of it comes from precipitation and there’s no good way to capture it. ...Tuvalu has already started considering a slow, long-term evacuation of the entire country’s population to one or more other countries richer in natural resources and not in danger of sea-level rise, which is another climate change issue for Pacific islands. Another option is to both reduce demand by making water use as efficient as possible (which most of these countries have done already) and to increase supply, probably by building desalinization plants, which convert salt water into fresh water. ...The people on these islands will get past this crisis, but they have some hard choices ahead as they think about what might be best for their children’s future. These decisions may have to be made sooner than we’d like; recent projections suggest that 2012 may continue the current La Niña stage for another year.

UN Human Rights Council: Water & Sanitation

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-10-12T09:06:05-07:00

At the end of its last session in September 2011, the UN Human Rights Council adopted without a vote a resolution on the rights to water and sanitation. ...- Ensure that national minimum standards, based on human rights criteria, are in place when water and sanitation services are decentralized, in order to ensure coherence and countrywide compliance with human rights; ...- Assess whether the existing legislative and policy framework is in line with the right to safe drinking water and sanitation, and to repeal, amend or adapt it in order to meet human rights standards and principles; ...- Provide for a regulatory framework aimed at ensuring that all water and sanitation service providers respect and protect human rights and do not cause human rights violations or abuses, ...- Provide for a framework of accountability that provides for adequate monitoring mechanisms and legal remedies, including measures to overcome obstacles in access to justice and other accountability mechanisms and lack of awareness of the law, human rights and opportunities to claim these rights ...- Ensure full transparency of the monitoring and assessment of the implementation of plans of action, projects and programmes in the sectors of water and sanitation and to ensure, including in the planning process, the free, effective, meaningful and non-discriminatory participation of all people and communities concerned, particularly people living in disadvantaged, marginalized and vulnerable situations; ...- Ensure financing to the maximum of available resources in order to implement all the necessary measures to ensure that water and sanitation systems are sustainable and that services are affordable for everyone, while ensuring that allocated resources are not limited to infrastructure, but also include resources for regulatory activities, operation and maintenance, the institutional and managerial structure and structural measures, including increasing capacity; ...The Human Rights Council acknowledged with appreciation the third annual report of the Special Rapporteur, on National Plans of Action for the Realization of the Rights to Water and Sanitation. ...The Council repeated the text of its previous resolution stating that it “welcomes the recognition of the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation by the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council, and the affirmation by the latter that the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation is derived from the right to an adequate standard of living and inextricably related to the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, as well as the right to life and human dignity.” As the right to an adequate standard of living is contained in several international human rights treaties, the resolution affirms that the rights to water and sanitation are therefore implicitly contained in these treaties and binding in international law. ...The resolution was co-sponsored by 65 States including: Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Chad, Chile, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Palestine, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Macedonia, Maldives, Republic of Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Romania, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Ukraine, Uruguay, Zimbabwe and Yemen.

UNEP-FI workshop: Water & Climate Risk in the Private Sector

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-10-12T10:00:31-07:00

UNEP FI, the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA), the World Bank and Conservation International will be hosting a half-day training workshop on water and finance directly after the UNEP FI Global Roundtable. The workshop aims to raise awareness and build capacity for banks to identify and manage water risks related to lending in water scarce areas and/or water-intensive sectors. ...Over the past 20 years there has been a notable shift by bankers and investors to not only assess the pure financial aspects of loans and investments, but to increasingly account for environmental and social issues that are financially material as well. Looking at three defining environmental issues in the 21st century – global climate change, biodiversity loss, and shifting water scarcity, variability, and availability – banks and investors need to be aware to addressing these different environmental issues requires specialised knowledge on each of these in terms of risks, available tools and impact. A number of drivers have started to emerge, such as increased pressure and activism by non-governmental organizations, increased regulatory and liability regimes by governments willing to protect their ecosystem services, and increased scrutiny of supply chains for ecosystem-dependent sectors such as energy, agriculture and mining, which tend to interact and amplify each other leading to a greater relevance of water issues for the private sector. In many cases, water is embedded within other investments in ways that may be hidden from direct view, such as through supply chain management. And while scientific projections of the future describe the uncertainties around water availability and variability, these uncertainties are difficult to describe as meaningful risks for investors and lenders. Financial institutions that are unaware of these issues may face unexpected risks in terms of reputation, credit risk, or reduced shareholder value. ...The workshop will be a half day event that aims to develop a deeper understanding of the impacts that water and climate hold for financial decision-making. The workshop should not only deepen the understanding of participants on water risk in the context of climate uncertainty, but also provide financiers with the requisite tools to approach water and sustainability issues in an age of climate change. ... The workshop will conclude with two to three case studies that participants discuss in small group and provide feedback plenary.

The Three Eras of Adaptation Thinking (so far)

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-10-10T11:10:15-07:00

This is the downscaling movement, which assumes that most of the important information about climate change adaptation is derived from looking at the projected impacts for air temperature and some precipitation patterns (usually just observed at an annual resolution). ... The implication behind this work — at least the way this approach was often read though often not intended to be read in that way — is that the most important aspects of climate can be reduced to a few variables, that we have medium to high confidence about what will be happening, and that most impacts (or at least the most important impacts) from climate change are direct impacts rather than indirect impacts, such as shifts in ecosystem processes, community structure, phenology/seasonality, and so on. ...Other concerns during this period came from the high levels of uncertainty in climate science projections of what will be happen and deep reservations about some of the claims about the confidence in recommendations was a major driver in moving people away from the downscaling movement. In effect, many (of “us”) felt that downscaling by itself tended to produce a severe false confidence in people who did not have a clear sense of the uncertainties embedded in the climate science and that we might be promoting dangerous knowledge and ineffective adaptation recommendations; “You can’t really say that” and “It’s a lot more complicated than that” were common refrains. ...Water seemed much more critical both in terms of impacts and developing a more coherent strategy for intervention, but the uncertainties in precipitation and runoff (and storm and extreme flood and drought event frequencies) were far more extreme than with air temperature. Worse, many of us also felt that direct climate impacts in general were often less interesting and harder to read than many other, mostly indirect expressions of climate, such as shifts in global climate engines like the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle or the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). ... As a result, adaptation support during this period focused much more on adaptation processes — developing monitoring and evaluation systems, weighing water-related impacts (for terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems or most human impacts), and suggesting that flexibility was probably a key attribute in addressing adaptation actions. The third era is much newer — perhaps dating to late 2010 — and supplements the second period’s emphasis on water by focusing on decision support systems and how institutions (and governance) evolve over time. While recognizing that water is probably the best place to look for impacts, many people now recognize that adaptation isn’t conducted via maps or science per se but through institutions, policies, and governance systems, which means that you need to help non-science personnel make better decisions over time. ... You might need to build a dam somewhere, but you also have to figure out if you should build it all at once or in stages (or perhaps as a small series of dams) and then how you’re going to be able to run it over a wide range of potential conditions. ... For many people in this movement, the separation of adaptation funding from other funding streams is actually divisive and dangerous, since it tends to create new and artificial silos rather than really mainstreaming adaptation thinking across and between institutions.

Major UN adapation meeting

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-09-28T15:03:17-07:00

Co-hosted and convened by the University of Arizona (www.arizona.edu) and by UNEP’s Programme of Research on Climate Change Vulnerability, Impacts and Adaptation (PROVIA www.provia-climatechange.org), the conference focuses on adaptation to climate variability and change. ...This conference follows on the success of the pioneering Climate Adaptation Futures Conference, co-hosted by Australia’s National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility and the CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship in Australia in 2010 with nearly 1,000 participants from around the world. Inspired by this 1st conference we hope to build on the community that came together in Queensland and foster a connected, collaborative and creative international network of adaptation researchers, decision makers and interested citizens. ...The conference will be held on the University of Arizona campus in Tucson with accommodation available in University housing and local hotels. Tucson is easy to get to via non-stop flights from Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta and 9 other cities and is located in the Sonoran Desert of the American Southwest, close to the border with Mexico. The warm temperatures of early summer in Tucson will encourage participants to contemplate how the millions of people who live in desert regions can adapt to climate in sustainable ways. ...Call for papers and posters will be posted on web site and circulated by email July 2011 Outline program and key speakers announced: September 5th 2011 Registration opens: September 5th 2011 Deadline for abstracts: January 30th 2012 ...We anticipate lodging costs as low as $40 to $100 per night per room (the lower costs are for student dorm rooms) and have already identified some funds to assist participation by students, keynote speakers and those from developing countries. The University of Arizona Student Union, where most of the sessions will be held has a wide range of low cost food outlets and there are many reasonable and diverse restaurants within a few minutes walk of campus. ...Local conference organization is directed by a local arrangements committee based at the University of Arizona, Institute of the Environment that includes James Buizer, Gregg Garfin, Diana Liverman, Jonathan Overpeck, Tom Mc Donald and the staff of the Institute of Environment. ...Toronto, Canada), Bruce Campbell (CCAFS), Cecilia Conde (UNAM, Mexico), Hallie Eakin (ASU), Kris Ebi (IPCC WG2, USA), Carlos Gay (UNAM, Mexico), Alex Guerra (Instituto Privado de Investigación sobre Cambio Climático, Guatemala), Saleem el Huq (IIED/Bangladesh), Kathy Jacobs (OSTP, US), Richard Klein (SEI/Univ.

New section: Publications

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-09-28T14:46:22-07:00

The pubs range from brief white papers that discuss how climate change should guide high-level water management policies to more systematic documents that look at the process of creating water-themed vulnerability assessments of shifting eco-hydrological conditions and institutional capacity. There are also several pieces from the scientific literature. More will be added on a regular basis. If you other pieces to suggest adding, please contact me directly or post a comment here! jhm

Water Hackathon!

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-09-26T07:34:55-07:00

In advance of the event, organizers are actively seeking input from the water community to identify the most pressing water-related problems facing low-income areas. ...A hackathon event is an intensive marathon of brainstorming and programming, where software developers and designers collaborate to create new tools for solving a set of problems. ...The two-day marathon hacking event will take place on October 21 – 23, 2011, with multiple global locations bringing together software developers to hack on real-world water problems. ...We invite programmers, software designers, GIS specialists, social media experts, graphic designers, translators, along with experts in water-related issues and water users to register at rhok.org/events ...While not all these problems will lend themselves to technology solutions, we believe documenting pressing local water problems is the first step to breaking down barriers for non-traditional partners. For those problems that do get solved, we will share the solutions and support teams in getting their applications deployed. ...Diseases related to unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation are the biggest single challenges in global public health today. ... • Children are especially vulnerable to health risks; the majority of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and unhygienic living conditions are to children under five. ...The sustainable management of water resources has also acquired a new urgency in the face a global population expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, increased food demands, and increased hydrological variability caused by climate change. ...In search of just that, the World Bank and partners are joining forces in order to seed a new community of software developers, designers and water experts to (1) identify critical global challenges and project specific problems in order to (2) develop technological tools to help respond to them. ...WaterHackathon is organized by the World Bank and Water and Sanitation Program, along with technology partners from NASA and Random Hacks of Kindness and dedicated local partner organizations in each event site.

New UN adaptation and vulnerability site

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-09-16T15:34:35-07:00

Launched with the support of leading scientists and decision-makers, PROVIA responds to the call for a more cohesive and coordinated approach to harmonize, mobilize, and communicate the growing knowledge-base on vulnerability, impacts and adaptation. The PROVIA website provides an interactive platform for a growing network of scientists, practitioners and decision makers working towards identifying knowledge gaps and meeting policy needs in vulnerability, impacts and adaptation research. PROVIA's vision is to create an interface between the scientific community and decision makers involved in vulnerability, impacts and adaptation issues, and improve the availability and accessibility of such knowledge to the people that need it most. See also the Adaptation Futures Conference listed here.

Video + podcast: An extended discussion of adaptation science and practice

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-09-12T12:29:04-07:00

For more information on Lee, you can visit he has a brief bio on wikipedia, and his CV and a recent list of publications at UCSB is available here. He has an extensive set of pubs that can be downloaded by scholar.google, but he’s also recently an undergraduate textbook on climate change and ecological trends and impacts.

New PLoS Biology paper: The water-climate-infrastructure nexus

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-09-07T10:24:58-07:00

“If we look at the Colorado River in North America, the policies and infrastructure that govern a huge region of the US and Mexico were based on an enormous hydrological error about the amount of water that would available in the future – in the time we are living now. ... We run a huge risk of making poor nations poorer and accelerating the decline of species and ecosystems through bad development investments,” says John Matthews, Director of Freshwater Climate Change at Conservation International and lead author of the paper. ...According to the paper, a group of development banks calculated that most developing countries spend between two and six percent of their GDP on infrastructure development – a proportion which accounts for almost half of all international financial institutions’ lending. Moreover, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimated that about 40 percent of all development investments are at risk due to climate change. ... “The conservation community is in danger of becoming irrelevant if we don’t engage with the groups that are making decisions that will affect ecosystems for decades: the engineers and economists who design and finance water infrastructure. Many of them are implementing plans that will rapidly get out of sync with the climate,” said Bart Wickel, Senior Conservation Hydrologist at the World Wildlife Fund, and co-author of the paper. Sarah Freeman, Conservation Hydrologist at the World Wildlife Fund, and co-author, added: “By integrating ecosystems into infrastructure we can deliver the resources that will lift the developing world out of poverty and help to minimize the impacts of climate change on the environment. ...Poor investment and management decisions risk ecological transformations caused by climate change, which in turn could trigger economic crises, the paper argues, citing Rwanda as an example. That country faced a moment of truth in 2004: a drought threatened to cut off 90 percent of the country’s hydropower as a result of the persistent destruction of wetlands for agriculture and energy production. ...“Climate sustainable water resource management should be part of the long-term strategy of the conservation community to help economies and terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems to adjust to an uncertain future. Given the risks for human communities and ecosystems from climate change, ecologists working in the developing world need to think more like development economists, and economists need to think more like ecologists,” the paper concluded.

Video: Climate adaptation in Rwanda

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-09-06T07:54:27-07:00

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Interviews with thought-leaders in climate change: Engineering at the IDB

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-09-05T12:29:59-07:00

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Workshop on water & climate in the Americas

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-09-05T11:44:28-07:00

Hosted by the National Water Commission of Mexico and organized by dozens of participating organizations in the Americas region, this will be one of six parallel workshops aiming to define a coherent position on the six thematic priorities for the Americas region towards the 6th World Water Forum, to be held in Marseilles, France in March 2012. These thematic priorities are water and climate change adaptation; guarantee access to water services and integrated sanitation for all; governance for Integrated Water Resources Management; water for food security; harmonizing water and energy; and water and ecosystems services. Please note that participation in this event is free of charge. You will find more details on the program, purpose, logistics, etc. of these workshops here (in English) and here (in Spanish). Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact cinternacional@conagua.gob.mx. ...This workshop is the latest milestone in the Americas’ Regional Policy Dialog on Water and Climate Change Adaptation that is being carried out by over 20 relevant organizations in the region, in line with global, regional and local processes and events related to water, the environment, broader development and climate change. For more information on this Regional Policy Dialog, please visit http://www.waterclimatechange.org/ (in English) or http://www.aguaycambioclimatico.org/ (in Spanish, coming very soon). ...Asesor para Proyectos Estratégicos / Punto Focal para Agua y Cambio Climático – Advisor on Strategic Projects / Focal Point for Water and Climate Change Comisión Nacional del Agua - National Water Commission of Mexico (CONAGUA) Subdirección General de Programación-Gerencia de Planificación Hídrica / Deputy Director General’s Office for Planning-Water Planning Department E-mail: colin.herron@conagua.gob.mx colin.anthony.herron@gmail.com

The Stockholm Statement from World Water Week

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-09-05T11:08:20-07:00

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012 (Rio+20 Summit) provides an opportunity for global leadership to harness economic activity at all levels to create new and sustainable development and eradicate poverty. The foundation for a resource efficient green economy must be built upon water, energy and food security – and these issues must be addressed in an integrated, holistic manner that values the natural environment and recognises the carrying capacity of the planet. Action is critical at all levels to address inequities, especially for the ‘bottom billion’ who live in slums and impoverished rural areas and survive without access to safe drinking water, adequate sanitation, sufficient food and energy services. It is imperative to ensure that adequate water and sanitation services are available to the world’s population in accordance with the resolution of the UN General Assembly declaring these as a human right. Accordingly, over and above achieving the Millennium Development Goals, we call for a universal provisioning of safe drinking water, adequate sanitation and modern energy services by the year 2030. We call on local, municipal, and national governments and all major groups participating at the Rio+20 Summit to commit to achieving the following intervening targets by 2020: • 20% increase in total food supply-chain efficiency; reduce losses and waste from field to fork • 20% increase in water efficiency in agriculture; more nutrition and crop per drop  • 20% increase in water use efficiency in energy production; more kWh per drop  ...o All governments commit to sufficient investments in safe drinking water and sanitation ...o Commit to policy and institutional reforms that create an enabling environment for the ...The achievement of the aforementioned targets and outcomes would help the global leaders assembled at the Rio+20 Summit to deliver a new model of human and economic development and ensure a real impact on human well-being across the world.

UNFCCC Bonn water and climate change session

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-06-10T05:53:28-07:00

This side event will discuss the way forward to work with Parties in operationalising the references to water resources in the Convention and the Cancun Agreement. Perspectives to be explored will include opportunities to work with Parties in ‘on the ground concrete adaptation activities’ through participation in the Water, Climate and Development programme at regional, national and local level. ...Article 4, paragraph 1(e) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change commits Parties to develop appropriate and integrated plans for coastal zone management and water resources management for the protection and rehabilitation of areas affected by drought, desertification and floods. ...Paragraph 14a of the Cancun Agreement agreed at COP 16 makes specific reference to water resources, freshwater, marine ecosystems and coastal zones when it refers to “Planning, prioritizing and implementing adaptation actions, including projects and programmes.” ...The side event will generate recommendations on how Parties can be effectively supported to meet their commitments on water towards COP 17 and beyond. ... • Cristóbal Punina Lozano, Vice-Minister of Water, Ecuador ...Bai Mass Taal, Executive Secretary, African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW) and former Minister of Water, Gambia • Rob Bradley, Directorate of Energy & Climate Change, United Arab Emirates • Karin Lexén, Director, Water and Climate Coalition ...Alex Simalabwi, alex.simalabwi@gwpforum.org, +46-73-088-0053 Karin Lexén, karin.lexen@siwi.org, +46-73-914-3993

African freshwaters: emerging threats and challenges

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-06-09T11:28:16-07:00

We took an interesting approach to thinking about climate change at a continental scale: what kinds of large-scale climate and geophysical trends has Africa faced over the past 100,000 years, and how have these influenced freshwater ecosystems and species? Can we make reasonable inferences about what impacts will be emerging as the climate continues to shift, based on current estimates of trends now? Our conclusion from this exercise was that the African freshwater ecosystems have experienced very dramatic changes, even within the past seven or eight thousand years, and since ecologically this is very recent history, we believe that African freshwaters actually possess very high levels of inherent resilience. ... That ecosystems have been deeply modified by recent human use, and the synergies with climate represent the largest threats the continent now faces. ...This is largely a result of: i) the high degree of connectivity within freshwater systems, such that threats like pollution and invasive alien species spread more rapidly and easily than in terrestrial ecosystems; and ii) the rapidly increasing use and development of water resources, with little regard to the requirements of the freshwater dependent species sharing the resource. ...Currently, protected areas are rarely designed to protect freshwater species, meaning that taxonomic groups that represent a significant portion of the total species and genetic diversity on the planet are being overlooked. ...Protected areas and other conservation action for freshwater species must be designed to employ the principles of catchment management. Even where species are identified by species-driven legislation, without catchment-based planning that extends the designated control areas to the edge of the river catchment, impacts such as water pollution and invasive alien species will inevitably lead to species decline. ...If we are to conserve and continue to benefit from the services provided by freshwater species we need to manage water as a resource for both people and freshwater biodiversity. This approach is encapsulated within the Environmental Flows concept, which aims to ensure that there is enough water to maintain environmental, economic and social benefits. ...The data made available here must be integrated within the decision-making processes in planning for the conservation and development of inland water resources, ensuring all development projects have a ‘Net Positive Impact‘.

"Blue Carbon" and marine wetlands: New guidelines, methodology

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-06-09T10:10:54-07:00

Even the term “wetlands” in this context has an unusual meaning, since under the Ramsar Convention wetlands can refer to swamps and freshwater and coastal marshes (as is the normal English usage) but also rivers, lakes, peatlands, estuaries, marine coastlines, coral reefs, and other marine and freshwater ecosystems up to 6 meters in depth. ...Scientific engagement on this issue, however, has tended to center on marine wetlands: coastal marshes (such as Spartina spp.), tropical mangrove forests (common in south Asia, coastal west and east Africa, Latin America, Florida in the USA), and seagrass beds (generally in relatively shallow subtropical and tropical seas near shorelines). ... This carbon can be released if the sediments are uplifted geologically or exposed to the air for a long time, such as from mangrove deforestation, or if sea levels fall. ...A new method for calculating the role that mangrove restoration plays in slowing climate change, by capturing and storing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, has been adopted. ...This will provide a significant boost to restoration efforts for mangrove forests, which grow in tropical and sub-tropical coastal regions and provide a wide range of biological services such as nurseries for juvenile fish and a source of timber for local populations. “The fact that this new methodology is now part of the Clean Development Mechanism should allow us to achieve similar results for other types of coastal and marine ecosystems,” says Carl Gustaf Lundin, Director of the IUCN Global Marine and Polar Programme. ...Many scientists believe that mangroves are far more efficient at trapping carbon than tropical and temperate forests, whose role as climate regulators has been recognised and established longer. The methodology was developed by IUCN, Ramsar and Sylvestrum for the Clean Development Mechanism and was based on field experiences from a 3-year partnership with Danone. The project was initiated by food and water company Danone and its brand Evian in partnership with IUCN and Ramsar, which implemented large mangrove restoration initiatives together with local communities in Africa and Asia.. ...“It will have a very significant impact on local communities and will stimulate companies to make corporate-level investment and grasp new carbon offsetting opportunities in coastal regions.” Mangrove forests are just one of several coastal ecosystems that play an important role in regulating climate and are commonly referred to as “blue carbon” solutions.

UNFCCC update from Bonn: Substance in the SBSTA?

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-06-09T09:46:20-07:00

The process has been pretty awful, he notes. The SBSTA is facing a very broad set of issues (not just water), and perhaps as a result the agenda-jiggling process has occupied more than three days so far. The Nigerian representative, for instance, stated today how embarrassing it was that the SBSTA discussions had entered their fourth day with no substance whatsoever. Shortly after the agenda was finally adopted and there was a lot of clapping. Venezuela remarked what a waste of time the previous three days have been. The EU and Australia tried to appear a bit more positive but basically delivered the same message. An informal meeting has been scheduled, basically off the record, to go over water and some other similar elements of the agenda this afternoon, Bonn time (some hours ago as of this writing). In effect, we don’t know what was said about water today. The results of the informal discussion will be announced tomorrow, in the open plenary or formal group session. Stay tuned.

Not for the "Future of Water"? The role of widespread groundwater pollution

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-06-06T10:41:51-07:00

China's Great Diversion

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-06-02T07:09:04-07:00

The basic problem in China for millennia is that the south and central regions of the country have water but the north does not. The north, for instance, has historically grown wheat and raised pasture-fed livestock, while the south is more of a giant garden — and where most of the rice is grown. The idea with this diversion is to pull massive quantities of water from the Han and Yangtze rivers to move (mostly by pumping) huge quantities of water to the north in pipes that would be large for automotive tunnels. ...This is an interesting year to cover this story for the Times, and strangely they don’t seem to refer to the article they published last week about the widespread and very severe drought that is affecting the central and lower Yangtze. Of course, the South-North project would be pulling even more water from this region, and people are very worried. What I understand from friends in China that has not been reported is that the drought appears to be closely connected to the new operating regime of the Three Gorges Dam, which in effect stores too much water. Indeed, it’s operating regime over the past two years has effectively lowered the level of the river by several meters, and many of the enormous wetlands and lakes along the middle and lower Yangtze have begun to drain back into the river mainstem. The dam has had to release huge quantities of water just to allow ships to continue to navigate the river. Likewise, the city of Shanghai (population ~25 million) now encounters saltwater intrusions more than once a year that shut down their drinking water supply for days or weeks during high tides that now extend much further up the estuary. ...A reserve largely created to isolate the Yangtze finless porpoise (Tian’e Zhou National Park) from the polluted mainstem has now been affected by rice and pig farmers and aquaculture centers illegally draining the reserve. ... The severe winter drought of a few years ago and the current drought are probably going to take many years for the finless porpoise to recover from.

CCW.org and ClimatePrep.org interview Jared Diamond: Where do we go from here?

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-06-01T15:31:00-07:00

The film’s editor Chris O’Leary did a great job on this film. His stylistic approach is quite similar to Fog of War.

Water & Climate Coalition: How do we get water into the UN Bonn meeting?

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-05-31T12:32:54-07:00

This agreement builds on Article 4, Paragraph 1(e) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, that commits Parties to 1. (e) Cooperate in preparing for adaptation to the impacts of climate change; develop and elaborate appropriate and integrated plans for coastal zone management, water resources and agriculture, and for the protection and rehabilitation of areas, particularly in Africa, affected by drought and desertification, as well as floods; ...It will also address mitigation-adaptation interlinkages as expressed through water resources – providing guidance on how to ensure that narrow mitigation objectives do not weaken long-term resilience and adaptive capacity through adverse impacts on water. ...Financial Guidance – the work programme will provide guidance to the Green Climate Fund and other financial mechanisms under the Convention on the allocation of financial resources for water management, including analysis of existing flows, priority areas and recommended criteria. ...In addition, the work programme will facilitate capacity building as guided by the Parties, in collaboration with water management practitioners and leading expert organisations – e.g. by linking up to ongoing adaptation work involving water management, convening workshops on water and climate, commissioning studies to fill research and information gaps. ...As a result of the discussions in SBSTA and to ensure that Parties have the opportunity to comprehensively discuss water and climate issues and address next steps through the UNFCCC, it would be helpful for the UNFCCC Secretariat to convene a workshop on water and climate for the Parties during COP17. ...Many parties have in their submissions to the UNFCCC Secretariat emphasized the importance of having sufficient technical, policy, legal, social and financial experience, knowledge and expertise in the impacts of, and vulnerability and adaptation to, climate change. ...The Terms of Reference for the Green Climate Fund Transitional Committee state that the Committee will consider „mechanisms to ensure appropriate expert and technical advice, including from relevant thematic bodies established under the Convention. ...Many of the world‟s most water-stressed areas will get less water, and water flows will become less predictable and more subject to extreme events.1 Building resilience to climate change requires an improvement in the management of water as a resource and as a hazard. ...In July 2010 the UN General Assembly adopted A/RES/64/292, which in Operative Paragraph 1 “[R]ecognizes the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights;”. On 30 September 2010, the UN Human Rights Council, a subsidiary body of the UN General Assembly, adopted by consensus resolution A/HRC/15/L.14 on “Human Rights and access to safe drinking water and sanitation” Operative Paragraph 3 is the critical paragraph: it “[a]ffirms that the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation is derived from the right to an adequate standard of living and inextricably related to the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, as well as the right to life and human dignity1. ...It is therefore critical that the cross-cutting nature of water is fully acknowledged and that water management is fully integrated into climate adaptation and mitigation – this is to ensure long- term resilience of water systems and thereby safeguard access the water as a human right.

Interactive "Future of Water" web event, 7 June

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-05-31T11:53:09-07:00

One innovative aspect of the event is a live conversation taking place on the FutureWeCreate.com site simultaneous to the video broadcast. So if you are available at 11am EDT (GMT - 5) on June 7th, you will have the opportunity to respond to other people's videos and engage with other members of the audience directly.

The UN's Climate Policy: Integration at Last?

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-05-29T12:34:20-07:00

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is a big complex institution in itself, with many component organizations. One of the best-known is the IPCC, or Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the Nobel Peace Prize several years ago. The IPCC is a designed to assess and compile the scientific literature around the science of climate change impacts, mitigation, and adaptation. A much less well known group is the SBSTA (pronounced “sub-stah”), which is the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technical Advice. The SBSTA sounds in theory like the IPCC, but while the IPCC is primarily intended to provide advice to policymakers about climate science and climate impacts science, the SBSTA is more focused and applied. ...During June’s Bonn meetings, however, the SBSTA will be considering a major new expansion of its responsibilities: the development of a “water program.” A water program would, at least in theory, serve as a means of looking across the UNFCCC’s many bodies of work and policy and subsidiary groups to provide some coherence and integration around the theme of water. This issue was recently discussed on this blog in relation to energy, but agriculture and food production would be another obvious area of interest since raising crops and livestock is so critically linked to water availability, timing, and quality. ...The Water and Climate Coalition (WCC) was the major lead behind the scenes as a coalition for a variety of environmental, development, and water infrastructure and management organizations. Perhaps the biggest breakthrough from their perspective occurred December 2010 during UNFCCC CoP 16 in Cancun, Mexico, when with the WCC’s outreach efforts policymakers from Sudan and Ecuador, with much broader support, overcame hard opposition from other nations to have a vote in April about creating a water program under the SBSTA’s umbrella. ...The final vote -- which would result in actual changes in the UNFCCC and the SBSTA -- is now set to occur, probably about 15 June.

"Difficult Hydrologies" for Everyone

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-05-29T12:31:56-07:00

While Grey and Sadoff are not discussing climate change per se, the projections for climate change globally basically show that we are all about to enter "difficult hydrologies" if particular nations are not there already. Clearly, 2011 is a year of difficult hydrologies in the US and central China in the same way that 2010 was for Russia and Pakistan (and northern and southern China). Another application of their terminology is to point out that we are probably already seeing development investment from the private sector beginning to shift from difficult to easier hydrologies (e.g., from Kenya to Brazil), and we need to use adaptation funding as a way to develop and implement a new model of development that makes even difficult hydrologies sustainable over the long term.

The Problem of Coherence: Mitigation vs Adaptation

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-05-29T11:44:47-07:00

Until very recently, most people working around energy production assumed that water’s presence in the energy sector was basically limited to hydropower. ... For instance, an excellent very recent reference in this area -- from February 2011, I believe -- is a World Bank report on adaptation needs for the energy sector: http://www.esmap.org/esmap/sites/esmap.org/files/E-Book_Climate%20Impacts%20on%20Energy%20Systems..pdf Three items of note there: First, the authors note repeatedly that changes in the hydrological cycle water is the key adaptation challenge for the energy sector and crosses far more aspects of energy generation and distribution than simply hydropower. ...Some countries, especially those in the north, will benefit — mostly from more rain (rather than snow) and longer free-flowing seasons. Much of the subtropics and tropics, however, will see little change and quite possibly major declines, such as Mexico, Brazil, the Middle East and northern Africa, and the Mediterranean region. Third, Figure 3.4 is a brilliant illustration of the carbon v water use intensity of a wide range of energy generation mechanisms. I love Figure 3.4 especially because it is in effect a vulnerability assessment of energy production to changes in the hydrological cycle. ... That should be a very powerful message to countries such as India, China, the US, and Canada that are hydro-coal mega-consumers. It should also be notable that biofuels are not listed, though my hunch is that they would be even more water-intensive than any of the other items that are listed. Biofuels are very important for regions such as Brazil (source: mostly sugarcane) and the US (mostly corn-based ethanol). ...I also believe this report is a good illustration of how to talk about coherence in a way that brings the mitigation and adaptation audiences together.

UK infrastructure and climate change report

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-05-18T08:21:42-07:00

It is important our infrastructure is able to adapt, as effective adaptation will help minimise the potential long-term disruption and cost to the economy. As an infrastructure company, it is important new infrastructure is planned, designed and built now for the future impacts of climate change over the infrastructure’s estimated lifetime. ...On 9th May 2011, Defra’s Secretary of State launched Climate Resilient Infrastructure, a cross-Government report which outlines the challenges to the transport, energy, water and ICT infrastructure sectors to adapting to climate change. ...The report is also the culmination of the two-year Infrastructure and Adaptation project, which has involved the key infrastructure departments Cabinet Office, BIS, CLG, DECC, DfT and Defra. ...Defra set up a 2-year cross-Government Infrastructure & Adaptation project (April 2009-April 2011) to examine the risks and potential solutions to improve the long-term resilience of new and existing infrastructure in the energy, ICT, transport and water sectors. ...Adapting Energy, Transport and Water Infrastructure to the Long-term Impacts of Climate Change – this examined the technical risks and operational implications for infrastructure in these sectors. ...Adapting the ICT Sector to the Impacts of Climate Change – this explored the impacts of climate change on the ICT sector and the potential for adaptation. ...Adapting to Climate Change in the Infrastructure Sectors – exploring the implications of climate change impacts, both for existing infrastructure and for future investment in these sectors. This report also examined the role of Government, regulators and others in encouraging adaptation action to maintain robust and resilient infrastructure systems. ...Infrastructure, Engineering and Climate Change: Ensuring Services in an Uncertain Future – setting out the engineering profession’s views on how to adapt the infrastructure system to the long-term effects of climate change and the short-term shocks of extreme weather. The Engineering the Future report Infrastructure, Engineering and Climate Change Adaptation – ensuring services in an uncertain future (PDF 1 MB) was published in February 2011.

Guest blog: Freshwater book award

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-05-11T12:21:19-07:00

Estelle Balian mentioned on this blog (March 1, 2011) a book entitled Freshwater: the essence of life, published by Conservation International in conjunction with the International League of Conservation Photographers and CEMEX. Estelle is one of several BioFresh partners who co-authored chapters in the book, which carries the message that freshwater ecosystems are the ultimate biodiversity hotspot. As a co-editor of the book, I am pleased to tell you that it has won a 2011 SILVER Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY award) in the category of Environment, Ecology and Nature. Sunset at Iguaçu Falls National Park—an amazing system of waterfalls that spans the border between Argentina and Brazil and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The surrounding forest is home to more than 2,000 species of plants and other wildlife. ...In the book, 44 authors from 28 academic and research institutions, and non-governmental and governmental organizations describe the diversity of freshwater ecosystems around the world, in terms of the species present and the physical diversity of these systems. The authors review the numerous and varied threats that impact these systems, and the conservation actions that are being implemented to sustainably manage them and the essential services they provide to human communities. The book discusses the importance of developing appropriate policy and governance to manage water flows and maintain resilient freshwater ecosystems. The book is beautifully illustrated with dozens of photographs from the World’s top nature photographers. Some additional news is that a traveling exhibit of many of these photographs has been developed to accompany the book. ...There is also a video on freshwater, which uses images from the book, available here.

Guest blog: Climate services for Latin America

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-05-03T10:35:56-07:00

In the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region, this has been widely recognized, and there is a need for more and better information, stronger institutions and enhanced means of social organization to improve the abilities of countries in the region to build self-capacity to tackle climate change in a way that is environmentally and financially sustainable, as well as politically feasible. So, what can be our next steps as a region? At the recent Conference of the Parties (COP16), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) unveiled a Global Framework for Climate Services, in response to this need. Climate Services are now starting to take form in various regions of the world, and are essentially an effort to close the gap between the science of climate change and the decisions and policies that we need to make in response to – and in anticipation of – this global challenge. I propose here that the establishment of a “LAC Climate Service”, based on the latest scientific knowledge at various levels from local to national to regional, as a fundamental action towards the design of effective adaptation policies and climate risk management. Moreover, based on my own experience working on climate-related issues throughout the LAC region, I further propose that the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) needs to play a significant role in this Climate Service, perhaps even leading it! The blueprint to getting this done exists: the proposed LAC Climate Service needs to be built using the many dispersed institutional and administrative mechanisms, projects, human and financial resources already in existence in the region. There is a need to clearly define the roles of various institutions involved and set up a mechanism for effective coordination in the development of the climate information and products and translating them into a suite of climate services. Various sectoral users at national and local level, along with universities, research institutions and civil society, can and should be effectively engaged through such a mechanism. It is now widely recognized that climate change is a development issue – and the IADB is the LAC region’s main development partner. Because of its long-term presence and history, involvement with the governments, private sector and a myriad of institutions and stakeholders in all aspects of development in the countries of the region, the IADB is uniquely positioned to rise to this challenge.

Everyone a Hydrodiplomat

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-04-15T11:26:54-07:00

The screen alternated between a series of South African water-use awareness spots that ran silently, cycling over and over, interrupted occasionally by a series of live feeds from Washington, DC, a city that sits on the other side of the equator and about six hours behind Cape Town. ...We were all waiting for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to speak, to follow up on the strong messages she had delivered a year before in a powerful speech on the importance of water to US foreign policy. ...So in the water community in 2010, one of the most-forwarded emails must have been a transcript of Secretary Clinton’s statement from World Water Day that year. ...Compare this as a core value, say, to energy security, which arguably was one of the primary reasons the US invaded Iraq during both the First Gulf War of the early 1990s and the Second Gulf War, which began in 2003 and has yet to end. ...This is a region that historically has been dominated by the Kurdish ethnic group, and the Kurds can be found in a swath that stretches from eastern Turkey through northern Iraq and into neighboring Iran. Culturally, linguistically, and spiritually distinct from the more dominant ethnic Turks (in Turkey), the Arabs (in Iraq), and the Persians (in Iran), the Kurds have a strong desire to constitute their own nation or at least a set of autonomous regions within other nations. ...Most people would never claim that southeast Asia is a water-scarce region like the middle and lower Tigris-Euphrates basin, but the downstream nations — Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam — saw very reduced river levels just as China began filling several enormous hydropower storage dams on the upper Mekong. ...For an even more recent example, many of the revolutions now occurring in the Middle East — Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Jordan — seem to be closely linked to rising food prices, which have risen because of the low yields and high demand linked to the extreme droughts and floods during mid-2010. ...In 2010, Secretary Clinton seemed to signal the beginning of a new era of “hydrodiplomacy” in US foreign policy — using water as a tool to ease tensions between and within countries and as a theme for sustainable development. ...As I sat listening to Clinton, it occurred to me that the work agreement with the World Bank and the accounting of water-related projects throughout the US federal government was not really the point. ... But you can usually leverage getting water right into getting a lot of other things right too, like increasing economic equity within a country or building a management basin scheme between countries that builds trust over time.

Guest blog: Local solutions for global water challenges

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-04-12T14:34:46-07:00

The specific actions required depend on many local factors, including the anticipated effects of climate change in that area, the relative fragility of the present water resources situation, existing levels of investment in water management facilities and institutions, and the overall governance conditions in the country and the communities. ...In the Ethiopian highlands, where a number of communities rely on water harvesting as a source of domestic water supply for at least part of the year, the anticipated changes in the seasonality of rainfall could make such techniques less reliable. The necessary adaption may be something along the lines of enhancing the management of the catchment, developing a larger cistern (i.e. increasing storage capacity), or, where feasible, accessing an alternative source, such as drilling a well. ...The effect on the relationship between water and agriculture is another major water-related threat from climate change, especially when combined with other significant drivers such as population growth and surging demand for agricultural products in the urban areas. The critically important Indus basin is a prime example where the disruption to the hydrology of the changing characteristics of the snow melt and receding glaciers, along with the behavior of the monsoons, combine to exacerbate this already water-stressed basin where many of the natural ecosystems are severely damaged and exposes many millions of people and a large portion of the food production system of the region to devastating floods. ... Furthermore it requires that the surface water management systems are reformed so that water can be used more productively, appropriate allocations made for ecosystems, and, of course, enhancing the resilience of systems to cope with floods. The changing conditions related to water requires that decision makers across multiple sectors focus on supporting communities in sustainable water resources management, especially securing water supply for domestic needs, water for food security and agriculture, and water for the environment, including avoiding water quality deterioration. Creating the capacity to provide such basic services across a wide range of communities has been all-too elusive in much of the developing world, exacerbated by population pressures, demands from other sectors, degradation of water quality, and now climate change. As we well know, in water resources management, we need to be especially careful not to champion specific silver bullets, but rather recognize that this global challenge needs relatively local solutions (see our colleagues reporting from communities in Nepal: niwater.org). Ultimately it is the community that will be responsible for adapting their water resources systems; this requires that they are able to access the necessary information, techniques, and financial resources to address such challenges. The government, NGOs, the private sectors, family members working in urban areas or overseas all have important roles to play in supporting the communities to strengthen and sustain institutional capabilities that are resilient to the changing conditions, to identifying the opportunities and challenges at the sub-basin scale, in managing water to enhance food security and generate opportunities for livelihoods, to protect the ecosystems and avoid water quality degradation, and in managing risks, which includes linking the community to viable early warning systems.

Amazon 2010-11 drought: detectable from space

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-04-08T10:54:04-07:00

A new study has revealed widespread reductions in the greenness of Amazon forests caused by the last year's record-breaking drought. "The greenness levels of Amazonian vegetation — a measure of its health — decreased dramatically over an area more than three and one-half times the size of Texas and did not recover to normal levels, even after the drought ended in late October 2010," says Liang Xu of Boston University and the study's lead author. ...Computer models predict that in a changing climate with warmer temperatures and altered rainfall patterns, the ensuing moisture stress could cause some of the rainforests to be replaced by grasslands or woody savannas. ...The comprehensive study was prepared by an international team of scientists using more than a decade's worth of satellite data from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). ...The maps show the 2010 drought reduced the greenness of approximately 2.5 million square kilometers (965,000 square miles) of vegetation in the Amazon — more than four times the area affected by the last severe drought in 2005. "The MODIS vegetation greenness data suggest a more widespread, severe and long-lasting impact to Amazonian vegetation than what can be inferred based solely on rainfall data," says Arindam Samanta, a co-lead author from Atmospheric and Environmental Research Inc. in Lexington, Mass. The severity of the 2010 drought was also seen in records of water levels in rivers across the Amazon basin, including the Rio Negro which represents rainfall levels over the entire western Amazon. ...For comparison, the lowest level during the so-called once-in-a-century drought in 2005, was only eighth lowest," said Marcos Costa, coauthor from the Federal University in Vicosa, Brazil. As anecdotal reports of a severe drought began to appear in the news media during the summer of 2010, the authors started near-real time processing of massive amounts of satellite data. ...With NEX, the study's authors quickly obtained a large-scale view of the impact of the drought on the Amazon forests and were able to complete the analysis by January 2011. ..."Timely monitoring of our planet's vegetation with satellites is critical, and with NEX it can be done efficiently to deliver near-real time information, as this study demonstrates," said study coauthor Ramakrishna Nemani, a research scientist at Ames.

World Water Day: Secretary Clinton on Water

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-03-27T07:31:32-07:00

And I want to thank Bob Zoellick for his commitment to this issue and his leadership of the Bank; vice president Inger Andersen, American executive director Ian Solomon, and in particular, some of my team who are here – Maria Otero, Under Secretary for Global Affairs and Democracy at the State Department, and Don Steinberg, Deputy at USAID, and Jane Lubchenco, the NOAA Administrator. ...And to all of you who are here because you know that this is such a critical issue that cuts across every single part of development that one can imagine, I thank you for helping to raise the visibility of water as one of the most important issues. ...Now our experts in the United States Government are working on water issues at nearly two dozen agencies – of course, from State and USAID, but also the Millennium Challenge Corporation, NASA, NOAA, EPA, Treasury, and so much else. And many of our agencies are already working with the World Bank Group, but we want to enhance that collaboration, and that will be created by the memorandum of understanding that we sign today. ...As you’ve already heard Bob say in his recitation of some of the statistics that should be driving all of us to greater efforts, more than 5,000 people die each day from causes linked to unsafe water, sanitation, and hygiene, and most of them are children. ... And by 2025, we believe that it could be as much as two-thirds of the world’s population, including in more areas within developed countries where people will be living under water stress. ...One year ago, I reaffirmed the United States’s commitment to water security, to ensuring that people have the water they need, when and where they need it, in a sustainable manner, while reducing the risk and impact of extreme water events like droughts and floods. ...And I announced on last World Water Day that Under Secretary Otero and USAID Administrator Raj Shah would lead those efforts to build the capacity of individuals, governments, and institutions to advance water security, to elevate and better coordinate our diplomatic efforts to mobilize, finance, to harness science and technology, and leverage the full range of public and private partnerships. ...During the Millennium Development Goals Summit in New York in September, we co-hosted an event on water that brought together heads of state, ministers from donor and developing countries, to encourage us all to make water – especially sanitation – a higher priority. ...So let’s get about the business of working together – creatively, collaboratively, and quickly – to make a difference, to make our contribution to solving the water crisis and to bring greater health and stability to more of the world’s people. It’s a great honor for me to be here today, to thank you for the work you do every day, and to offer the close cooperation from President Obama and our government on behalf of this extraordinary commitment that water represents to all of us.

Personal transitions

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-03-23T19:42:19-07:00

This video was produced courtesy of WaterCube.org.

Tears in the rain: climate change, infrastructure, and sustainable development

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-03-22T19:04:03-07:00

Many new dams were producing significantly less electricity than had been predicted, and dam operators compensated by diverting more water than planned. ...The primary reason is that mainstream water resource management assumes that flow and precipitation data gathered during planning stages accurately reflects past and future patterns. ... The Hoover dam in the USA’s Colorado river basin created Lake Mead in 1936, storing water for the city of Las Vegas and generating hydropower for the region. ... The current level is only about 30 percent of capacity, which is maintained in part by diverting water from other rivers in the region. ...While that dam took about 50 years to move out of sync with its climate, the rapid rate of climate change in Nepal means that dams there are in danger of diverging from the start of operation. Farmers told us that Nepal’s high elevations no longer accumulate enough snow in winter many years to maintain summer flows, and the rainy season has become more irregular, so bad dam design and management make everything worse. ... Yet pressure for development is high: the region around Kathmandu experiences 12 to 18 hours of rolling blackouts every day because of low supply. Worse, since these hydropower facilities are performing below capacity, the already-poor nation paying for this development is likely to require longer than expected. ...Policymakers and operators globally need to know that precipitation patterns are changing and will continue to change for decades — probably centuries. Different ministries must communicate with each other that balance local communities with more distant energy and supply demands, using healthy ecosystems as the “scorecard” for sustainability. Lastly, we need to develop water infrastructure and operating rules that work sustainably under a much more diverse range of climate regimes.

UN must act soon to address threats on water in Africa, globally

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2011-03-22T19:04:02-07:00

Water, agriculture and environment ministers from six African countries – South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mali, Cameroon, Libya and Tanzania – met yesterday to define a roadmap for water-related issues during the next UN climate talks (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting, also known as COP17) to be held in Durban, South Africa, in December. The meeting was hosted by the Global Water & Adaptation Action Alliance (GWAAA), a new alliance of governments, development banks and environmental organizations, including Conservation International and the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). ...Climate change is essentially water change, so if we get water wrong as the climate continues to move, then we’ll make poor countries even more poor and create irreversible damage to our rivers, lakes, and wetlands,” said Anders Berntell of SIWI and the Water and Climate Coalition. In early April in Bangkok, the UNFCCC is meeting to discuss whether water should be placed on the formal agenda for the organization. If accepted, the result would be a “water program,” which would integrate global activity on climate mitigation (such as hydropower, forest carbon regulation, and biofuels), climate adaption (such as agriculture and infrastructure), and global policy around the theme of water. Initially sponsored in COP16 in Cancun last December by Ecuador and Sudan, the move is largely opposed by some of the leading developed nations, such as the EU and US. Widespread support is believed to exist among many of the developing nations most impacted by climate change. ...Across Africa, shifts in precipitation and air temperature are already fueling negative impacts to economies through health care, agriculture, fisheries, and ecosystem degradation. Many researchers have already documented climate change impacts across Africa in the rift lakes, the Okavango swamp, and rivers such as the Congo, Marra, and Nile, impacting fisheries, livelihoods and ecosystems. ...Africans know how important water is to developing their growing cities, for energy and food, to helping livelihoods and ecosystems adjust to the emerging climate. Water needs to be on the agenda at UN talks in Durban,” said John Matthews of Conservation International and co-head of the Global Water Adaptation Action Alliance.

Defining freshwater ecosystem priorities through awareness-raising

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-12-09T10:28:50-08:00

The Cabinet’s developers, Paul Jepson and Rob St John at Oxford University’s School of Geography and the Environment, are exploring the potential of new technologies such as blogs, social media and smart phones to re-imagine and reinvigorate old ways of engaging nature that appeal to the general public. Also known as Wunderkammer (literally, ‘wonder-room’), Cabinets of Curiosities were popular in Renaissance Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries and reflected both a thirst for intellectual stimulus and the investigative spirit prompted by an increasingly expanding known world. The premise of this communication tool is that curiosity and investigative spirit are alive and well and stimulated by the exciting capacity of the web for virtual exploration of knowledge, ideas and places. ...The ‘Cabinet’ is an online collection of curious and unusual freshwater flora, fauna and phenomenon with links to where each species can be seen in the wild, in captivity, or as a specimen in botanical gardens, museums, zoos, etc. This offers exciting opportunities to raise awareness of the importance of freshwater systems, whilst showcasing the displays held by institutions involved in freshwater biodiversity conservation efforts. ...Dr Paul Jepson, Leader of the BioFresh Communication and Dissemination work-package comments “Engaging people in the wonder of nature is a vital first step for conservation. Whilst it is appropriate for scientists and conservationists to want to tell people about threats and losses to biodiversity, it risks adding to a background sense of gloom. We need to balance the message that ‘biodiversity is declining and it’ll cost us’ with more aspiration messages such as ‘Hey, isn’t nature amazing. ...Rob St John, Lead developer of the Cabinet explains that “the underlying ethos of the Cabinet concept is one of drawing individual conclusions and emotional responses to nature. ...BioFresh is a multi-partner European Union-FP7 funded project that is linking up data-bases to create a global information platform on fresh-water biodiversity that will enhance scientific research and create a stronger evidence place for policy and planning. ...An interview with BioFresh project leader Professor Klement Tockner on the project is available at this link.http://www.freshwaterbiodiversity.eu/tl_files/downloads/pdf/BF_article_ResearchMedia.pdf

Guest blog: "Loss & damage" and adaptation at COP16

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-12-09T09:11:21-08:00

Definition of Loss and Damage: effects that would not have happened in a world without climate change, which have not been mitigated, and which cannot be (or have not been) adapted to. ...What arrangements should be established to respect the human rights of vulnerable communities if they must resettle elsewhere? Taking the example further, what if the island contained the entire population of a species that now is extinct. How can something like this be addressed appropriately if it is impossible to reserve? If parties decide to establish an international mechanism on “Loss and Damage” in Cancun, it would allow the UNFCCC to begin having these challenging discussions at future negotiating sessions to gain a better understanding of the issue and identify appropriate measures to address it. Political Situation: The concept of “Loss and Damage” was introduced by the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) at COP 14 in Poznan, Poland. Developing countries are universally supportive of the proposal, but developed countries such as the United States and European nations are reluctant. While developed countries have conveyed that the issues and needs this mechanism would address are important, these Annex I parties are hesitant to begin a dialogue about addressing issues that it is unclear how they can deal with. Furthermore, developed countries are uncomfortable with terms like “compensation” when describing the “Loss and Damage” mechanism because it indicates a legal obligation to take an action. The latest Adaptation text STILL makes no mention of Loss and Damage, a mechanism that is a priority for AOSIS and covers how to adequately address climate impacts in the most vulnerable countries that cannot be avoided, such as glacier melt, ocean acidification or sea-level rise and the effects on people and biodiversity. At the same time, the negotiation text contains troubling language on “Response Measures,” which relates to compensating OPEC countries for lost revenues if use of fossil fuels taper off.

Guest blog: Bridging the water & climate divide

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-12-08T08:49:04-08:00

Though the Chair suggested that he would take into account the proposals raised by Parties in the development of the agenda for the SBSTA in June 2011, there are no guarantees that this will happen. In order to ensure that a discussion on water is on the table for June, those Parties who raised and supported the proposal will need to liaise directly with the Chair in the coming weeks. Those Parties who are supportive of the proposal but were not able to present in the closing session should also forward their support for an agenda item on water to the SBSTA Chair. ...Many of the issues being addressed under the Convention, including forestry, land-use, renewable energy and disaster risk reduction all depend upon water for their long-term sustainability. ...Secondly, adaptation is essentially about water management – building resilience though good water management that balances water across competing demands and prioritises water for basic human needs and ecosystem functions; as well as responding effectively to water-induced hazards such as droughts and floods. ...Importantly, global trade in food and other essential products for development depends upon water availability in producing regions – climate-related interruptions to the water cycle upon which this production depends could have potentially devastating global consequences. It is therefore critical that Parties embrace this issue openly and constructively, and begin conversations on how water issues could be addressed within the Convention. The Water and Climate Coalition has put forward suggestions on the possible elements of a work programme to enhance focus and coordinate efforts on water related issues. The proposed work programme on water would include: a Discourse element, to advance the global policy discourse on water and climate at a global level; a Principles element, to establish guiding and normative global principles on water and climate; a Finance element, to provide expert advice on water and climate priorities to the Convention funds; an Implementation element, to build capacity for the implementation of water and climate objectives globally; and a Coherence element, to promote synergies between and advance implementation of other multilateral agreements that build resilience through water. These are possible functions of a work programme that Parties may wish to consider, but ultimately it will be up to countries to bring issues to the table and define priorities relating to water and climate. ...The Water and Climate Coalition is an international coalition of organisations working to put water at the heart of global policy responses to climate change.

COP16: Minsterial-presidential high-level panel on water & climate

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-12-07T11:09:32-08:00

Results of the Dialogs for Water and Climate Change Henk van Schaik, International Program Coordinator, Cooperative Programme on Water and Climate (CPWC) ...Juan Elvira Quesada, Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources, Mexico (tbc) ...Anders Berntell, Executive Director, Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) Tim Kasten, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Vice-Chair of UN- Water ...Laura Tuck, Director for Sustainable Development, The World Bank First debate ...Rachel Kyte, Vice President of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) ...Luis Alberto Moreno, President, Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Maria Mutagamba, Minister of Water and the Environment, Uganda, and ex Chair of AMCOW José Ángel Gurría Treviño, Secretary General, Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) ...President of the United Mexican States Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (tbc)

COP16: A little progress on water

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-12-06T09:23:02-08:00

My short answer is that global adaptation policy can help us working on water and climate adaptation issues only a little, but bad policy could really hurt us a lot. ...You should read Lovisa Selander’s comments in the previous blog entry, but since so many people working on adaptation in the water community are not involved with the UNFCCC, I wanted to provide a short plain-language version of what has happened and why it matters. For background, I am part of a group that helped found the Water and Climate Coalition almost two years ago (http://waterclimatecoalition.org), with the intention of focusing the water community to communicate to negotiators that water is the most important part of sustainable development from an adaptation perspective. ... The secretariat is formed by Stakeholders Forum (UK) and the Stockholm International Water Institute/Swedish Water House (SE); they use me effectively as their science advisor and I have been their spokesperson on many occasions; you can see many postings from COP15 on this blog that involve them. ...By putting water on the agenda, we are effectively asking that a water program to organize existing efforts and develop an active leadership strategy for UNFCCC and national policy efforts on water and climate adaptation issues. ...Andrew Steer, the World Bank's special envoy on climate change, gave a moving speech in Cancun last week on the critical importance of water to human and ecosystem adaptation. ...Until very recently, the UNFCCC has really only discussed adaptation as a financial issue — how much money is necessary and who should pay and who should receive. ... One negotiator said to me last year, If Syria wanted to buy tanks and invade Turkey for its water, that would technically qualify under previous UNFCCC adaptation fund terms. ...The UNFCCC is the only global level policy instrument that can credibly describe what good adaptation looks like how various adaptation actions should be prioritized. As such, it has an extremely powerful influence on how development banks, aid agencies, and national policies themselves define adaptation and set their own priorities. To date, there has been widespread appreciation from field-level practitioners and from the scientific community (such as the IPCC) that managing water effective is fundamental to human climate adaptation and sustainable development.

Guest blog: Water begins to enter the UN climate negotiations

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-12-06T09:15:50-08:00

The six countries proposed that water should be put on the agenda for the next meeting of the body which provides scientific and technical advice to the climate convention, the SBSTA. - Ecuador feels that water should be addressed more prominently at the climate change negotiations, said the representative of Ecuador, Undersecretary Tarsicio Granizo. ... This issue has long been neglected at the intergovernmental level and we would welcome the opportunity to discuss it at greater length in the future. ...The proposal was much welcomed by the Water and Climate Coalition, an alliance of twelve international organisations and research centres which works to raise the profile of water issues in the context of the climate negotiations. - Water has previously been more or less absent from the discussions at the climate negotiations, says Hannah Stoddart of the Water and Climate Coalition and the Stakeholder Forum. ...In the run up to COP-16, the Water and Climate Coalition has been proposing the establishment of a work programme on water under the Convention, which would develop policy guidelines, provide advice to the climate change funds and promote action on water related issues at a country level. ...To help communities and countries deal with climate change challenges, water should be integrated in the climate convention processes not as a sector but as a cross cutting natural resource. ...The Water and Climate Coalition will be holding a press conference at COP-16 on Monday December 6. ...The Water and Climate Coalition is a global coalition of organisations seeking to place water management at the heart of global climate change policy. The members of the Water and Climate Coalition are: Cap-Net, Chartered Institute for Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM), International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Freshwater Action Network (FAN), Green Cross International, International Water Association (IWA), Progressio, University of North Carolina (UNC) Water Institute and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). ...The secretariat of the Water and Climate Coalition is run by Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future and the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI).

COP16: GWP climate-water session

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-12-05T16:11:27-08:00

Time: Monday 6 December 2010 at 6.30-8.00 pm ...This side event will demonstrate the links between water, human development and climate change, discuss policy responses for COP 16, and explore financing water-related adaptation. A flyer for the side event is available for download here. ...Obeng, Chair of Global Water Partnership  ... Anders Berntell, Water and Climate Coalition, Executive Director, Stockholm International Water Institute ... Maas Goote, Head of Delegation, Special Envoy for Climate Change, the Netherlands (tbc)  • Ms Kulthoum Omari, HBF Sustainable Development Programme Manager ... Ursula Schäfer-Preuss, Vice President, Asian Development Bank  ... Bai Mass Taal, Executive Secretary of the African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW) ... Rolando Castro Cordoba, Freshwater Action Network (FAN) More information about the Global Water Partnership's participation at COP16.

COP16: Dialogs for Water & Climate Change in Cancun

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-11-30T09:14:02-08:00

High-Level Panel on Water and Climate Change ...Managing floods in a changing climate (UN-ISDR on behalf of UN-Water) ...Presentation of the LAC regional document on water-based adaptation to climate change ...Panel on droughts (UN-Water in collaboration with the CONAGUA) ...Can meteorological and hydrological services contribute to the creation of adaptation measures to face possible impacts of climate change? ...Lunch: The costs of adaptation to climate change for the water community (OECD) ...Lunch: Panel on social participation to face the challenge of water and climate change (Water Advisory Council) ...Adapting to climate change: why we need broader and “out-of-the-box” approaches (WWAP) ...Regulation and financing in the water resources sector for climate change adaptation. ...The role of water governance in adaptation to climate change: from local to global spheres (from Chiapas to Panama) (IUCN) ...We hope that you will consider taking part in the D4WCC, and we remain at your disposal for any further information.

COP16: Water & Climate Coalition events

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-11-29T12:48:21-08:00

The Dialogues for water and climate change, held by a series of partners led by CONAGUA, will take place Wednesday 1st - Wednesday 8th December. The Dialogues will aim to shed new light on the importance of water management for climate change adaptation. ...Place: "Luna" (Press Conference Room 2), ground floor of the Moon Palace Expo Centre  The Coalition will host a press conference to communicate its key message to a wider media audience. For more information please email Ms Lovisa Selander, lovisa.selander@siwi.org or Ms Nicola Williams, nwilliams@stakeholderforum.org.   SIDE EVENT: Water, Climate and Development: Linking Up Development Agendas and Putting Water Security First ... This side event is being hosted by the Water and Climate Coalition, the Global Water Partnership and the Heinrich Boell Foundation. It will demonstrate links between water, human development and climate change, discuss policy responses for COP 16, and explore financing water-related adaptation. A flyer for the side event is available for download here.... • Mr Bai Mass Taal, Executive Secretary of the African Ministers Council on Water (AMCOW)  ... For more information please email Karin Lexen

Guest blog: Extreme Amazon drought: fingerprints of climate change?

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-11-24T13:04:03-08:00

On 24 October 2010, the Rio Negro, a major tributary of the Amazon, reached an all time low of 13.63 m at Manaus, edging out 1963 when water levels reached 13.64 m (Monitoramento Hidrologico: 2010, Boletim no 33 – 29/10/2010, by the Companhia de Pesquisa de Recursos Minerais or CPRM). ...“Freshwater, forest, species and local people are being heavily impacted by this drought,” said Urbano Lopes da Silva Junior, WWF-Brazil’s conservation officer based in Rio Branco in a press release at the time (Amazon Basin experiencing extreme drought, 19 Oct 2005). ...Though the exact magnitude of the impacts are a matter of debate within the science community (see Amazon drought raises research doubts, Nature News, 20 July 2010), there is evidence that the drought along with elevated air temperatures sharply reduced net primary production (NPP) in the Amazon. ...The Brazilian government estimates that in 2005, carbon emissions from land-use and landcover changes (including deforestation) were 1.3 gigatons of carbon and accounted for 77% of Brazil's carbon emissions from all sources in 2005 (Segunda Comunicação Nacional do Brasil à Convenção-Quadro das Nações Unidas sobre Mudança do Clima [PDF], Coordenação-Geral de Mudanças Globais do Clima, Ministério da Ciência e Tecnologia, Brasília, 2010). ...The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported in The South American Monsoon System Summary, July 2009-June 2010 [Powerpoint] that precipitation from July 2009 through June 2010 was well below normal over the Amazon basin, consistent with the expected impacts of an El Niño. ...When asked about the degree to which rising GHG concentrations in the atmosphere were contributing to the trend of rising sea surface temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean, Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) said at a Congressional briefing on 30 June 2010 that the temperatures could not be explained without accounting for rising GHG concentrations. ...If the rise in SSTs in the tropical north Atlantic are being driven in part by rising GHG concentrations in the atmosphere, and if those SSTs are implicated in the Amazon drought of 2005 and potentially in the drought of 2010, then rising GHG concentrations are among the factors likely contributing to those droughts. ...More importantly rising atmospheric concentrations of GHGs in the future will continue to affect tropical sea surface temperatures in both the Pacific and the Atlantic, and research indicates that this -- in combination with rising air temperatures over the Amazon -- will increasingly dry out the Amazon. ...In Drought under global warming: a review (Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 19 Oct 2010) Dr Aiguo Dai of the National Center for Atmospheric Research says that models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 2007 assessment "project increased aridity in the 21st century, with a striking pattern that suggests continued drying" over many land areas including "most of Americas." ...More recently (in late 2009 and before the 2010 drought), in Major Tipping Points in the Earth’s Climate System and Consequences for the Insurance Sector [PDF], WWF identified the prospect of more frequent extreme droughts in the Amazon and the related rainforest dieback as being among the "tipping points" that could be passed in coming decades, with "significant impacts within the first half of this century." ...Recent work, however, suggests that, with the now elevated concentration of GHGs [greenhouse gases] (currently ~430 ppmv CO2e [parts per million, volume, of carbon dioxide equivalent],compared with 280 ppmv CO2e pre-industrial), the return period is of the order of 1-in-20-years and this is likely to increase to 1-in-2 and above by between 2025 and 2050 if stabilization at 450 to 550 ppmv CO2e is achieved (with a higher probability if it is not)."

COP16 and Global Adaptation Policy: Feliz Navidad for Opportunties in 2010?

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-11-09T19:22:01-08:00

BACKGROUND PARAGRAPH: The primary international policy body for discussing climate change issues is referred to as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or the UNFCCC. ... Sometimes COPs are also referred to by the city or region in which they occur, such as calling COP15 (held in December 2009 in Denmark) “Copenhagen.” ... Note that each annual meeting is preceded by a series of preliminary meetings (usually held in other cities and nations), in which countries and groups interested in climate change issues gradually build up the agenda for the December discussions. ...Through COP15 in Copenhagen, every one of the COPs has been dominated by a single issue: the terms for a global agreement to limit the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — that is, climate change mitigation. ...Since the number of national politicians in the US who support such legislation is likely to drop significantly following elections in November 2010, we are unlikely to see any real progress at either US or global levels for at least two years, which is the next major US election cycle. ...Even the Mexican government has tacitly admitted that they are unlikely to achieve any meaningful policy for COP16, which is an embarrassment for their hosting obligations (though by no means their fault). Climate change adaptation policy has always been a stepchild in these negotiations, scarcely discussed in public debates and only slightly referred to any of the COP policy agreements to date. ...Like many governments already feeling the impacts of climate change, Mexico’s federales intuitively understand that adaptation is a national security threat to its economy and development progress over the past few decades. ... With large portions of Mexico already stressed by insufficient water supply at the same time that tropical cyclone losses have been increasing in recent years, water looks to be one of the major limiting factors in Mexico’s sustainable growth during this century. ...As a result, Mexico has been working with other Latin American governments and the World Bank to create a new framework that places water at the center of the adaptation agenda. ... There is potential here for Mexico to step sideways by creating a global conversation about what adaptation should look like and what it should focus on, rather than simply on how much money is necessary and who should pay for that work.

Webinar: Changing climate, hydrology of the Tibetan plateau

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-11-08T13:41:48-08:00

of these changes and the possible implications for development efforts, ...Agency for International Development’s Asia and Global Health ...research on glacier melt in the region, glacier melt vulnerabilities, ...report provides a summary of the scientific findings to date and the ...understanding of the complex glacier melt changes remain limited. Effective programs to address glacier melt will need to be ...report will be presented at the Wilson Center on Tuesday, November 16th ...If you are interested, but unable to attend the event, please tune into the live or archived webcast at www.wilsoncenter.org. ...Location: Woodrow Wilson Center at the Ronald Reagan Building, 1300 ...entrance to the building will be restricted and photo identification is

BioFresh network: climate change and biodiversity

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-11-08T09:12:19-08:00

• Which ecoregions (FEOW), ecosystem types, habitats and taxonomic groups are most vulnerable to expected changes in hydrological and temperature regimes (Climate Vulnerability Index), and for which ecosystem scales are the most urgent and continuous adaptations of conservation strategies required (see WP7)? • Can Climate Freshwater Biodiversity Models successfully describe the current distribution of selected taxonomic groups with respect to hydrological and temperature regimes and can these models be used to predict species distribution under future climate scenarios? • How will cold stenothermic taxa in mountainous aquatic ecosystems respond to climate change and the immigration of taxa from lower altitudes? ...Climate is a primary constraint on species distribution and ecosystem function, and forecasting extinction risks, species range shifts, biome shifts, and altered disturbance regimes remains a central challenge. It is predicted that precipitation and temperature regimes will most likely be affected by future climate change, and that extreme events such as heat waves and resulting droughts and heavy precipitation associated with flooding will increase in both frequency and magnitude. Indeed, global climate change is expected to drive particularly sharp declines in freshwaters, as resident species are less mobile and only a few taxonomic groups are capable to freely shift their distribution ranges. The impact of climate change on freshwater biodiversity is therefore of major concern for the EU Nature Directives, the Convention of Biological Diversity and the Ramsar Convention. The degree and direction of change, however, is likely to depend on latitude and altitude, as well as on ecosystem type and target organisms. Aquatic biodiversity in mountain regions, for example, is expected to be especially vulnerable, as temperature directly influences life-cycle strategies and the distribution of biota. ...Changes in precipitation will favour some freshwater habitat types and their species-holding capacity, just as decreasing runoff and warming will negatively affect other habitats. For example, wetlands may be highly sensitive to changes in precipitation, while their particular species assemblages may be less affected because they already are adapted to fluctuating environmental conditions.

Communicating adaptation: The triumph of personal hope?

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-11-05T13:23:30-07:00

In China and India, for instance, I’ve been told that fear is a more effective means of motivating action around environmental issues generally and climate change in particular. From Europeans and Australians, I’ve heard that fear is “played out” as an communication message for the environmental community, a result of decades of scare tactics about crises immediately around the corner from a variety of time bombs — overpopulation, pollution, energy consumption, and so on. ...Policymakers make decisions every day that make the process of helping our society adjust to realized and anticipated shifts in climate, decisions that prioritize new infrastructure (or upgrade existing facilities), endorsing or eliminating government programs that train staff in new techniques, reach out to the public to describe the basis for policy, engage with scientific or other technical groups, develop monitoring systems, and so on. ... Building roads and repairing bridges, updating urban water treatment facilities and pipelines, and increasing the electrical grid capacity invariably raises questions about how long these facilities are expected to function and under what weather conditions. A road constructed in a low-lying coastal or riparian zone under assumptions that might have made sense in 1970 would probably no longer seem like a good investment decision in 2010 as extreme flood and tropical cyclone events become more common (and probably more extreme). ... Continuing to grow water-intensive crops such as cotton in increasingly arid regions is another type of poor policy investment, especially since large-scale agriculture is usually coupled with extensive hard infrastructure construction such as irrigation, groundwater pumping, and transportation networks. ...In practical terms, climate mitigation looks like global policy, which modifies national economic policies about energy generation and consumption, and then trickles down to individuals as a “low carbon economy.” Right or wrong, for many opponents to such policies, a low-carbon economy looks like fewer cars, a slower rate of development, and probably a lower standard of living, at least in the developed world. ...Many of the scientists I know who work on climate change issues have chosen to remain childless, which is a disturbing and profound commentary on their sense of how much hope they have for a better future. ... If you think the world is going to be much, much worse than now, what parent in her or his right mind would want to burden their grown child (or grandchild)? ...I am relatively old for a first-time parent at 42, and while I have not had a child to date for many reasons, one was a genuine fear for the earth of 2040 or 2060.

An invitation: A dialog on Water and Climate Change in Cancun

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-11-05T13:09:10-07:00

We hope that you will consider taking part in the D4WCC, and we remain at your disposal for any further information. ...Gerente de Planificación Hídrica / Water Planning Manager Subdirección General de Programación. ...Copilco El Bajo, C.P. ...La presente invitación fue enviada por varios medios. Nos disculpamos de antemano si la recibió más de una vez. ...Les envío en archivo adjunto una invitación a participar en los Diálogos por el Agua y el Cambio Climático (D4WCC, por sus siglas en inglés) en la ocasión de la COP 16, una serie de eventos organizados entre el 1° y el 6 de diciembre por un grupo de socios, encabezados por la Comisión Nacional del Agua de México (CONAGUA), y que incluye segmentos específicos de programación organizados por el Gobierno Federal de México, Banco Mundial, UN Water, el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo y otros socios. Encontrarán mayores detalles sobre los eventos en www.d4wcc.org.mx. ...Esperamos que participen en los D4WCC, y quedamos a sus órdenes por cualquier duda o aclaración. ...Gerente de Planificación Hídrica / Water Planning Manager ...Copilco El Bajo, C.P.

Call for Colleagues: Mongolian ice-sheets

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-11-03T13:08:36-07:00

To download a kmz file of the locations, go to: www.mine.mn/WPJ10_supplement_Google_Earth_kmz.htm To download a pdf file of a research paper: ‘Asian Ice Shields and Climate Change’ go to: www.mine.mn/WPJ10_3_naleds.htm ...Unlike glaciers and ice caps, naled ice shields do not need snow, and indeed grow better in arid regions such as the Central Asian Steppe and Gobi Desert. ... We have detected large numbers of ice shields persisting long after the snow has vanished, into late spring and early summer, supplying streams continuously with melt-water even in dry periods, irrigating pasture and crops and supplying people and wildlife with drinking water. Our research indicates that ice shields, unlike snow, can resist warming sufficiently to serve as natural buffers against Climate Change, and maintain oases in regions dominated by desertification. ...It is clear to us that ice shields that form in winter survive sufficiently in spring and early summer to create wetlands and pasture rich in wildlife, and in particular attracting migrating birds. ...Our first proposal seeks to “Reverse Permafrost Loss” in valleys in Ulaanbaatar by growing naleds cheaply in winter that chill the ground sufficiently for permafrost to re-establish itself, and for the meltwater to irrigate saplings steadily in spring and summer. As far as we know this is the first practical proposal in the world seeking to create permafrost. http://www.mine.mn/WPJ10_supplement_Ice_Shields.htm ...Our second proposal is to create “Cool Parks” in Ulaanbaatar, by growing naleds cheaply in winter that survive into summer and so abate the Urban Heat Island Effect of the city, bringing recreational and health benefits to the inhabitants and visitors, as well as irrigating wetlands and woodlands. Although traditional parks help to combat Urban Heat Islands, the effect is limited, and our proposal is to “supercharge” such parks at low cost by inserting naleds in winter that survive like stranded icebergs in summer. The potential for integrating Cool Parks into urban development schemes is clear and makes possible Climate Change Adaptation by cities, at the same time as cutting dependence on fuel for air conditioning.

Video: Sundarbans and Climate Change

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-09-08T04:44:08-07:00

Another video, produced courtesy of the WaterCube.org.

Flowing Forward: Managing infrastructure in a shifting climate

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-09-08T03:44:04-07:00

“The very language of climate change — droughts, floods, desertification, famines, tropical cyclones — is the language of water,” says WWF-US CEO Carter Roberts. ... And good water management is the tool we need to sustain development in the face of climate change.” ...But the uncertainty surrounding our future climate poses a major challenge to engineers and policymakers, especially when developing long-term water infrastructure development strategies. ...The World Bank needs climate adaptation decision-making techniques, and it needs them now,” says Julia Bucknall, Manager for the World Bank’s Energy, Transport and Water Department. Flowing Forward recognizes that sustainability in water management has become a moving target, and this is now the biggest obstacle to implementing solutions to the impacts of climate change. “We can no longer assume that what is sustainable now will remain sustainable in 10 years, much less 50. ... Engineers, policymakers, resource managers need new tools to prepare for more extreme floods and droughts, and we believe that ecosystems are the best scorecard to see how our cities farms, and economies are adapting to climate change.” says co-author John Matthews of WWF-US and ClimateChangeWater.org. “We need to design and operate dams, irrigation systems and energy production grids in ways that will help people and ecosystems adjust to emerging climate conditions together,” he adds. But report co-author Tom Le Quesne from WWF UK says the report’s most critical finding is that water managers and policymakers already have most of the important tools to cope with climate change in hand: “The existing library of methods to manage river basins and water resources will go a long way in creating the conditions that will make our lakes, rivers and groundwater more sustainable. Our goal now is to help the water sector deploy tools that they already know work: environmental flows, Integrated Water Resource Management and the creation of monitoring networks.”

Climate adaptation, water, and governance: An emerging nexus

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-09-21T15:39:56-07:00

In a session during World Water Week on Monday, 6 September, a group of more than 10 governmental and non-governmental organizations will focus on climate change as a challenge to the institutional basis for managing water resources across temporal and spatial scales. In many cases, the tools for developing effective approaches to manage water resources more effectively under a stationary climate are well known and appreciated. IWRM, IRBM, basin-level planning, stakeholder cooperation, EIA, and environmental flows analyses have all been developed as strategies or tools for stabilizing freshwater systems that are already stressed by unsustainable use and rapid growth. The barriers to implementing these approaches are largely those of institutional inertia and governance efficacy. However, the climate is not fixed, and therefore these approaches will be increasingly inadequate in future in most regions with intensive water use unless they are sufficiently adaptive. Under a shifting climate, policies and management regimes must be regularly “updated” as climate variability alters and mean climate conditions create a moving target for water managers. The management of water resources must be flexible, span multiple possible futures, and focus on risk assessment. Hence, water governance institutions will have to be able to learn and evolve in pace with the climate. How do we in the water community begin to incorporate models, and their associated uncertainty, to anticipate emerging aspects of climate that directly impact freshwater availability and quality? ... Given the centrality of water to climate change adaptation, the implications are that water institutions must themselves become the instruments of climate adaptation, which is a novel role. The session will also be webcast at this site if you are unable to attend.

Guest Blog: Communicating impacts and adaptation: Scientific guidelines

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-08-25T16:21:31-07:00

While a given extreme event MAY have some portion of it attributable to climate change, such attribution is VERY difficult and requires direct access to running the climate change models. ... In time we may see a paper or papers in the peer-reviewed literature discussing how likely particular events such as the fires in Russia or the floods in China and Pakistan may have been with and without human-induced climate change (and even then, this research will be presented in terms of probabilities). ...The extremes we are seeing are in precipitation, temperature, sea-surface temperature and hurricane/typhoon strength, rather than in the economic or ecological damage these events cause (e.g., drought, flood, fire); the former is the cause, the latter is an effect. We can discuss whether this is an extreme rainfall event, as we could use actual data and calculate the probabilities of such an event (not easy, but it can be done by many in the network if the data are available). ...Likewise, while an extended period of hot, dry weather can easily contribute to the severity of fires, there are many other factors, like the source of ignition, fuel loads, wind and suppression capabilities, which all play a role in the severity of the damages. ...Separate the weather (e.g., rainfall) from the weather-related event (e.g., flood), and discuss how poor decisions now will make it difficult to adapt or respond to climate change in the future. ... b) Continuing to put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere will increase the severity and frequency of many extreme events; and, as we are observing, we are often ill-equipped and unprepared to cope with the extreme events we are experiencing now. ...A very good primer on communicating weather events versus climate change was recently posted on the climate central website – “Why Can’t Scientists Say the Recent Extreme Weather Events Are ‘Proof’ of Climate Change?” ...Even so, there are some impacts to which we might even have to be careful of saying this with high confidence at this juncture. ... So, discussing an event as a proxy for future conditions might be acceptable (i.e., this is the type of thing we expect to be more common as the climate changes). ...We could discuss how reducing vulnerability to these sorts of events now (e.g., not living in the typical floodplain, being more than 1 m above mean high tide line) actually helps us be better prepared for the changes coming with climate change.

Global Strategy Forum: Water Policy in a Shifting Climate

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-08-24T13:06:26-07:00

With increasing demand and growth in depleted or degraded water supplies, water security is becoming equally important as energy security. Water scarcity can exacerbate existing political rivalries or promote cooperation for management of cross-boundary water resources. While global action to address water issues is important, regional cooperation and local solutions are essential to deliver results. ...• How can global discussion on water governance be promoted as a link between human security, economic development and environmental sustainability? • How can awareness be raised of the importance of water resource management in adapting to climate change? ...How can we combine water policy-making at the global level with regional, national and local strategies? • What is the role of new technologies in reducing water stress, e.g. carbon neutral desalination of seawater, wastewater recycling? ...• Mr Jorge Borges, State Secretary of Foreign Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Co-operation and Communities of Cape Verde (confirmed)  ...State Department's Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, United States of America (confirmed)  • Prof Dr Francisco Nunes Correia, Former Minister of Environment and Spatial Planning of the Portugal and Full Professor at IST - DECivil, Portugal (confirmed) ...• Dr John Matthews, Director, Freshwater Climate Adaptation Program, at World Wildlife Fund, United States of America (confirmed)

Guest Blog: Pakistan Flooding: Impacts, Attribution, & Adaptation Solutions

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-08-21T08:03:41-07:00

I also strongly believe that this particular event in Pakistan is largely human-caused due to following reasons: · Weak management of watershed and catchment areas — a lot of deforestation has been going on for years, which alters runoff patterns. ...Farmers were suffering and not enough water was released in early summer with a fear that less water will be available in winter, despite the met forecasts of above-average monsoons. · Poor land-use and water resource management planning, particularly in floodplain (Katcha) areas and along northern Pakistani rivers. ... Now, one can see encroachments, human settlements, villages and huge area under agriculture in this floodplain due to long-term management that has ignored the historic flood regime. · Failure of irrigation infrastructure due to natural reasons (because of heavy rainfall, farmers were not using water from the huge canal network, which resulted in breaches and overflows in some areas) and poor planning and corruption (millions of US$ World Bank–funded headworks and barrage rehabilitation projects failed as floodwaters bypassed these structures). Another development is that all the politicians and technocrats from Punjab province are saying that we could have saved “all the damages” if only had we built large dams on Indus. WWF-Pakistan does not agree with this assessment and advocates a scientific assessment of the need to have small and check dams on the Indus and its tributaries, including additional storage capacity as the existing storage capacity has been reduced due to heavy siltation. We plan to carry out an assessment of ecological damage of these “super floods” and the reasons for the failure of our existing institutional water management framework. We fully support the development of a comprehensive scientific study on rivers originating from the whole of the Tibetan plateau (which was span Pakistan, India, Nepal, China, Bhutan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia) to investigate shifting patterns in rainfall patterns and the linkages with climate change and shifting land and water management patterns. We must develop effective intervention strategies to reduce the likelihood of events of a similar magnitude affecting such large areas, so many people, and such important ecosystems and species.

Pakistan flooding: live webcast from the Asia Society

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-08-18T11:28:09-07:00

ONE THIRD OF PAKISTAN IS UNDER WATER AS A RESULT OF THE WORST FLOODS IN THE COUNTRY’S HISTORY. ...Join Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, and other international figures in an exclusive discussion just prior to the United Nations Special Session on Pakistan. Leaders of critical international humanitarian relief organizations will also discuss ways to help. ...WHEN: THURSDAY, AUGUST 19; 8:30 am ET (GMT - 5) ...WHERE: The Asia Society, 725 Park Avenue, New York NY 10021 ...SPEAKERS: Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah. ...More information on relief efforts can be found at www.state.gov/pakistanflooding. Community members interested in giving immediate assistance can text the word “SWAT” to 50555 to contribute $10 to UNHCR’s life-saving flood relief efforts on the ground. ...Please note: this event will be a free live video webcast at AsiaSociety.org/live from 8:30 to 9:30 am ET (5:30 pm Islamabad time) on Thursday, August 19.

Video: Green Glaciers: The Melting Grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-08-04T19:37:58-07:00

This video echoes themes in two entries here and here.

Green Glaciers: The Melting Grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau from John Matthews on Vimeo.

Madonna and Child, with Climate Change

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-08-02T09:02:46-07:00

One night we had driven particularly high, close to about 4500 meters (over 15,000 feet) — the little tributary of the Mekong we were following was two meters wide and about mid-calf in depth. ...Though it was July, we huddled around the great steel stove in the main living tent and shoveled yak dung chips — our fuel — as we sat in our winter coats, drinking yak-butter tea and then eating a stir-friend dinner. ...In the clear morning, I looked more closely at the traditional black yak-felt tent, which stood a little apart, its prayer flags flapping like a sailboat tacking into a hard wind. All of the family — several siblings, at least three generations and a number of adult couples — went inside the black tent for brief periods before tending to their chores. ...Many herders of the plateau have shifted from the traditional yak-felt tents to the white canvas tents we occupied in recent years. ...I thought, this stream is carrying the blood of this man’s future away from him, even as he sits here talking to us. ...They rip apart and wash away from the same storms that drove us to shelter with the herders, though they themselves have few options for shelter from the larger shifts in their climate. A few questions to my Tibetan speaking colleagues confirmed that we could enter the dark tent, and I waited until I thought it was empty. ...The traditional tents are about the same size as the canvas tents — around three meters wide and six meters long — but are not as high and, lacking a place for stovepipe, many have a section of cloth on the top that can be opened to allow smoke to vent more easily. ...The transition from black tents to white marks a larger change to enter a world where income is increasingly important and old patterns are shifting, in both subtle and dramatic ways. Their environmental buffer in particular is far thinner and more marginal than just a few years ago — not much more than the lifespan of the mute girl.

Green Glaciers: The Melting Grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-07-31T12:18:17-07:00

I’ve just returned from two weeks on the Tibetan plateau, mostly in Qinghai province of western China, with a team from the China Program Office of WWF, WWF-US, and a colleague from the Qinghai State Forestry Administration. ...The Tibetan plateau is especially sensitive to shifts in the timing of precipitation and the onset of spring, as well as the volume of frozen rain and snow that builds up over each winter. ... The majority of the people who live on the plateau practice an ancient livelihood of pastoral nomadism, centered on moving their herds of yak, sheep, and horses from low altitude (winter) pastures to high altitude (summer) pastures each year, a pattern called transhumance. ...In some counties, as many as three out of every five years are now called “snow disasters,” meaning no accumulation of frozen water before the onset of spring. Water in streams and rivers and in the soil does not freeze during these years but continues to flow downstream and away from upland slopes. ...Understandably, the people living on the plateau are extremely concerned about seeing pastures that were fertile and productive, full of high grass in recent decades, degrade to low lawns or dissolve to bare rock and soil. ... In some cases, however, these fences actually intensify grazing pressures, quickening erosion with additional trampling and browsing grasses down to their roots. In effect, we are losing the grasslands of the Tibetan plateau as the vegetation and soil dissolve into the great rivers of the region — the Yangtze, the Mekong, and the Yellow. ... The community of wild species is responding in strange ways across the region, too, with populations of grass-eating pikas and caterpillars exploding in some areas. ... Even predators such as snow leopards and bear feel the pressure of reduced prey species such as blue sheep, and thus turn more often to domesticated species or invade the winter quarters of the herders. ...The green glaciers — the Tibetan plateau’s grasslands — and the livelihoods and species that depend on them can adjust, but this process will require time and careful thought.

For US readers: action requested on legislation

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-06-15T17:21:40-07:00

Currently, there is a discussion draft of a bill being circulated in the Senate authored by Senators Kerry and Lieberman (the American Power Act). I'm sure that many of you have heard varying responses to the draft and there are many organizations that are focusing on improving different sections ranging from Clean Air Act authority to preemption of state regional greenhouse gas programs. Now is the time to improve this bill as it is our best chance of seeing a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. ...Here at Defenders of Wildlife we have long focused on safeguarding wildlife and natural resources from the impacts of climate change and continue to do so by working on the adaptation provision of this bill. This draft contains excellent policy language that creates a national adaptation strategy, state plans and, most importantly, increased scientific capacity. Unfortunately the funding provided to enact this provision is woefully inadequate. Moreover, the funding does not kick in until 2019 — far too late to provide scientists and land managers with the necessary tools to protect fragile ecosystems from the impacts of climate change. ...In order to show Congress that this issue is critical and that there is support for protecting our natural resources in a warming world we are asking scientists to join Dr Thomas Lovejoy, Dr. Barry Noon, and myself on to this letter to lawmakers who are working on this draft now. If you are interested in signing on to this letter, please send Robb Krehbiel rkrehbiel@defenders.org your name and contact information and how you would like to be listed on the letter by June 25. If you have any questions about the letter, also please contact Robb and he can make sure your questions get answered as I will be out on travel for the next two weeks.

Briefing paper: the road to COP16

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-06-13T12:50:35-07:00

http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/climate_carbon_energy/climate_deal/publications/? 193613/What-roads-from-Copenhagen-to-Cancun

Guest Blog: U.S. National Adaptation Summit results

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-06-07T19:19:03-07:00

The Administration of President Barack Obama took an important step toward national climate change preparedness when it convened on 25-27 May 2010 a National Climate Adaptation Summit in Washington, DC. The stated purpose of the meeting was to "to provide insight into what is needed for effective climate adaptation and vulnerability assessment and how we should be organized to do that (public and private sectors – federal to local levels)." ...Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico, said on the second day that "too often, adapting to climate change takes a back seat" to curbing emissions (i.e. climate change "mitigation). ..."While nations negotiate at international conferences about future global commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, and while Congress talks but continues to delay adoption of a strong greenhouse gas reduction program for the country, we're already seeing the effects of the pollution we put into the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution. ...The Inter-American Development Bank hosted the summit and the bank's president, Luis Alberto Moreno, addressed the participants on the second day (see his remarks at 3:06 in Webcast). ...Moreno said that the countries "are increasingly aware that adaptation to climate change is a strategic imperative that could determine their ability to feed their people, power their industries and compete economically. ... As a result many of our member governments have been asking for technical assistance and financing to make climate change adaptation and mitigation and integral part of their development plans." On the final day, the international keynote address was presented by Juan Pablo Bonilla, Chief of the Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Unit at the Inter-American Development Bank. ...In a country such as Columbia where 80% of the generating capacity is hydro-electric, he said there is great concern about vulnerability to altered precipitation regimes. "That's where adaptation and mitigation come together," he said, adding that the "natural adaptation measure" right now for countries heavily dependent on hydro is to diversify power generation by increasing dependence on coal. ...For a quick summary of the summit, see the wrap-up session by Rosina Bierbaum, a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan.

Where People Are: Hope and Fear

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-06-02T05:01:34-07:00

Given two trips to China in the past month, I’ve been wondering in particular about how to reach people in a nation with 1.4 billion humans. ...Although I’ve traveled to China only five or six times over the past three years, I have a few good friends in China — as good as I have anywhere else. ...He also travels frequently, and I was afraid that this visit to China would mark the third trip I’ve made in a year where I would miss seeing him. ...I had to make a trip the following day for some medical treatment and would have about two hours where I was just sitting — would you like to come along, Y? ...He had left for a non-profit where he runs field sessions in a beautiful, wild region of China, helping them to reconnect with nature and envision more positive impacts on our environment. ...Three or four days earlier, I had been in another city in China running a workshop with colleagues, and the issue of communicating climate adaptation had come up there as well. A key topic was how we talk about the future: should we try to frighten people about avoiding terrible dangers, or should we motivate people to change through hope? ...He effectively typifies the approach of fear to environmental issues, which to me often sounds like the message of a punishing god: repent now, or be damned forever! ...As the only other westerner at the table, during quiet parts of the dinner I described the work of many of the people around the table — positive, hopeful, powerful work. ... One came over to toast him, and he said, Keep up the good work — John has been telling me about you. ...I wondered if like many people he believes that climate change is not having strong impacts now and was mostly about shifts for the future.

Climate of Doubt

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-06-02T04:59:18-07:00

The gist of the final part of the presentation was that humans have not caused the current period of climate change. ... Thus, while humans should adapt to shifts in climate, we need not structure our economies so that they emit much less carbon into the atmosphere. ...Should we begin talking about the causes of climate change at the same time that we talk about climate adaptation? ...I began giving high-level talks about climate impacts and adaptation strategies about three years ago, and for the first year or so I would begin each presentation with a brief overview of climate science and the evidence for the human “fingerprints” for our current period of climate change. ... Moreover, I felt like most of the questions I was getting were about the human causation of climate change — did we really do it? ...As a result, I made a conscious shift: I would drop the “fingerprints” part of the talk, and I would emphasize that reducing greenhouse gas emissions (“climate mitigation”) is actually a form of climate adaptation since it slows down the rate of climate change. ... But more than 95 percent of my talks shifted to climate adaptation, with the implicit assumption that climate change is proceeding rapidly and that humans have caused it. All of the questions shifted to climate adaptation — what should we do, how can we do it better, and so on. ...He said, I also talk about climate adaptation very often, and I feel strongly that the human role in climate change is too controversial. ... We often have only a limited amount of time, and to raise these issues makes people defensive and unresponsive to the message of climate adaptation. There is a major problem in how people respond to the causes of climate change, but that is not our problem — it is an issue in the larger culture, and we cannot solve that problem and deliver the message of climate adaptation as well.

Friends in High Places

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-05-19T16:18:15-07:00

Upstairs, I looked at a large poster of showing a photo of me giving a talk (apparently very passionately) with a lot of Chinese text, except for the occasional reference to John Matthews in English letters (ie, my name). ...My talk began with a brief overview of why climate is important to humans, and how human institutions have to shift sometimes when they are transferred to new climate conditions. ...In the nineteenth century as settlers moved west from the Atlantic coast in search of cheap, productive land, they noted that the 100th meridian corresponded to a where a farm could reliably depend on precipitation (to the east of that line) and irrigation was critical for reliable row-crops (to the west of that line). ...We should make sure that everyone within a basin has access to water, and that it is managed in an equitable way for both small and large farmers. ...In a sense, we are all entering a period where we are beyond the 100th meridian — the meridian is moving as the climate shifts, altering our hydrological and ecological boundaries. ... It is as if we were moving into the dry west of North America from the east without changing position. ...And my final message to this audience of scientists was that our science had to be translated into the language of policy and finance so that they could shape our findings into a more sustainable world. ...A lot of students came to talk with me afterwards, so I must have seemed relatively harmless in the end. ...The central government had teamed up with WWF and a big private energy producer in China to hold a high-level conference on climate mitigation (greenhouse gases — where they come from, how to reduce their concentration and emissions rate) and climate adaptation (how to adjust human and natural systems to climate impacts). ...As I went back to my seat, I thought, Well, I hope we weren’t looking to build a long-term relationship with his company, since I had in very polite, indirect language just undermined the basis for some of his company’s goals. ...I often feel that global lessons and examples of the challenges and opportunities of climate adaptation are better received abroad than in North America, where there is a strong willingness to listen and engage in rich discussion.

The Bright Red Line of Faith

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-05-19T16:16:47-07:00

In many cities, rivers are referred to as “drains,” places where all kinds of waste flows openly and noisomely — industrial, household, even from tanneries or butchers. ...The Indian people and government know they have a problem with water supply, treatment, and management, and they know that climate change is making their water problems worse. ... Delhi alone has more than 15 million inhabitants, in a city largely created by the British in the nineteenth century as an administrative center and home for a few thousand residents. In fact, the growth of an Indian middle class has led to a more assertive move by India’s citizens for more water security. Even rural, arid Rajasthan state, just to the west of Delhi, is facing national attention to manage water in ways that match the existing climate — and the climate we are entering. ...Although I have been to India four times in the past two years, most of my river experiences have been more like drain experiences. But from Delhi I was invited by colleagues to visit a village a few hundred kilometers downstream, on the mainstem of the Ganges. ...With a group of colleagues, we caravaned to one of the villages and went down to the river and crossed to a small island in zodiacs, where we met our Gangetic dolphin team leader. ... Our local team has worked hard with the network of local villages to reduce the many pressures on this area by creating low-tech water treatment stations and working with villagers to help them understand that the dolphins are the sign of clean and safe water. ...The only sounds came from the snores of my good Indian colleagues and a boy minding his family’s fields for the night, calling to his father across the water every quarter of the hour: I am here. ...As the priest spoke and sang from sacred verses about blessing all living things, the need for the protection of life, and our grounding and connection to nature, we threw rice, milk, cotton cloth, and flower petals into the river.

A month of War and Peace

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-03-21T08:48:30-07:00

When it’s not actually raining, being in a cloud forest is usually like walking through the shower room in a gym, very humid, usually full of mist. ... A completely different group of birds, mammals, insects, and plants live across this mountain archipelago that contrasts greatly with the areas just a little lower in elevation, which aren’t bathed in 100 percent humidity all the time. ...A low dam or barrage pushes some of the water from the river into a tunnel bored into the side of the valley. ...Ideally, RoR dams don’t take that much water from their river; they divert a portion of the water, leaving at least 20 or 30 percent of the water for the stretch of river that runs parallel to the tunnel. ...They were getting political pressure because they were only operating at 30 or 40 percent of their capacity, and they said if they let any of the water go through the intermediate part of the river they’d hardly make any electricity. ... And restaurants looked really charming with their candles on each table until you realized that this was in preparation for a blackout. ... Nepal was already one of the poorest countries in the world, so having that much less food to eat or sell meant that rural communities were much more likely to chuck it all and head for the grinding poverty of one of Nepal’s cities. Even worse, those three- or four-kilometer stretches of river that are dry below each RoR dam are basically dead zones for the freshwater species in the area. ...Reading about the upper class of Russia in the early nineteenth century while I was curled up in some in some truck driver’s hotel in rural Nepal or while camping on an island in the middle of the Ganges in northern India (worrying about jackals in the night) completely changed the novel. ... Those serfs were not that far from many of these rural areas around me, except that these people had mobile phones and diesel water groundwater pumps and Chicago Bulls t-shirts. ...My mind switched to the image of a boy sitting near the Nepal-China border with a baby goat in his lap, both of whom stared at the weird white guy in the wildly pitching car passing by and wondered where they heck he was going.

Video: Conservation portfolios for climate adaptation - Daniel Schindler, University of Washington

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-01-07T16:38:05-08:00

Schindler’s work has documented shifts in aquatic seasonal behavior in lakes and rivers in fish and species such as copepods as well as relative changes in the richness of fish stocks (i.e., the same species of fish but from different populations), and he’s woven a compelling story about how these observations are connected to shifts in climate over a multi-decade scale and how we should respond to these changes. He is a great example of how to connect great science with solid climate-resilient policy implications. This footage was captured directly after Schindler spoke in early November 2009 at the 4th annual WWF Kathryn Fuller Science for Nature Symposium. This event was titled “Securing Water for Nature and People in a Changing Climate,” and the goal was to provide a state-of-the-science review of climate impacts on freshwater systems, challenges to freshwater ecosystem conservation, the role of adaptation in water management, and build a platform for the development of an adaptation based conservation agenda. A brief video on this site of Jim Jarvie with Mercy Corps is also taken from the Fuller Symposium.

Daniel Schindler at the 2009 Fuller Symposium from John Matthews on Vimeo.

A Cold Controversy: Himalayan Glaciers

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2010-01-05T16:17:20-08:00

A strong negative reaction to the India report came from Rajenda Pachauri, who is the head of the IPCC, the UN scientific and technical branch charged with delivering the best available research on how climate change is affecting the planet. ... He’s very famous and widely respected in climate change circles, and on behalf of the IPCC he received a Nobel Peace Price a few years ago (and I made a video in December 2009 that includes Pachauri). ...His reaction was strong and vociferous and covered by a number of major media outlets, several of which picked up on a major 2007 IPCC report (Working Group 2, Fourth Assessment Report) that stated that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. I’ve long thought that this was an extreme and alarmist date, but several media outlets are now reporting that this reference is probably a typographical error, and that original paper referred to the Himalayan glaciers disappearing by 2350, or 315 years after 2035. ...They did not see evidence of an acceleration in mass loss as has been seen in Alaska and Greenland over the past 20 years, but those glaciers are quite different regionally and latitudinally. ...And a video report from WWF-Nepal shows very significant impacts that are occurring on their side of the Himalayas and some powerful responses to adapt to the emerging conditions in the Gokyo region. ...Using some very clever techniques to date particular layers to radioactive debris from old nuclear bomb explosions, the authors were able to show that the top layers for a lot of glaciers have disappeared — the outer wrapping, in effect, may date back to the 1950s, the 1930s, or even older. ... This is a scary trend because it suggests that we’ve been watching the wrong parts of glaciers for the past century — the snouts — and missed the loss of the bulk of the ice. ...They are sublimating, which means that more frozen water may be disappearing directly into the atmosphere as water vapor rather than going through a transition to liquid water, which would presumably cause flooding — or at least enter the network of rivers and streams throughout South Asia. ... This distinction is important because it implies that the bulk of the glacial mass may not be lost in a way that would be of even temporary benefit to farmers or cities in what is actually the semi-arid region South Asia. I have heard anecdotal reports of extreme surface wasting occurring in the Sierra Nevada of California in recent years, which would affect the urban water supply of many important US cities.

Video: Red Eyes in Copenhagen: Adaptation at COP15

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-12-27T08:26:56-08:00

7 minutes, produced and directed by John Matthews.

Video: Jim Jarvie from Mercy Corps on Development and Ecosystem-based Adaptation

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-12-26T06:04:30-08:00

How should environmental organizations and development groups work together? These topics have been burning issues for some time, and I've seen conflict — latent usually but sometimes explicit — directed form each type of group at the other over the past two years. This anxiety and anger are a terrible waste of energy, and there is plenty of fault to go around for the continuation of the fighting. But Jim speaks movingly of the way beyond. Jim was interviewed shortly after his full talk, which is also very much worth viewing at this site. 2:25 minutes, produced and directed by Daphne Patterson of WWF.

Guest Blog: Farming with the Titimangsa: Losing Weather (and Water) in Time

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-12-23T17:02:20-08:00

Based on this titimangsa, the farmer made decisions about when to start land preparation, sowing, harvesting, and other parts of the agricultural cycle in order to support the traditional rate of two to three rice harvests per year. By the late 1990s, farmers had already observed how traditional agricultural decision making was changing to more centrally planned modern irrigation systems, but each village still maintained a traditional water diversion and distribution networks as well. ...However, a large part of the world’s population still does have this linked concept of time and weather, and these people are often the ones in closest contact with our natural resources, such as farmers, fishers, herders and ranchers, or pastoral nomads. ...A titimangsa would therefore be a more effective way to get a grip on structural change than any wobbly statistical data set of temperature or rainfall, for a titimangsa gets at the very subtleties on which agricultural practices depend. ...Water professionals who talk about “increasing water use efficiencies” or “increasing crop per drop” are either underestimating the marginal conditions under which water is often being managed already, or are referring to systems that knowingly waste too much water. ... While it is true that the amount of diverted water can be much more than the officially allowed amounts, in many occasions downstream people and ecosystems actually depend on the non-designated “extra” amounts for sanitation, irrigation, recharge, or for the required flexibility in water use that provides them with the necessary water security. ...This man also made me realize that the crux of any water crisis cannot be expressed in the volume of water only, but should always include the number of people who depend on the reliability of a water system. Water efficiency discussions that do not explicitly take into account the number of people per drop will not solve water crises, and may threaten the viability of natural river functions in the longer term. ...Second, when proposing any water development, it should be evaluated by how many local people the water system supports (or limits) and the extent to which they are dependent on its future reliability. ... Almost by definition, a river system that has most of its natural functions intact is better able to provide water security and benefits to a wider range of people than an overexploited or degraded river system can. ...I do understand that this is a challenge and not a solution, but it explains why WWF is working on a whole river basin assessment of the Mekong’s water development that, apart from freshwater habitats and biodiversity, also includes food security in relation to water-based livelihoods such as fisheries, rice farming, and domestic water supply.

The Future of Climate-Water Talk: WWW's Conclusions

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-12-21T18:59:10-08:00

If water is indeed the medium through which climate change will be felt by humans, the water community must find more effective ways of making climate-resilient water management relevant to vulnerable groups such as women, young people, farmers, and consumers. The importance of water must be articulated from many audiences in order for decision makers to act, not just from those directly involved in water resource management. ...While these terms were raised repeatedly in 2009, they remained largely in the abstract, with few case studies or examples of the positive roles that national and international institutions should be playing. ...In most instances where mitigation and adaptation were both mentioned, there was little discussion of how these could be integrated or where the limits of integration lay. ...While the research and advocacy on climate change is showing that women are major victims in agricultural communities, there was little explicit discussion what gender-relevant adaptation interventions might look like, such as a gender policy in the water sector. ...Most discussions of CCA techniques described building resilience to climate variability and resisting ecological tipping points, which in effect is about buffering impacts or reducing rates of change. ...A number of regions such the Himalayas and the Andes are experiencing very rapid rates of climate change, particularly in their water resources. ...Only a handful of speakers mentioned climate services, a topic that is gaining traction in some scientific and policy circles. Climate services are roughly comparable to ecosystem services, such that regions like the Amazon “provide” climate services such as large quantities of airborne moisture. ...In many regions, groundwater is a very significant portion of water for irrigation, domestic, and industrial use, while monitoring of usage and recharge processes or regulation of groundwater resources are extremely limited. ...Water footprint has become a powerful means of articulating how economic processes can transfer good and bad water resource management within goods and services.

A Final COP Postcard: The Longest Day

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-12-21T08:07:40-08:00

Perhaps you’ve seen reports about delegates including my friends and colleagues stuck inside of the Bella Center for almost two days, of forcible evictions, and the helpless rage and fruitless sympathy those of us outside tried to lend to our colleagues by email and phone. ...Apparently the city’s contribution of free public transportation passes to all registered delegates left the taxis empty and drove away the seasonal tourists from Sweden and Germany, who could find no place to stay and felt frightened of the reports of demonstrations and strikes. ...A set of documents, equally nonbinding, was also produced on a wide range of more narrow and technical topics, such as the role of forest carbon and how to provide compensation money for the most vulnerable nations. ...Key statements declared that the least-developed countries of the world were the most vulnerable to climate change, and that the historical polluters — that is, those of us have benefited the longest from high rates of carbon emissions — should bear the financial responsibility for funding adaptation. ... However, Saudi Arabia and a few other wealthy oil-producing export countries insisted on adding language on “response measures,” which are intended to recompense them for the loss of income they expect when they lose their oil revenue. ...Their very reasonable expectation was that at a minimum we would have a decent climate mitigation treaty, or a document that seemed like it could easily become one. Much was spent and sacrificed with this assumption — what else could we do? — but in the end the decisions were made by a small number of world leaders in a cloistered room in the Bella Center in the early morning hours. ...As a result, as the leaders of NGOs return to the planning sessions, their boards, and their media teams, I expect many groups to refocus away from climate mitigation, or at least to look more closely at issues they are more likely to win. ...I have suspected since at least May or June that the work of climate change after Copenhagen would vigorously shift to adaptation come January 2010, but I thought this was because we would have a firm climate mitigation agreement focusing on greenhouse gases by now. ... Instead, I think the effective irrelevance of the UNFCCC for now means that in absence of a global UN voice on adaptation, NGOs will have to create an alternative structure to enable adaptation across borders and institutions. ...I chose not to attend the funeral a few days later to grieve with my family but stood in a high window on a cold day and watched the water for a long time.

Video: More Water Asks at the COP

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-12-17T06:47:19-08:00

3 mins, UNFCCC official footage. In case the link doesn’t work, you can find the entire event here.

Joining the Strands at the COP

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-12-16T09:15:41-08:00

Although I have mixed feelings about having been here for two weeks now, I am pleased that I registered and got my UNFCCC pass early on. ...As the COP has moved from last week’s focus on blocking out positions has turned to serious negotiations, the number of government attendees has grown substantially. ...So there are large lines near the Bella Center in what is cold, wet, and very windy weather to wait for six hours for a chance to squeeze into the building. ...I was supposed to be involved in two side events today, but if I go in I take the WWF slot for one of our negotiators. ...I’ve received about 900 emails, more or less, on our official COP mailing list in the past 10 days, most in the past 48 hours. ...Out of perhaps 1,000 NGOs that registered, the number of NGO delegates drops tomorrow to 1,000 as well — one per NGO. ...And if we’re aren’t there, then the delegates can mostly tell whatever story they want about whatever deal they put together. ...And that presence is very important in the next few days, since we are trying to provide some witness for the voiceless: the most poor and vulnerable people of the world, and for all of the silent ecosystems. ... I’ve yet to find a negotiators for the Sundarbans as a viable ecosystem (perhaps the COP organizers have a rule against registering Bengal tigers as speakers?). So I can’t report very much of what’s really going on inside since I am far, far away. ...I hope some of that calm can spread to the Bella Center, and that the negotiators make something functional and beautiful as well.

Video: The Language of Climate Change Is the Language of Water

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-12-14T04:04:09-08:00

His key message: the language of climate change is the language of water. Listen to the language of climate change. This message has largely been missing from current discussions about how to prioritize climate change adaptation actions. This video was produced over the weekend from the event. 5 mins.

Video: Voices on water, biodiversity, and COP15

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-12-14T00:35:13-08:00

A video was produced from one of the events I participated in last week focusing on water, climate adaptation, and biodiversity issues in the negotiations (background material on the event itself is described here). Some nice quotes from a wide range of people!

Teenage Angst at the COP: At the Hinge

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-12-14T00:02:28-08:00

And yet… if Hamlet were a water manager and alive in Denmark today, perhaps he would be suffering a different kind of stress. I kept wondering: if Hamlet was involved in the process of negotiating the climate adaptation policy language at the COP, he’d find a lot to distract him from worrying about his mother and uncle conspiring to murder his father and then getting hitched immediately afterwards. I’m guessing he’d be concerned about the lack of substantive, clear language about what good adaptation looks like to help humans prepare for our emerging climate and the low sense of concern about getting money to the most vulnerable nations quickly. ...I was at Kronborg listening to several important groups talk about the importance of water to climate adaptation for humans. Senior executives from major global businesses were there, as well as internationally famous climate scientists (such as Rajenda Pachauri, head of the IPCC) and major academic and research institutions like TERI and Yale. ... Holding about 50 people, I was quite aware that the cut of my clothes put me in a class closer to the janitorial staff than most of the audience. ...Most of the speakers clearly viewed economic development as a task in competition with sustainable resource management, much less the unrecognized ethics of “conservation” and “biodiversity.” ...If you were to ask most urban four year olds from the US or Europe where milk came from, they’d say … the refrigerator. ... Much less that climate adaptation is actually a viable practice, awaiting funding and institutional recognition from groups like the UNFCCC and the COP process to really become large scale and widespread. ...These final days, the negotiations around climate adaptation have the threat of rigid positions that lead to continued lack of progress and ultimately failure, or they lead to rapid progress and success with people who are prepared to make progress. ...On Saturday while I was at Kronborg, the real stress and angst was in Ian Fry, delegate from the small Pacific island nation of Tuvalu.

Asks for the COP: More Water, Please!

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-12-08T04:06:39-08:00

Conservation, development and economic growth groups must be united around the pursuit of sustainable management and utilization of our water resources and work together with scientists to address the practical issues of our time. Adapting to climate change will largely require implementation of existing and emerging practices of good water management. While the challenge of climate change requires us to adopt important new perspectives, the majority of responses will be drawn from currently known and evolving policies and approaches. Addressing existing unsustainable utilization of, and impacts on, water resources will be central to the adaptation challenge. ...The most significant impacts of climate change will occur where these impacts combine with the immense pressures being placed on freshwater systems by rapid social and economic development. ...Also key to information sharing is building robust national, transnational, and local monitoring networks that can define trends in ecosystems, livelihoods, and target species, as well as provide early alerts to crises such as droughts and floods. ...Environmental flows are a critical aspect of building climate resilience for freshwater ecosystems and their services. The problem of climate change and water is not simply water supply and demand; it is also water quality and flow regime. ...Good governance is critical to implementing both sound water management and the equitable allocation of freshwater resources, especially in regions where poverty, gender, race, religion, or ethnicity are used as a basis for discrimination of access. ...The threats and challenges from climate change are not simply within ecosystems and individuals; institutions must also embody the ability to maintain flexibility. ...The bulk of this funding will need to be directed into strengthening existing and emerging water management policies and institutions rather than the through creation of new or parallel institutions.

Trust: Why We're Here in Copenhagen

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-12-08T03:55:18-08:00

There are lots of men and women in suits running between meetings, but there are also lots of official “stunts” and activities and events that are meant to demonstrate the longing to reach some kind of strong outcome here. ...My particular focus here is on climate adaptation, and especially the role of ecosystems and water resources as cross-cutting issues for adaptation. ...This money would come from the countries like the US and western Europe that have emitted most of the greenhouse gases over the past 300 years to the most affected countries that also have the fewest resources to facilitate adaptation. ... This issue is called adaptation finance, and most of the debate focuses on creating a pool of money for short-term funding (for countries already feeling dire impacts) and a long-term mechanism for facilitate more gradual change. ...As someone who works in many countries on climate adaptation, I’m concerned that adaptation as it is now described doesn’t really describe actions that are environmentally sustainable. And it ignores much of what we know already about the vision for adaptation that is most appropriate: we must be holistic, we must think of people and ecosystems together, and sustainable water management is critical for helping all nations adjust to most of the impacts of climate change we face now and will face in the future. ...If we don’t manage water in a sustainable way, then we will lost our basis for agriculture, energy production, industrial water uses, and not least domestic water supply and sanitation. And the way that we know we are managing water sustainably is to watch ecosystems and species and see how we’re doing. ...The G77 and China — a group of 77 developing nations — has put forward a pretty good proposal for linking adaptation to ecosystems, and there are some useful mentions of water. ... Saudi Arabia, for instance, wants it’s own special form of adaptation — an economic adaptation to compensate for the loss of economic revenue if less oil is consumed globally. ... And places like Australia in the Murray-Darling basin are already dealing with very severe droughts and economic restructuring as a result of climate change.

Arrivals: The Beginning of Copenhagen

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-12-07T00:04:48-08:00

But we are dealing with some strange issues here: almost nonexistent internet access, very tight living quarters (I have two official roommates in a small space, and (for an unlucky few) bedbugs. Space is actually very constricted across the Copenhagen, which has about 1.7 million residents and some 35,000 people here for the conference. That’s a measure of how important the meeting is viewed globally. But it also means a lot of discomfort for those of us traveling here on a budget. The lack of light is actually interesting in itself. We’re quite far north in latitude here — around 50 degrees north or so — and though I landed about 4 pm it might as well have been midnight. It’s 8 am now, and sun won’t rise for another hour. ...It’s quite large — 16 stories, more than a thousand beds — and by Sunday night the building was already stuffed with people attending the conference (or Conference of the Parties, usually referred to simply as the COP), mostly from non-governmental organizations like WWF. ... And WWF has something like 200 people scattered over the city, with about 60 or 70 in this hostel. The rooms are so small and basic, that most people linger in the crowded lobby area, which is also a bar. ... And fills the room with light and energy, even if outside there is darkness.

New adaptation blog: ClimatePrep.org

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-12-06T23:57:40-08:00

Currently posted on the site are updates from adaptation projects in the Brazilian Amazon, the Danube-Carpathian region, the Mekong, and many more. We will also be featuring adaptation related updates on COP 15. There is a lot going on at ClimatePrep and we would like to invite everyone to visit the link below to read, share, and be a part of the global adaptation conversation! www. ClimatePrep.org

Moving beyond despair: Copenhagen, trail running, and the persistance of hope

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-11-19T17:34:10-08:00

I am part of a large delegation within my parent organization attending the Copenhagen meeting in about 10 days, and I am preparing to work with a group of perhaps six or eight different organizations on a set of issues that focus on getting strong, robust language that emphasizes the importance of good water resource management for sound climate adaptation. In the scheme of things at the meeting, these issues are much less significant and visible than developing a new international framework around greenhouse gas emissions, creating a mechanism for using tropical forests as a repository for atmospheric carbon, or instituting a global fund for helping developing and vulnerable nations respond to the negative impacts of climate change. ...Sadly, about two weeks ago in a planning meeting to prepare for the Copenhagen sessions, all of the water language was removed. This was shocking and discouraging — inserting that language in the first place was very difficult and required intense negotiations by some incredible colleagues at other organizations. ...Just a few minutes from my home, I could I head off into the woods at a brisk pace, running up and down hills, in the rain, on broiling days, and even on snow and ice. ...The first physician said, If you are very patient over the next year or so, you might be able to run again. ...The leaves have been changing and I look up into the hills every day around my house and think, I should be up there. ...He’s been a serious competitive athlete in a variety of sports since he was a boy, and his love of running is even more passionate than mine. ... Following almost four and half months of solid travel, I also was able to begin swimming again this week — something else that had to stop after my injury in June. ...In truth, the loss of trail running feels like the friend has died, and I’ve been in mourning now for months. ...In my swim today, I managed to reach a point where I was gliding, buoyed and lifted by the water rather than struggling against the liquid.

Video: UK Rivers on the Edge

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-11-01T09:06:19-08:00

My own research has taught me two lessons about small freshwater ecosystems: (a) they are often critical parts of the landscape and reservoirs of biodiversity, and (b) they have less wiggle room in terms of climate shifts in precipitation, air temperature, and so on. Mostly the latter point is true precisely because they're small, which makes them sensitive to changes in runoff, groundwater, and human use. Sadly, these small systems are also among the least protected type of ecosystem: out of sight, out of mind. Last September, I was fortunate enough to go visit the Itchen river, one of these amazing chalk streams. The delicate, tresslike vegetation waved slowly at me as I stood on an old stone bridge near a twelfth-century grain mill. ... The scene was almost elfin in its delicacy and crystalline beauty. ...Rivers on the Edge was put together by colleagues in the UK to highlight the beauty and challenges of these ecosystems. Climate change is less prominent as an issue in the video, but the focus near the end of the video on water use efficiency is actually quite important as a climate adaptation strategy for these ecosystems. Such small streams will be highly sensitive to any increase the frequency or severity of droughts, and human withdrawals from these rivers will make these droughts even more sensitive. Given that in England most of these streams are in the greater London area, you can imagine the water pressure. Thus, by reducing the water abstraction pressures on the chalk streams, we can effectively keep more water in the rivers and help to buy them a little more time.

The Watery Road to Copenhagen Livecast: Water & Climate Change Symposium!

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-10-30T09:37:19-07:00

The Fuller Symposiom is two days of social and natural scientists, major international organizations such as the World Bank, and policymakers talking about where we are now. The timing is perfect: in December, the UNFCCC convenes arguably the most important climate change policy meeting since 1996, when the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated. This meeting is in Copenhagen, Denmark, and I'll be attending to help represent my organization's views there. Trust me: Copenhagen will be lurking behind the Fuller Symposium on both days. And there will also be a more direct connection, since I've been asked to make a direct statement from the floor of the Fuller Symposium to a pre-Copenhagen planning and agenda-setting meeting held in Barcelona on 3 November. ...The Fuller Symposium itself will be held in a venerable and very large (500 person capacity!) conference hall at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. Unfortunately, I gather the live venue itself is full to capacity with registrants. ... I've heard rumors of having the ability to twitter questions to speakers, but I'm not sure about that. ...Registration for the live webcast: http://www.worldwildlife.org/science/fellowships/fuller/webcast.html List of speakers, agenda, and overview: http://www.worldwildlife.org/science/fellowships/fuller/fuller-symposium-2009.html

Water & Climate: Not Everything Is Negative

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-10-27T15:53:55-07:00

There are hilarious aspects of the interview in the backstory — one of the hosts refers to me as "Dr. ... In Europe, the honorific "professor" is very important and highly restricted. A professor in much of Europe refers to someone who has a high-ranking position in a university, such as the director of a research unit. In North America, "professor" just means someone who teaches at a university or college. ... However, in a background check for the ministerial panel at World Water Week (described here), the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) asked me if I had an affiliation with a university; I said, yes, vaguely. ... But I am linked to a department at a university. ... And suddenly I began receiving these promotional materials that listed me as Professor John Matthews. When I went back to my contact, I said, What's with this professor thing? ... We needed you to sound very impressive in order to have you speak on the same stage as the ministers. I have yet to live this down with my colleagues in our freshwater network. I have been greeted as professor John over many thousands of kilometers since last August.

Speaking Water to Power: An Address to Ministers in Advance of COP15

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-08-31T20:38:36-07:00

Two weeks ago in South America, I sat in a high-level forum such as this with representatives of a number of Brazilian ministries, multi-lateral groups such as the World Bank, corporations, and non-governmental organizations. After a day and a half, however, two women from the upper Amazon came to talk to us about their experiences with climate-altered flood regimes, the effects this has had on their fishing and agriculture, and the strange responses of species and ecosystems to an increasingly unfamiliar world. ...Speaking on behalf of a range of organizations that have identified climate change adaptation as the work of humans for generations to come and that have been struggling — and sometimes succeeding — with policies and projects at all spatial scales, I have come here to say that the UNFCCC and NAPA processes are not in the mainstream of adaptation practice. ... To paraphrase Yeats, the center is not holding, even as a consensus emerges in the NGO, civil society, and resource management communities that climate adaptation for humans must be grounded in the climate-sustainable management of freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. ...Yes, it is critical that we develop an adaptation fund that can transfer sufficient resources from the developed world to the vulnerable communities of the world, and these transfers must begin quickly. ...This April 2009 statement values sustainable development; the resilience of ecosystems, livelihoods, and economies; good governance and implementation; information sharing, and a far more holistic view of economics and finance that begins to view all development aid as a tool for ecosystem-based adaptation. The NGO and civil society community firmly believe in the importance of water as a unifying theme that can inspire and motivate the community of nations to move quickly to implement climate-resilient policy and land and water management. ...This positive initiative has been building relationships with negotiators to increase understanding about ecosystem-based adaptation generally among Copenhagen negotiators as well as of building broad commitment for holistic adaptation policies at the highest political levels. We need to send a strong message to negotiators that without a focus on land and water management in relation to adaptation, the resulting mechanisms from COP15 may not be useful to the water community, or to those societies, species, and ecosystems that are so exposed to negative impacts from climate change. While the international climate change community needs to listen to the water community, WWF also believes that the water community must adjust our language and engagement with policymakers so that they understand that we are no simply a sector. ... And while all of us in the water community know that there are many challenges to managing water beyond climate change, we have also come to understand three key concepts:

The Watery Road to Copenhagen: Video Interviews from World Water Week

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-08-26T05:38:33-07:00

Part of this prominence comes from the international climate change discussions that will occur in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009. Here, a group of rapporteurs was asked by the World Water Week staff with SIWI to interview conference attendees about what they expect, if anything, will come out of the Copenhagen negotiations relevant to water, their home countries, and their families. 8.25 min.

The Watery Road to Copenhagen: Podcast with Three Groups

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-08-18T06:58:35-07:00

Alternatively, on the 18th December the negotiations finally break down, no deal is struck and world leaders walk away with nothing. In our second breakfast roundtable we tackle the implications of the UNFCCC negotiations on international water management policy. Listen in here.

World Water Week: Climate & Water Interviews!

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-08-18T02:50:31-07:00

I’m deeply involved this year personally both in presenting and in collecting and synthesizing information about coping with climate change in the water sector. I’ve also been interviewed on some of these issues -- available on the hosting organization’s website. The first interviews here is a personal profile of me and WWF’s work on freshwater climate adaptation.

One Talk, Two Heads: Bloviating on Climate Adaptation in Two Languages

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-08-12T12:05:16-07:00

Filmed on 3 August 2009 in Brasilia, DF, Brazil, this is a long flick at 25 minutes, so brace yourself. Although I appear visually a few times in the stream, most of what you see are the presentation slides filling the screen with me (in English) and Martin Charles (my most excellent Portuguese translator) delivering the substance of the keynote talk to a live audience of leading policy and resource management staff from various government and civil society groups. The event was billed as a climate adaptation workshop, spanning two days at a place called the LBV (very interesting in itself) but hosted by WWF-Brazil. Filmed in August 2009.

Fixed video streaming! The Cerrado of Brazil

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-08-09T08:19:13-07:00

While I will soon post a video of a talk that I gave (and perhaps some other video content), I’ve just finished a short video from I trip I made to the beautiful savannah or cerrado of interior Brazil a few hundred kilometers from Brasilia. Hope you enjoy! — JM

Beyond the Photos: Looking Closer at Impacts and Disaster Risk Reduction Plans for the Sundarbans

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-07-15T22:19:47-07:00

This will not only make it possible to have a small crop in a short span of time for consumption and sale but also kickstart the economic cycle which is as of now at standstill. ...Once the seasonal monsoon sets in, these will get filled and if they are restocked with fish, the community can have a harvest next year. ...Meanwhile, the Indian government has provided 6,000 Rupees (ED: about $120 USD) per house and the Panchayat (ED: local government) is willing to join forces with WWF in disbursing these funds appropriately. ...Having discussed the issue of stove efficiency with the community it appears that they are unlikely to adopt it unless they get to see one or two families using it. ...Getting children to embrace formal education in Tipligheri is a challenge but we believe this is one long term strategy that will help the community as well as the ecosystem. If more and more children join the mainstream and develop the capacity to make a living outside the ecoregion, the population in the Sundarbans will decline over time unless there are new settlers in the villages. ...If these children are targeted and put in residential schools run by missionaries, then they can eventually join the mainstream of Indian society and are unlikely to live in Tipligheri. ... Even if Rs.1000/-per child (ED: about $20 USD) is spent every month for 12 years the total expenditure is a mere ten lakhs over a 12 year period (ED: about $20,000 for all 65 children). ...Although the Government has announced assistance of Rs. 500/- per higher secondary student (ED: about $10 USD) it is anybody’s guess when this is going to arrive and school teachers apprehend that the students might complete their academic year before help arrives. ...We are almost assured of bulk of the funding required for this purpose but are short Rs. 10 lakhs (ED: $20,000 USD). If any of the above is of your interest and would like to support please do let us know we will be happy to develop a complete proposal and provide additional details.

John in the Tank

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-07-13T09:40:00-07:00

Many thanks to Ava at TRT for reaching out to me! — JM

New! Video blog entries

johoma@climatechangewater.org — 2009-07-08T15:43:20-07:00

My contribution focuses on wetlands of the world and on climate impacts on wetlands, and includes making some short videos on wetlands I visit on my travels. The first installment is posted here. A new posting will be uploaded by early August for the cerrado of Brazil.