Climate change mitigation and adaptation

Although many activities can jointly contribute to the climate change strategies of adaptation and mitigation, climate policies have generally treated these strategies separately. In recent years, there has been a growing interest shown by practitioners in agriculture, forestry, and landscape management in the links between the two strategies. This review explores the opportunities and trade-offs when managing landscapes for both climate change mitigation and adaptation; different conceptua- lizations of the links between adaptation and mitigation are highlighted. Under a first conceptualization of ‘ joint outcomes, ’ several reviewed studies analyze how activities without climatic objectives deliver joint adaptation and mitigation outcomes. In a second conceptualization of ‘ unintended side effects, ’ the focus is on how activities aimed at only one climate objective — either adaptation or mitigation — can deliver outcomes for the other objective. A third conceptualization of ‘ joint objectives ’ highlights that associating both adaptation and mitigation objec- tives in a climate-related activity can influence its outcomes because of multiple possible interactions. The review reveals a diversity of reasons for mainstreaming adaptation and mitigation separately or jointly in landscape management. The three broad conceptualizations of the links between adaptation and mitigation suggest different implications for climate policy mainstreaming and integration. © 2015 The Authors. WIREs Climate Change published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

different interpretations. 2 I use that of chapter two, where climate change adaptation is the set of actions taken to respond to a changing climate mean that: 1) improve welfare, 2) do not change the climate as the goal, and 3) would not have been taken were the climate mean not changing. While mitigation and adaptation are both risk-reducing approaches to climate change, they are distinctly different in the timescales of their policy effectiveness and the characteristics of how their technology works to reduce damages, as well as their behavior under uncertainty. Given these different policy characteristics between the two strategies, using a single policy variable to represent distinctly different adaptation measures for different types of climate damages may not accurately portray the tradeoffs between adaptation and mitigation, particularly under uncertainty. In addressing this issue, I developed a conceptual framework in chapter two where the rational policymaker faces a decision under uncertainty on how much to allocate across a portfolio of four policies to respond to climate change: mitigation, and three types of adaptation – flexible and short- lived ―flow‖ spending, committed and long-lived new stock investments, and the retrofitting of pre-existing capital stock. With this as motivation, this chapter takes a step toward the complete representation of the developed framework in model form by modeling adaptation as both a flow and a stock variable along with mitigation. In so doing it adds to the nascent but growing modeling literature that characterizes adaptation with both flow- and stock-type attributes (Lecocq and Shalizi 2008; Bosello et al. 2010; Yohe et al. 2010).

climate change adaptation measures and climate change mitigation measures have an impact on heat stress has not been researched thoroughly in the Netherlands. It is important to do so however, since extra cases of deaths have been reported during heatwaves and some of them are expected to be a result of climate change ("Tackling climate change crucial to EU citizen health — ECEEE", 2016; de Meer et al., 2013). An article in a Dutch newspaper from summer 2011 mentioned that even though the weather was not extremely warm, mortality rates were rising. These were probably due to the higher temperature in houses according to the GGD (Gemeentelijke gezondheidsdienst or municipal health service), which could also be an issue even though there is no heatwave and temperatures are 22 degrees Celsius by day and 16 degrees Celsius by night (Lautenbach, 2011). Rovers, Bosch & Alber (2013) concluded that during a heatwave mortality increases with 12%, which comes down to approximately 40 extra deaths per day. Current research expects that climate change will lead to more extreme weather events and thus hotter summers. Figure 2 shows the estimated amount of days of heat stress for the future. Hotter summers lead to a higher risk of heat stress and thus a higher risk of mortality as a result of heat stress. Especially elderly people are vulnerable to heat stress, which makes retirement homes high risk locations. Apart from the newspaper, different studies concluded that there indeed is a correlation between mortality and heat stress. De Meer et al. (2012) concluded that this is also the case in the Netherlands. They found that the highest mortality occurs during extreme cold and

To date, few studies have empirically investigated the relationship between mitigation and adaptation in the public’s mind. Among these studies, two provide indirect evidence for a posi- tive relationship: Farmers who believed that anthropogenic climate change was happening were more likely to endorse mitigation and adaptation measures than farmers who were scepti- cal about climate change [9]. It is, however, unclear to what extent these results apply to the general public. Yet a study conducted among homeowners—who may be more comparable to the general public — revealed similar findings: The more homeowners were aware of and con- cerned about climate change, the more money were they willing to pay for mitigation and ad- aptation measures [10]. Another study conducted with members of the general public found that the more people felt that climate change was a severe threat and the more they felt vulnera- ble, the more they were willing to mitigate [11]. However, severity and vulnerability did not predict adaptation, suggesting that people endorsed the two strategies for different reasons and that the relationship between mitigation and adaptation may be unsystematic. Overall, previ- ous studies provide some evidence that specific groups (i.e., farmers and homeowners) endorse mitigation and adaptation strategies for similar reasons. However, very little is known about how the general public relates these two strategies to each other.

These biblical considerations help us understand better the relationship between human activity and creation, especially now as everyone seems to be talking about climate change. It’s no longer just the concern of a few eco-warriors, it’s in the media, is becoming a political issue and more and more individuals are becoming aware of their own carbon footprint. Through climate change one becomes more aware that when people turn their back on the Creator and his plan, by living a self-centered life of individualism, accumulation and consumption man provokes a disorder which has inevitable repercussions on the rest of the created order, such as that which many parts of the world have encountered and are encountering in these extreme weather events that have occurred in these recent years.

Climate change is one of the hottest issues of the world and one of the most important factors which influences the behavior, abundance and distribution of species, as well as having a strong influence on the ecology and ecosystems. Diversity and plant species are highly interlinked and the relationship between biodiversity and climate change adaptation should be explored from several perspectives. As climate change increasingly puts a strain on ecosystems and species populations, it is important to find ways to increase their resilience to current and future climate change (Reid and Swiderska, 2008). At the same time, the conservation and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystem services can play a key role in helping societies to adapt to climate change. Biodiversity is affected by climate change, with negative consequences for human well-being, but biodiversity, through the ecosystem services and function it supports, also makes an important contribution to both climate- change mitigation and adaptation (UNEP, 2009). Consequently, conserving and sustainably managing biodiversity is critical to addressing climate change.

We have argued in this paper that achieving effective integration of adaptation and mitigation objectives requires policy processes and policy frameworks that facilitate minimization of trade-offs and realization of potential synergies. Although there is an opportunity to enable synergies between adaptation and mitigation at the local level, ad hoc local-level integration will remain limited in delivering towards both, mitigation and adaptation objectives, but require a deliberate process for integrating mitigation and adaptation policies. Furthermore, for successful integration of mitigation and adaptation policies, governments that are designing domestic policies would have to actively seek ways to exploit the potential for positive spillovers, realize mutual benefits and make policies explicitly mutually supportive. In addition to removing contradictions between mitigation and adaptation policies (and within policies), integration is expected to help avoid the negative consequences of adaptation and mitigation policies, as it aims to reduce both emissions from land use and the vulnerability of people and ecosystems to climate change impacts. Despite some efforts, few results are visible. Reviewing existing policies is necessary to identify ways to minimize their potential negative impacts and to achieve the twin objectives of emission reductions and adaptation. Capacity building for local government, clarity in state actors’ roles and responsibilities, and clear guidance on how to integrate climate change mitigation and adaptation are required to address these challenges. Actors that have dual mandates could also help to bridge efforts to integrate mitigation and adaptation.

Transformational social change can be said to involve a broad set of interrelated processes: practi- cal, political and personal in nature. In the context of climate change mitigation and adaptation, two prom- inent agendas (ST transitions and SE resilience) both utilize a systems perspective to address some of these issues. However, certain conceptual blind spots (par- ticularly regarding politics, power, agency, and ideas) have not only limited the scope of their analyses but have also led to problematic governance prescrip- tions. Whilst some strands of TM and adaptive comanagement do acknowledge the existence of com- peting visions for a climate compatible future, in gen- eral there is a tendency to try to control this potentially creative force through a process of iso- morphism, managerialist steering and consensus building. Re fl exivity and social learning are encour- aged by both approaches but little is said of how ideas and in fl uences mediate this process and to what extent this reinforces a incremental rather than trans- formational trajectory. Such an approach will not only favor technical and behavioral solutions to cli- mate change but it may do so in a politically naïve way that struggles to challenge the dominant ideas and institutional inertia of societies with high/rising emissions and large swathes of vulnerable communities.

contributions, without additional coordinating mechanisms. We start with the simplest model of independent players with equal ability to pay an insurance premium that is the same for all players. Real-world premiums are likely to vary, however, with geographic variation in risk, and abilities to pay the voluntary contribution will vary with wealth inequality (Tavoni et al., 2011; Burton-Chellew et al., 2013). We therefore consider options for accommodating potentially large regional differences in players vulnerabilities to climate change. We further extend the model to include players with unequal abilities to pay for mitigation or adaptation. We apply the model to players at the scale of households in a nation, and to players at the scale of nations in an international consortium. We discuss ways to adapt existing scenarios for multinational aggregation that would lead to the effective management of a global commons. We consider ways to minimize the political difficulty of approving up-front costs for future benefits.

demonstrate how disease control in arable crops can make a contribution to both climate change mitigation and sustainable arable crop production. Climate change will affect both growth of agricultural crops and diseases that attack them but there has been little work to study its combined effects on crop-disease interactions to guide strategies for adaptation to climate change. For example, it may take 10-15 years to develop a new fungicide and it is important to identify future target diseases now. As examples, the impact of climate change on UK epidemics of phoma stem canker and light leaf spot on winter oilseed rape and fusarium ear blight on winter wheat is investigated by combining weather-based disease models, crop growth models and simulated weather for different climate change scenarios. It is predicted that climate change will increase the risk of oilseed rape phoma stem canker and wheat fusarium ear blight epidemics but decrease the risk of light leaf spot epidemics by the 2050s. Such predictions illustrate unexpected, contrasting impacts of climate change on complex plant-disease interactions in agricultural and natural ecosystems. They can provide guidance for government and industry planning for adaptation to effects of climate change on crops to ensure future food security.

The finding that monetary transfers resulting from a bargaining over the additional joint surplus from cooperation could go in both directions is in line with Buob and Stephan (2013). They find that developed countries should finance adaptation in poor countries to the extent that they benefit from it. Both papers point that developed countries have weak incentives to provide funding in a non-cooperative framework, which highlights the importance of a compelling international agreement. As of today, it is still not clear what provisions of the Paris agreement are legally binding and the latter might fail to provide incentives strong enough for countries to deliver on their promises.

Abstract—Climate change is one of the most important global environmental challenges, with implications for food production, water supply, health, energy, etc. Addressing climate change requires a good scientific understanding as well as coordinated action at national and global level. During the last 40 years, India has witnessed a decline in gravity-flow irrigation and the rise of a booming ‘water-scavenging’ irrigation economy through millions of small and private tube wells. The groundwater has become at once critical and threatened. Climate change will act as a force multiplier; it will enhance groundwater’s criticality for drought-proofing agriculture and simultaneously multiply the threat to the resource. India’s groundwater hotspots are western and peninsular regions. These regions are critical for climate change mitigation as well as adaptation. To achieve both, India needs to make a transition from surface storage to ‘managed aquifer storage’ as the centre pin of its water strategy with proactive demand- and supply-side management components.

Similarly, in Kenya, crossbreeding between Dorper and Red Maasai sheep has been used by a majority of farmers in Kajiado district and are playing an important role for the livelihood of the people (Liljestrand, 2012). However, the presence of genotype by environment interaction on performances of sheep has been well documented in Ethiopia (Getachew et al., 2013; Getachew et al., 2015), Kenya (Zonabend et al., 2014) as well as cattle in tropical countries (Galukande et al., 2013). For example, in Kenya, in the poor environment both local and crossbreds had about the same body weight whereas in the other site (better environment and market-oriented farmers) Dorper and crossbreds had superior weight (Zonabend et al., 2014). Those variable research results on the performance of crossbreeding based on location, genotype and management suggested that the importance of differential recommendations for different locations and careful delineation of crossbreeding area. While promoting highly productive genetics to address climate change will reduce GHG emissions in some ways, maintaining biodiversity and the genetic resources of locally adapted breeds will be needed to complement other climate change mitigation strategies and to ensure the animals thrive (Thornton, 2010). A possible solution may be more research and genetic characterization and selection of indigenous livestock breeds, but only with due consideration to welfare.

and ‘sticks’ (regulation; with mandatory compliance), this voluntary effort is explained in the literature by dif- ferent sets of factors. Zahran et al. [28] use three con- textual factors to explain local commitment to adopting and implementing climate change policy in their US- based study of International Council for Local Environ- mental Initiatives (ICLEI) membership of cities in metropolitan areas: (i) presence of climate change risk, (ii) presence of climate change stress, and (iii) presence of civic capacity a . ‘Climate change risk’ addresses such factors as coastal proximity, ecosystem sensitivity, or proneness to flooding and other climate change-related risks. Ecological, social, and economic impacts are not distributed evenly geographically. Some local govern- ments profit more from the reduction of climate change risks than others because they are more vulnerable to potential climate change impacts. But with climate change mitigation measures, the benefits cannot be ex- cluded from other areas (and thus other municipalities) regardless of the effort local governments make to re- duce GHG emissions. In the end it is municipalities that are the more vulnerable that benefit most. ‘Climate change stress’ relates to high levels of carbon-based em- ployment, solo commuting with low urban density, and low levels of solar energy use, which means that from an economic perspective on transportation and energy use, climate change emission reduction becomes more costly for local communities. ‘Civic capacity’ is conceptualized as the presence of environmental groups and the in- volvement of environmental causes. Environmental groups can mobilize capacity and political support to raise attention to climate change-related issues and in- fluence local policymakers' agenda setting. The involve- ment of environmental groups in agenda setting is of critical importance in the development of climate change policies [28]. Enhancing civic engagement (to empower environmental groups) is therefore considered a key challenge in cities [29].

It is quite possible for the Forest Service to make significant gains in carbon sequestration, and significant contributions to climate change mitigation through this process. Simple management changes, using the same techniques that are currently used for forest management, could be used to greatly increase the amount of carbon stored on North Carolina’s national forests without converting forest acreage from other uses. Our results suggest that, over the entire 100 year simulation, over 11 MMTC of additional carbon would be sequestered by these three forests. Depro et al. (2008) estimated that, when all Forest Service units were included, between 17 and 29 MMTC of additional carbon could be sequestered per year in a no-harvest scenario. Considering the relatively small acreage of the Forest Service units in North Carolina, and that timber harvesting is still performed in our analysis, these results seem consistent. However, the large differences in results

Methane emissions are also highly sensitive to the combined effects of climate change and adaptation (including the basic adaptation of adjusting stocking rates to maintain safe utilisation levels as pasture production changes) (Figure 9.4). Summarised across regions, carrying capacities and methane emissions show similar responses with similar chances of increasing (averaging about 40% increase under 2070 wetting scenario) and decreasing (about 35% decrease under drying scenario), magnifying average projected changes in rainfall (-32% to +12%: Figure 9.3). In contrast, the risk for carbon stocks is biased strongly towards decreases (- 53% under drying scenario vs +12% under wetting scenario). When converted to carbon fluxes over an 80-year period, changes in soil carbon emissions/sequestration under climate change outweigh increases in stocking rate (to match changes in pasture productivity) (Table 9.3.1), with the net effect that total greenhouse gas emissions would increase under drying climate scenarios (soil emissions are greater than decreases in livestock emissions) and increase under wetting scenarios. If additional management action was taken to improve land condition (Table 9.3.2), sequestration of soil carbon would outweigh increases in livestock emissions (over 80 years, associated with the increased carrying capacity of better condition pastures). Actions to sequester soil carbon (and reduce net reductions in greenhouse gas emissions) were more effective under the wetting scenarios (relative to 1990 baseline) and less effective under the drying scenarios (Table 9.4.2). In the drying scenario, carbon sequestered by improving land condition is insufficient to offset SOC losses associated with the direct impacts of climate drying (Table 9.4.2 vs Table 9.4.1

Extreme and harsh weather is now a norm in Kenya (GoK, 2010). The pressures of climate change and climate variability make Kenya highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This vulnerability is further aggravated by the fact that Kenya‘s economy is reliant on climate sensitive natural resources. Stern (2009) and Heinrich (2013) estimate that the central economic costs of climate change could be equivalent to 2.6% of GDP each year by 2030 for Kenya. Climate change has been identified as one of the greatest threats to humanity of all times, a threat to human security in addition to producing adverse environmental conditions. It is already challenging the realization of a broad range of internationally protected human rights (Ome & Casimir, 2015). Climate change and climate variability are projected to contribute to increased drought episodes, food insecurity, irreversible decline in herd sizes, and deepening poverty. The ASALs are inflicted by a major drought once in every 5 years resulting in widespread food insecurity, poverty, and irreversible decline in herd sizes. The constraints posed by climate change on agriculture range from pronounced seasonality of rainfall to severe and recurrent droughts (Omwoyo et al ., 2015). Mandera County is an arid area with sensitive ecological systems whose main economic activity is pastoralism. It is practiced in a sensitive and insecure environment characterized by highly spatial and temporal rainfall distribution, which often result in long, dry periods. The livelihoods of pastoralist communities largely depend on livestock. The County has experience recurrent droughts, human conflicts, terrorism, epidemics, human wildlife conflicts and animal disease whose impacts have increased immensely. Currently, climate change poses a threat to human development in terms of security and livelihood in Mandera as climate change and pastoralists‘ livelihood are interlinked

reactive responses to current climate impacts not cov- ered in our survey. They could be supported with tax incentives and technical solutions and government agen- cies should work with communities to address their needs. From the other predictors only gender was asso- ciated with either autonomous adaptation action, with women appearing to be less adaptive. The majority of study participants had adapted to extreme weather con- ditions by cooling off in air conditioned places, reducing physical exertion or using a fan. These autonomous adaptation actions are reactive in nature, more so than proactive and thus does not capture anticipatory (proac- tive or planned) adaptive intentions. The survey instru- ment was initially designed to capture anticipatory adaptation as well by asking respondents if they adapted their home to climate change. For example: have you installed an A/C, insulation, insect screens, eliminated mosquitoes breeding sites, etc. However, due to low fre- quency responses these questions were eliminated from the analysis; thus the results apply to autonomous adap- tation only and not to long-term impacts. Other studies that did not specifically examine the psychological con- structs of the HBM have shown that adaptive behaviour to climate change may be more strongly linked to fac- tors such as, environmental attitudes, political affiliation and attitudes towards scientists [39-41]. The relative dif- ferences in predictors of our mitigation and adaptation outcomes might in part be due to the wording of the survey questions. Nevertheless, health as a communica- tion frame can be used to complement other strategies to augment the public response [42].

Abstract: The paper does a qualitative assessment of the current European Union policies for dealing with climate change. In the EU mitigation policies are derived from the international agreements for reducing and limiting greenhouse gases emissions. Mitigation policies have a strict compliance regime using both positive and negative reinforcement. On the other side, adaptation measures, meant to increase nature’s and society’s resilience to climate change negative impact, are designed more as recommendations complementing sectoral policies. Agriculture has a relatively low potential of curbing GHG emissions but are some of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change. By examining the relative projected efficiency of EU’s mitigation efforts compared to the overall goal of stopping global warming, the paper finds that there is clear imbalance between mitigation policies and adaptation policies. It concludes that in the absence of matching binding commitments from other large emitters of GHG, the climate objective will not be met. This requires at European level a medium and long-term strategy for the societal and economic adaptation to the new climate conditions and, on short-term, more focus on adaptation policies in vulnerable sectors such as agriculture.

The Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change), Working Group II (hereafter AR4-WGII), states that “a wide array of adaptation options is available, but more extensive adaptation than is currently occurring is required to reduce vulnerability to future climate change. There are barriers, limits, and costs, but these are not fully understood” (IPCC 2007a, 19). Other important statements of the AR4-WGII include that “vulnerability to climate change can be exacerbated by the presence of other stresses,” that “future vulnerability depends not only on climate change but also on development pathways,” and that “sustainable development can reduce vulnerability to climate change, and climate change could impede nations’ abilities to achieve sustainable development pathways” (IPCC 2007a, 19–20). In general, climate change and variability are a considerable threat to agricultural communities, particularly in lower latitudes. This threat includes the likely increase of extreme weather conditions, increased water stress and drought, and desertification, as well as adverse health effects (extreme heat and increased spread of diarrhoeal and infectious diseases, such as malaria). Adverse effects are likely to multiply if adaptation fails. This may then overstretch many societies’ adaptive capacities, which may lead to destabilization and security risks,