Istanbullish on Water
31/03/09 06:36
World Water Forum must be one of the largest conferences on the planet. Occurring every three years, the venue shifts through the developing world. Two weeks ago, the fifth Forum occurred in Istanbul, Turkey, couched between Europe, Africa, and Asia. I heard estimates of between 20,000 and 30,000 attendees for the week. Though we were all there nominally in the name of “water,” I’m not sure how unified or clear the focus the meeting is or even can be. Our conservation booth was located near the massive and predictably colorful “Italy” booth but also near a cluster of dam builders. On one adaptation panel, I sat between the representative of professional organization for water engineering and policy consultants and a labor union representative for water supply and sanitation workers. The conference had the coherence of a river that has reached its floodplain, spreading out and slowing down. Nonetheless, there were some interesting trends in water with climate change and climate adaptation.
At this meeting, I attended a variety of open- and
closed-door meetings. A year and a half into my
work in freshwater climate adaptation, I can see
some convergence in approach with climate
adaptation. For non-marine ecosystems, I think
there is a sense that for people and most
terrestrial species climate adaptation is mostly a
water issue. Manifesting climate change as air
temperature is important, but temperature is much
less significant than precipitation and
evaporation.
Perhaps more useful is the frequent emphasis on flexibility in planning. Talk of low- or no-regret development of water infrastructure in the developing world is mostly a response to a lack of faith in the ability of climate models to tell us very much about what the future holds. Or at least to tell us with enough confidence that we can say clearly, The climate in this place will look like this at this time and change in this direction. Adaptation is about anticipation, but we are very near-sighted.
And this theme leads us to the issue of implementation, which seems to break down into three components: effective water management institutions (capable of regulating water demand as well as supply, for istance), policymakers who govern with an eye to often-ignored stakeholders (such as poor people and the environment itself), and paying for all of these new approaches to water management (“adaptation finance” ). And all three of these components assume that good science will be available, comprehensible, and inform (but not determine) policy.
These are all remarkably sound points for discussion for climate adaptation. In one closed door meeting, one of the prominent organizers on water and climate issues led a discussion that eventually centered on all of these points. This meeting held only about 20 representatives, ranging from various branches of the UN, three EU member representatives, the World Bank, the WHO, and a couple of NGOs, including myself. But other, much larger and quite open meetings arrived at more or less the same issues.
Within each of these points, however, there are significant areas of disagreement. For instance, adaptation finance is extremely contentious. Should we have special adaptation funds that pay for “special” adaptation projects we would not pursued given a constant climate, or should we transform all of our work into adaptation? Who should pay for adaptation in poor areas? Is disaster risk reduction a type of adaptation?
There are some emerging areas of conflict as well. How do we balance climate adaptation and climate mitigation, and which is more important and local, regional, and global scales? For instance, should we think about wetlands, which hold a massive amount of locked-up carbon, the same way we plan to treat tropical forests as reservoirs of carbon? By implication, should we manage wetlands for their carbon content or for whatever precipitation regime they may be entering — which might be much drier and more likely to emit carbon? Similar issues exist for hydropower and free-flowing (and self-adapting) rivers.
Another critical topic with massive variations in intepretation is how we should weight climate change as a negative force versus other influences on water quality and quantity. Is climate change a serious problem now for freshwater? How quickly will this threat grow? More human-oriented practitioners trend towards viewing climate as a more distant problem — something we need to be aware of and prepare for now, but traditional threats to are more important to focus on. Climate scientists and some ecologists seem to feel differently. The signs of very rapid and frightening impacts have been with us for a while, they say. Climate change may not be universally equal to other threats now in all places, but that time is soon. I fear I must count myself in this latter category.
But perhaps the most important hole that exists now is in defining adaptation as a body of practice. Marxists in the nineteenth century used to argue about theory versus and praxis — purity of vision relative to compromising for local circumstances, and something similar is happening with water and climate change now. I gave a talk two days before the Forum in the UK to a small group of colleagues about the preliminary results of a study we’ve working on for an important global institution on climate change and freshwater management. R is a co-worker I respect for his commitment and clarity of thought. He sat at the back of the room, looking thoughtfully. With his typically firm politeness, he raised his hand. I was looking at your slides of the process of incorporating climate resilience into water management, and I kept thinking about a project I’ve been working on in central India. And I don’t see anything there to help me.
I smiled grimly. You’re right. It’s not there yet. We’re working on that kind of project-scale focus right now. But there’s nothing out there like that as far as we know. I’m sorry, R. I wish it was different. I hope I will have something for you soon. He nodded grimly.
Perhaps more useful is the frequent emphasis on flexibility in planning. Talk of low- or no-regret development of water infrastructure in the developing world is mostly a response to a lack of faith in the ability of climate models to tell us very much about what the future holds. Or at least to tell us with enough confidence that we can say clearly, The climate in this place will look like this at this time and change in this direction. Adaptation is about anticipation, but we are very near-sighted.
And this theme leads us to the issue of implementation, which seems to break down into three components: effective water management institutions (capable of regulating water demand as well as supply, for istance), policymakers who govern with an eye to often-ignored stakeholders (such as poor people and the environment itself), and paying for all of these new approaches to water management (“adaptation finance” ). And all three of these components assume that good science will be available, comprehensible, and inform (but not determine) policy.
These are all remarkably sound points for discussion for climate adaptation. In one closed door meeting, one of the prominent organizers on water and climate issues led a discussion that eventually centered on all of these points. This meeting held only about 20 representatives, ranging from various branches of the UN, three EU member representatives, the World Bank, the WHO, and a couple of NGOs, including myself. But other, much larger and quite open meetings arrived at more or less the same issues.
Within each of these points, however, there are significant areas of disagreement. For instance, adaptation finance is extremely contentious. Should we have special adaptation funds that pay for “special” adaptation projects we would not pursued given a constant climate, or should we transform all of our work into adaptation? Who should pay for adaptation in poor areas? Is disaster risk reduction a type of adaptation?
There are some emerging areas of conflict as well. How do we balance climate adaptation and climate mitigation, and which is more important and local, regional, and global scales? For instance, should we think about wetlands, which hold a massive amount of locked-up carbon, the same way we plan to treat tropical forests as reservoirs of carbon? By implication, should we manage wetlands for their carbon content or for whatever precipitation regime they may be entering — which might be much drier and more likely to emit carbon? Similar issues exist for hydropower and free-flowing (and self-adapting) rivers.
Another critical topic with massive variations in intepretation is how we should weight climate change as a negative force versus other influences on water quality and quantity. Is climate change a serious problem now for freshwater? How quickly will this threat grow? More human-oriented practitioners trend towards viewing climate as a more distant problem — something we need to be aware of and prepare for now, but traditional threats to are more important to focus on. Climate scientists and some ecologists seem to feel differently. The signs of very rapid and frightening impacts have been with us for a while, they say. Climate change may not be universally equal to other threats now in all places, but that time is soon. I fear I must count myself in this latter category.
But perhaps the most important hole that exists now is in defining adaptation as a body of practice. Marxists in the nineteenth century used to argue about theory versus and praxis — purity of vision relative to compromising for local circumstances, and something similar is happening with water and climate change now. I gave a talk two days before the Forum in the UK to a small group of colleagues about the preliminary results of a study we’ve working on for an important global institution on climate change and freshwater management. R is a co-worker I respect for his commitment and clarity of thought. He sat at the back of the room, looking thoughtfully. With his typically firm politeness, he raised his hand. I was looking at your slides of the process of incorporating climate resilience into water management, and I kept thinking about a project I’ve been working on in central India. And I don’t see anything there to help me.
I smiled grimly. You’re right. It’s not there yet. We’re working on that kind of project-scale focus right now. But there’s nothing out there like that as far as we know. I’m sorry, R. I wish it was different. I hope I will have something for you soon. He nodded grimly.
