Dr R K Pachauri

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Climate Changeand Adaptation
UNEP
WMO

• Dr R K Pachauri
• Chairman, IPCC
• Director-General, TERI
• Rockefeller Board of Trustees
• New York, 29th November 2007

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Climate change is unequivocal

• Warming of the climate system is unequivocal,
  as is now evident from observations of increases
  in global average air and ocean temperatures,
  widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising
  global average sea level

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Climate change is unequivocal
Global average temperature
Global average sea level
Northern hemisphere snow cover
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Climate change is unequivocal
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Expected trends

• With current climate change mitigation policies
  and related sustainable development practices,
  global GHG emissions will continue to grow over
  the next few decades

• Continued greenhouse gases emissions would induce
  larger climatic changes than those observed in
  20th century

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Expected trends

• Anthropogenic warming could lead to some
  impacts that are abrupt or irreversible,
  depending upon the rate and magnitude of the
  climate change

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Vulnerable communities and regions
Vulnerable communities in the USA

• Economies of resource-dependent communities and
  indigenous communities are particularly sensitive
  to climate change

• In New Orleans during and after Hurricane
  Katrina, the large majority of those requiring
  evacuation assistance were either poor or in
  groups
• with limited mobility

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Vulnerable communities and regions
Vulnerable regions

• Africa, Asia and Latin America have historically
  been most at risk, and are most vulnerable to the
  impacts of climate change

• Vulnerability exacerbated by existing stresses
• Endemic poverty
• Limited access to capital
• Ecosystem degradation
• Disasters and conflicts
• Failure of government system
• to respond effectively

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Vulnerability of urban areas

• Most of the world population growth will take
  place in cities, largely in Asia and Africa

• Urban population from 2000 to 2030
• 79 to 87 in North America
• 37 to 54 in Asia

• 54 of the world urban population expected to be
  in Asia

Urbanization in high-risk areas is a special
concern, as it concentrates people and assets and
is generally increasing global and regional
vulnerability to climate-change impacts
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Impacts on coastal areas
Coastal settlements most at risk
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Impacts on coastal areas

• Many millions more people are projected to be
  flooded every year due to sea-level rise by the
  2080s

• The numbers affected will be largest in the
  mega-deltas of Asia and Africa while small
  islands are especially vulnerable

• Significant losses of coastal ecosystems will
  affect the aquaculture industry

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Impacts on agriculture
Increase or decrease
Cereal crop productivity Livestock
productivity Forestry production
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Impacts on agriculture

• Agricultural productivity at low latitudes likely
  to suffer severe losses because of
• high temperature
• drought
• flood conditions
• soil degradation

• Possible yield reduction
• 50 by 2020 in some African countries
• 30 by 2050 in Central and South Asia
• 30 by 2080 in Latin America

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Impacts on water stress

• Water availability significantly affected for
  human consumption, agriculture and energy
  generation due to
• Changes in precipitation patterns
• Increasing salinity of groundwater due to
  increases in sea level and over-exploitation
• Glaciers melting decreasing river flows

• Ranges of people exposed to increased water
  stress by 2020
• 120 millions to 1.2 billion in Asia
• 75 to 250 millions in Africa
• 12 to 81 millions in Latin America

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Impacts on human health

• Increases in malnutrition and consequent disorders

• Increased burden of diarrhoeal disease

• Exacerbation of abundance and/or toxicity of
  cholera due to increases in coastal water
  temperature

• Increased deaths, disease and injury due to heat
  waves, floods, storms, fires and droughts

• Increased frequency of cardio-respiratory diseases

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Adaptation strategies
Need for adaptation

• Adaptation is necessary to address impacts
  resulting from the warming which is already
  unavoidable due to past emissions

• Adaptation is taking place through a range of
  practices

• Adaptation capacity is limited and uneven across
  and within societies

Climate change poses new risks that will require
new investments in adaptive responses
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Adaptation strategies

• Enhancing social capital

• Protecting from sea level rise

• Increasing agriculture adaptive capacity

• Preventing water scarcity

Key need is to incorporate adaptation into
development policies and practices
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Adaptation strategies
Beyond adaptation

• Adaptation alone is not expected to cope with all
  the projected effects of climate change

• Impacts of climate change will increase as global
  temperatures increase

Making development more sustainable can mitigate
GHG emissions, enhance adaptive capacity and
reduce vulnerability
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Mitigation scenarios
Stabilization of GHGs at or above present levels
would not stabilize sea level for many centuries

1 The best estimate of climate sensitivity is
3ºC WG 1 SPM. 2 Note that global mean
temperature at equilibrium is different from
expected global mean temperature at the time of
stabilization of GHG concentrations due to the
inertia of the climate system. For the majority
of scenarios assessed, stabilisation of GHG
concentrations occurs between 2100 and 2150. 3
Ranges correspond to the 15th to 85th percentile
of the post-TAR scenario distribution. CO2
emissions are shown so multi-gas scenarios can be
compared with CO2-only scenarios.
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Democracy must in essence therefore, mean the
art and science of mobilizing the entire
physical, economics and spiritual resources of
all the various sections of the people in the
service of the common good for all .