A Changing Climate for Community Resource Governance: Threats and Opportunities from Climate Change and the Emerging Carbon Market


2013 ◽  
Vol 368 (1625) ◽  
pp. 20120311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca A. Asare ◽  
Andrew Kyei ◽  
John J. Mason

Climate change poses a significant threat to Africa, and deforestation rates have increased in recent years. Mitigation initiatives such as REDD+ are widely considered as potentially efficient ways to generate emission reductions (or removals), conserve or sustainably manage forests, and bring benefits to communities, but effective implementation models are lacking. This paper presents the case of Ghana's Community Resource Management Area (CREMA) mechanism, an innovative natural resource governance and landscape-level planning tool that authorizes communities to manage their natural resources for economic and livelihood benefits. This paper argues that while the CREMA was originally developed to facilitate community-based wildlife management and habitat protection, it offers a promising community-based structure and process for managing African forest resources for REDD+. At a theoretical level, it conforms to the ecological, socio-cultural and economic factors that drive resource-users’ decision process and practices. And from a practical mitigation standpoint, the CREMA has the potential to help solve many of the key challenges for REDD+ in Africa, including definition of boundaries, smallholder aggregation, free prior and informed consent, ensuring permanence, preventing leakage, clarifying land tenure and carbon rights, as well as enabling equitable benefit-sharing arrangements. Ultimately, CREMA's potential as a forest management and climate change mitigation strategy that generates livelihood benefits for smallholder farmers and forest users will depend upon the willingness of African governments to support the mechanism and give it full legislative backing, and the motivation of communities to adopt the CREMA and integrate democratic decision-making and planning with their traditional values and natural resource management systems.



2021 ◽  
Vol 97 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-218
Author(s):  
Ousseyni Kalilou

Abstract Environmental stress contributes to food insecurity, poverty, forced migration and violent conflict in the Sahel, with climate change aggravating the situation. The production of gum arabic from the acacia tree increasingly aligns with the community stakeholders’ efforts to promote climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience. Based on expert interviews and field observations in Niger, and a reading of relevant documents, I found that gum arabic production is valuable for conflict mitigation because it helps tackle the root causes of violent conflicts. The acacia gum tree is a natural soil fixer and multinational companies have coveted the resin from the tree, which is a rising commodity and a promising source of revenue for the local inhabitants. As different communities work together and cooperate with outside actors (government agencies, international partners, NGOs and businesses), the opportunities to build social cohesion around the tree increase. By facilitating ecological improvement, social inclusion and poverty alleviation, the promotion of gum arabic production, despite other issues such as bad natural resource governance, is a critical environmental peacebuilding strategy. Hence, suitable funding of massive afforestation with the acacia tree fits with community-based natural climate solutions to global humanitarian issues by protecting and restoring the local environment.



Climate ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 104
Author(s):  
Giulia Ulpiani ◽  
Michele Zinzi

Planning for climate change adaptation is among the most complex challenges cities are facing today [...]



2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 3005-3032 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.-P. Suen

Abstract. Observed increases in the Earth's surface temperature bring with them associated changes in precipitation and atmospheric moisture that consequentially alter river flow regimes. This paper uses the Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration approach to examine climate-induced flow regime changes that can potentially affect freshwater ecosystems. Analyses of the annual extreme water conditions at 23 gauging stations throughout Taiwan reveal large alterations in recent years; extreme flood and drought events were more frequent in the period after 1991 than from 1961–1990, and the frequency and duration of the flood and drought events also show high fluctuation. Climate change forecasts suggest that such flow regime alterations are going to continue into the foreseeable future. Aquatic organisms not only feel the effects of anthropogenic damage to river systems, but they also face on-going threats of thermal and flow regime alterations associated with climate change. This paper calls attention to the issue, so that water resources managers can take precautionary measures that reduce the cumulative effects from anthropogenic influence and changing climate conditions.



2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-70
Author(s):  
Prakash Upadhyay

This paper explores the changing climate, its impact, and the diversified practices of agropastoral adaption by a mountain community of Nepal. The findings reveal that there is an unswerving link between the changes in climate and their impact on the community and its adaptation options. The vulnerability and risk induced by the climate change has threatened the agropastoral subsistence, the sociocultural and economic structure, and the food sovereignty of the Loba community of Mustang district of Nepal and made them experience unanticipated complications in livelihood. In a changing climate, the community has attuned and restructured its adaptive strategy with diversified practices of collective labour in a traditional agropastoral system of landholding, mystical connectivity and seasonal relocation as an adaptive response ensuring the shared sustenance of the com munity. The challenge of climate change began long ago; it will persevere and be long- lasting. Hence, this paper argues for the need for a prudent adoption of measures to maintain an environmentally suitable agropastoral system of liveli hood well-being. Beyond enhancing community capacity and climate resilience, it is necessary to streamline and readjust indigenous sociocultural institutions by expanding their adaptive capacity, while recognizing the cultural dimensions grounded in systems of meanings and relationships and the way people and their culture experience and respond to exceptional climatic changes.



2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydie Lescarmontier ◽  
Eric Guilyardi ◽  
Simon Klein ◽  
Djian Sadadou ◽  
Mathilde Tricoire ◽  
...  

<div> <div> <div> <p>The essential role of education in addressing the causes and consequences of anthropogenic climate change is increasingly being recognised at an international level. The Office for Climate Education (OCE) develops educational resources and proposes professional development opportunities to support teachers, worldwide, to mainstream climate change education. Drawing upon the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, the OCE has produced a set of educational resources that cover the scientific and societal dimensions, at local and global levels, while developing students’ reasoning abilities and guiding them to take action (mitigation and/or adaptation) in their schools or communities. These resources include:</p> <p>1. Ready-to-use teacher handbook that (i) target students from the last years of primary school to the end of lower-secondary school (aged 9 to 15), (ii) include scientific and pedagogical overviews, lesson plans, activities and worksheets, (iii) are interdisciplinary, covering topics in the natural sciences, social sciences, arts and physical education, (iv) promote active pedagogies: inquiry- based science education, role-play, debate, projectbased learning.</p> <p>2. A Summary for teachers of the IPCC Special Report, presented together with a selection of related activities and exercises that can be implemented in the classroom.</p> <p>3. A set of 10 videos where experts speak about a specific issue related to the ocean or the cryosphere, in the context of climate change.</p> <p>4. A set of 4 multimedia activities offering students the possibility of working interactively in different topics related to climate change.</p> <p>5. A set of 3 resources for teacher trainers, offering turnkey training protocols on the topics of climate change, ocean and cryosphere.</p> </div> </div> </div>



2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsti Hakala ◽  
Nans Addor ◽  
Thibault Gobbe ◽  
Johann Ruffieux ◽  
Jan Seibert

Abstract. Anticipating and adapting to climate change impacts on water resources requires a detailed understanding of future hydroclimatic changes and of stakeholders' vulnerability to these changes. However, climate change impact studies are often conducted at a spatial scale that is too coarse to capture the specificity of individual catchments, and more importantly, the changes they focus on are not necessarily the changes most critical to stakeholders. While recent studies have combined hydrological and electricity market modeling, they tend to aggregate all climate impacts by focusing solely on reservoir profitability, and thereby provide limited insights into climate change adaptation. Here, we collaborated with Groupe E, a hydropower company operating several reservoirs in the Swiss pre-Alps and worked with them to produce hydroclimatic projections tailored to support their upcoming water concession negotiations. We started by identifying the vulnerabilities of their activities to climate change and then together chose streamflow and energy indices to characterize the associated risks. We provided Groupe E with figures showing the projected climate change impacts, which were refined over several meetings. The selected indices enabled us to simultaneously assess a variety of impacts induced by changes on i) the seasonal water volume distribution, ii) low flows, iii) high flows, and iv) energy demand. We were hence able to identify key opportunities (e.g., the future increase of reservoir inflow in winter, when electricity prices are historically high) and risks (e.g., the expected increase of consecutive days of low flows in summer and fall, which is likely to make it more difficult to meet residual flow requirements). This study highlights that the hydrological opportunities and risks associated with reservoir management in a changing climate depend on a range of factors beyond those covered by traditional impact studies. We also illustrate the importance of identifying stakeholder needs and using them to inform the production of climate impact projections. Our user-centered approach is transferable to other impact modeling studies, in the field of water resources and beyond.



2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeena Mary

World is now facing a greater menace of climate change and this has a long term impact on agriculture system. Weeds are one of the major factors that hold back the crops from attaining potential yield. The changing climate can have an effect on weed diversity, establishment and management. The response of weeds to altering climate mainly leans on the physiological characteristics of the weed and how productively it can respond to the immediate climatic condition. Due to high plasticity of weeds, management of these unwanted plants become difficult. This has significant repercussions on weed control practices, especially herbicide performance and effectiveness. Therefore, an integrated approach of weed management is adopted to reduce the impact of climate change on crop-weed interaction. 



2021 ◽  
Vol 9s8 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Simon Goldhill ◽  
Georgie Fitzgibbon

This special issue focuses on the intersections of climate, disasters, and development. The research presented here is designed to facilitate climate-resilient decision-making, and promote sustainable development by maximising the beneficial impacts of responses to climate change and minimising negative impacts across the full spectrum of geographies and sectors that are potentially affected by the changing climate.



2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-22
Author(s):  
Esther Nyirandorimana ◽  
Ezekiel Ndunda ◽  
John Muriuki

The changing climate poses a great challenge to many wetlands productivity worldwide. Rice production in wetlands is a major source of livelihood in developing countries such as Rwanda. This study aimed at determining the factors influencing adaptation methods when farmers perceive the changing climate at Bugarama Wetland Rice Scheme in Rwanda. A descriptive research design was used by this study, whereby quantitative and qualitative data was collected. The analysis was based on data collected from 300 selected farmers using systematic random sampling method. We employed descriptive statistics to assess how farmers perceive the effects of climate change and descriptively measured the new adaptation methods used by farmers in Bugarama to increase their yields. The study adopted Heckman two-step model to determine factors that influence adaptation choices, this analysis procedurally required farmers’ knowledge of perception that makes them respond to the effects of changes in climatic conditions by the use of new adaptation methods. The results deduced that level of education (p =0.019), extension access (p=0.001), market distance (p=0.002) and rice income (p < 0.001) had a probability of influencing farmers perceptions about climate change thus need to adapt. Based on the outcome model, results showed that extension access (p < 0.001), household size (p= 0.098), market distance (p= 0.047), rice income (p =0.032), farmers-to-farmers contact (p < 0.001) and effects of climate change on rice (p=0.038) had a greater probability of influencing farmers choice of adaptation method used to improve rice yields. To conclude, the study found that access to informational facilities and rice income, influenced farmers’ perceptions while extension access, rice income, market distance, farmers-to-farmers contact and effects of climate change on rice yield strongly had a probability of determining farmers’ choice of adaptation. This study recommends that the Rwandan government and local administrators need to develop a strategy that would allow farmers to access information facilities about new technology so as to adapt to the effects of climate change thus improve their rice yields.



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