International scientists identify practical steps and strategic key elements
It is important to start taking a more pro-active stance to assess what adaptation options are available to agriculture to cope with climate change. This is what international scientists of the IPCC, among whom Holger Meinke, professor at Wageningen University, discuss in their article published today, 11 December 2007, in the renown scientific journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). It is crucial to analyse costs and benefits of adaptation options in order to adjust policy and investments aimed at effective long term solutions.
The publication identifies several practical steps that can be taken to adapt agriculture to climate change during the next decade. The scientists state that although important, these steps alone will not be enough. Long term food security, fibre and biofuel production requires an array of sophisticated management strategies and supportive policies. For this, a joint effort of scientists, policymakers and industry is needed, that will allow the world to cope with the large-scale changes expected. Policy makers, farmers and agribusinesses need to know what they should do differently.
Agriculture, with its crucial function in the production of food, feed, fibre, livestock and bio fuel, is the most climate-dependent of all human activities.. Climate adaptation analyses can reward early adopters of climate information, help maintain a focus on building the capacity for effective climate risk management and inform medium to long-term infrastructure investment decisions. Furthermore, these studies will inform the international discussions on reducing greenhouse gas emissions such as those happening in Bali this week.
Some climate change impacts are happening faster than previously thought. Observed global temperature increases are following the highest projections of the IPCC. Mitigation measures have so far failed to arrest the increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Practical adaptations such as changing timing of plantings, the varieties or species of crops grown might avoid the damage caused by 1- to 2-degree changes in temperature – those expected over the next few decades. However, the effectiveness of such adaptation strategies declines with increasing temperatures. Consequently, the damage from climate change will increase unless a whole new array of adaptation options are developed and used. These adaptations may need to include diversification of production systems and livelihoods. Such changes would need supporting policies and programs in addition to soundly based research and development.
The scientific team from CSIRO in Australia, INRA in France, Arizona State University, IIASA in Austria and Wageningen University in the Netherlands, identifies six key elements needed for putting in place effective adaptation responses:
. conviction that climate changes are real and likely to continue,
. confidence that these changes will significantly impact on society,
. technical and other options to respond to the changes,
. support to make the transitions to new conditions,
. new infrastructure, policies and institutions to support the new management and land use arrangements, and
. targeted monitoring of adaptations to learn what works, what does not and why
Increased adaptation action will need integration of climate change-related issues with other risk factors such as climate variability and market risk and with other policy domains such as sustainable development. It will also need adaptation assessment frameworks that are relevant, robust and easily operated by farmers and other industries, policymakers and scientists.
In companion papers in the same issue of PNAS, Dr Josef Schmidhuber (FAO, Italy) and Francesco Tubiello (IIASA, Austria) warn that climate change will negatively affect all four dimensions of food security: food availability, access to food, stability of food supplies and food utilisation. The impacts are likely to grow more problematic with time and disproportionately affect the world’s poor. They conclude that it is quite possible that future will show there has been an underestimation of the negative effects of climate change once anticipated changes of extreme climates and other factors such as the effects on pests and diseases are included.
The leading author of the article, Dr Howden of CSIRO, is a member and lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, shared with Al Gore.