The Future of Climate-Water Talk: WWW's Conclusions
21/12/09 18:59
World Water Week
has come up
several times here. Every August, the
Stockholm International Water
Institute (SIWI) hosts what is probably the
most important water event of the year —
certainly one that’s more fun and focused than
World Water Week, which is ridiculously large.
This week, SIWI has just pubbed their year-end
review of World Water Week’s
“results,” compiled by the rapporteur teams for
each subject area. For 2009, I was the one of
six rapporteurs for the
climate change theme, which
felt like a great honor to me. Our part of the
report has what I think are some interesting
implications for the state of the water and
climate change policy dialog internationally.
Which might be an encouraging contrast to
the more
disappointing news from
Copenhagen. Some highlights:
Communicating the importance of water and climate change to broader audiences. If water is indeed the medium through which climate change will be felt by humans, the water community must find more effective ways of making climate-resilient water management relevant to vulnerable groups such as women, young people, farmers, and consumers. The importance of water must be articulated from many audiences in order for decision makers to act, not just from those directly involved in water resource management.
Forums for exchanging adaptation lessons. Enormous gaps remain between scales (project, basin, national), specialty (engineering, economics, finance, hydrology, ecology, development, policy), and within and between regions. Can WWW create more dynamic platforms for exchanging lessons and removing barriers rather than lecture-speaker approaches?
Enabling institutions and policies. Discussions about institutions and policies that enable CCA or become “adaptive institutions” would be extremely useful. While these terms were raised repeatedly in 2009, they remained largely in the abstract, with few case studies or examples of the positive roles that national and international institutions should be playing.
Mitigation vs adaptation, or mitigation and adaptation? In most instances where mitigation and adaptation were both mentioned, there was little discussion of how these could be integrated or where the limits of integration lay. Can and should wetlands be managed as carbon sinks, as has been proposed for the UNFCCC for forest carbon? When climate mitigation in conflict with climate adaptation, which should be favored?
Gender. While the research and advocacy on climate change is showing that women are major victims in agricultural communities, there was little explicit discussion what gender-relevant adaptation interventions might look like, such as a gender policy in the water sector.
The philosophy of adaptation. Most discussions of CCA techniques described building resilience to climate variability and resisting ecological tipping points, which in effect is about buffering impacts or reducing rates of change. But some talks also explored adaptation as facilitating changes in ecosystems and economies. These approaches are probably distinct. How are they related? When should one approach be favored over another?
The limits of adaptation. A number of regions such the Himalayas and the Andes are experiencing very rapid rates of climate change, particularly in their water resources. Are there limits to what can be adapted to? How do we define those limits?
Climate services. Only a handful of speakers mentioned climate services, a topic that is gaining traction in some scientific and policy circles. Climate services are roughly comparable to ecosystem services, such that regions like the Amazon “provide” climate services such as large quantities of airborne moisture. The water community is largely focused on surficial and groundwaters rather than the larger eco-hydrological cycle. Should the focus of adaptation shift to encompass climate services?
Groundwater. In many regions, groundwater is a very significant portion of water for irrigation, domestic, and industrial use, while monitoring of usage and recharge processes or regulation of groundwater resources are extremely limited. Climate change is likely altering recharge and demand of groundwater resources globally.
Finance and funding as instruments of adaptation. Water infrastructure affects most major and many small bodies of water. What role can the finance industry and development groups play in promoting climate-sustainable water management practices?
Climate change and water footprint. Water footprint has become a powerful means of articulating how economic processes can transfer good and bad water resource management within goods and services. Some governments and corporations are now turning water footprint messaging into water management policies. However, the water footprint movement does not encompass realized or projected climate change impacts.
