Climate Risk Screening and Adaptation Assessment

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• Climate Risk Screening and Adaptation Assessment

Presented by Sreeja Nair, TERI Project Team
Sreeja Nair, Suruchi Bhadwal, Sangeet K.
Srivastava, Pradhan P. Sarthi, Meena Sehgal
Souvik Bhattacharjya at TERI (The Energy and
Resources Institute) and Dr. Thomas Tanner at IDS
(Institute of Development Studies)
International Workshop on Evaluating Climate
Change and Development 10-13 May 2008,
Alexandria, Egypt
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Presentation outline

• Vulnerability concepts and assessment
• India in context
• The climate-risk screening process
• Knowledge gaps and future research needs

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Vulnerability Concept and assessment

• Vulnerability f Exposure, Sensitivity, Adaptive
  capacity
• Differential vulnerabilities exist across
  different systems based on inherent response
  abilities
• Both human and natural systems are affected
• Reduced capacities for effective response in
  developing nations
• Climate change an additional and multi-pronged
  stressor

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Determinants of vulnerabilityAssessment of
vulnerability of Indian agriculture to double
exposure (climate change and globalization)- a
case study
Source TERI, 2003
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• Regions with highest climate sensitivity and
  exposure are not necessarily the most vulnerable

Source TERI, 2003
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Major threats due to climate change Indian
context

• Reduction in freshwater availability, glacial
  recession
• Impacts on agriculture, livelihood and food
  security
• Adverse impacts on natural ecosystems (forests,
  coral reefs, mountainous regions etc.)
• Coastal regions at risk due to sea level rise,
  storm surges etc.
• Human health due to changes in virulence and
  disease patterns and,
• Risk to infrastructure

Source GoI, 2004
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The ORCHID Process

• Climate science
• Vulnerability
• Economic impacts

Selects high risk projects
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Screening of projects

• Criteria for climate risk screening comparison
  of scenarios
• No programme scenario without interventions
• Programme scenario partial risk reduction due to
  programme implementation
• Programme plus scenario risk reduction with
  additional components added within the present
  programme portfolio

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Climate- risk screening and adaptation assessment
Key Questions

• Have the climate risk assessment approach and the
  multi criteria analysis led to a range of
  credible adaptation options?
• How does the analysis inform our understanding of
  adaptation to longer term climate change?
• What do we learn from the cost benefit analysis,
  and is it appropriate for adaptation decision
  making?

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Knowledge gaps and future research needs

• Need for systematic review in order to scale
  impacts uniformly across various studies
• It will also help in assessing the underlying
  uncertainties
• Need to facilitate integration of climate-risk
  screening results in programme design and
  implementation.
• Need for integrated vulnerability assessments to
  identify suitable win-win adaptation measures
• Identify links with the existing policies and
  building scope for enhancing, modifying,
  strengthening in the light of unanticipated
  changes in the climate
• State and local level policies- essential to
  reflect ground conditions, interest and
  aspirations
• Successful examples can be custom-tailored and
  replicated elsewhere- role of experience sharing
  and learning by doing (Folke et al, 2002
  Moench and Dixit, 2004)

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Thank You