17 December 2015, Stockholm Reslilience Centre, Social-ecological traps – Damned if they do, damned if they don’t – Adaptation to environmental change is not straightforward, struggling fishing communities in Vietnam show why. Responding to climate change is good but not all responses are great. The term “adaptation”, understood as adjustments in behaviour to either mitigate harm or exploit opportunities emerging from climate change, features prominently in scientific analyses and policy papers. But it comes with a variety of challenges. One important one is the assumption that adaptation by default leads to something better. The reality can be much different. Keep doing what they have always done In a study published in Environment, Development and Sustainability, centre researcher Wijnand Boonstra together with Tong Thi Hai Hanh from Uppsala University have looked at how fishing communities in the Tam Giang Lagoon in central Vietnam have dealt with a variety of challenges. Climate change, floods, population growth and urbanization are some of them. Boonstra and Hanh focused on two villages in the Quang Phuoc commune, Phuoc Lap and Mai Duong. The first village depends significantly on fishing and low-input aquaculture and the second on rice production and aquaculture. Common for both villages is the exposure to ever more frequent storms and floods. Through a mixed-method approach consisting of questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and focus groups, Boonstra and Hanh found that despite attempts at diversifying their fishing methods, the end result is that they keep doing what they have always done. This in turn leads to declining fish stocks and frequent harvest failures in aquaculture. Read More here
Monthly Archives: December 2015
16 December 2015, The Conversation, Declining rainfall in parts of Australia, but still plenty of water available: BOM report. The Millennium Drought ended more than five years ago, but several years of below-average rainfall and El Niño have brought drought back to many parts of Australia. Our latest report on water in Australia shows rainfall is continuing to decline in eastern Australia and increase in the north. However in urban areas, where water use has not changed significantly since the Millennium Drought, more water is available for use thanks to technologies such as desalination and recycling. In a recent article on The Conversation, the Bureau of Meteorology put the case that Australia can now better manage water resources using new water information capability. Last week the Bureau released a new assessment report on our national water availability and use. Water in Australia 2013–14 examines climatic conditions and the physical hydrology to create the most recent national assessment of Australia’s water resources. Access the main findings here
16 December 2015, CSIRO ECOS CSIRO and Ngadju tackle bushfires in the Great Western Woodlands. Old and new ways of fire management are coming together to help protect one of the most unique woodlands on the planet. Members of the Ngadju community began working with CSIRO about four years ago to help prevent fires in the Great Western Woodlands (GWW) in south-western Australia. The GWW is the largest remaining tract of dry climate woodland on Earth. The region receives as little as 250 mm rain per year. Owing to the variable rainfall and lack of readily accessible groundwater suitable for livestock, much of the region has remained virtually unchanged since European settlement. However during recent years, the GWW has experienced an increase in the frequency of large, intense wildfires causing fire-sensitive old-growth woodlands to be lost at an alarming rate. Leslie Schultz from Ngadju Conservation believes climate change is contributing to the increase in fires. “The heat we get now is harsher and when it does come, there’s less rain—this can only spell trouble for the Woodlands,” he said. Les said the relationship between Ngadju and CSIRO was born from his own experience of “burning off country”—something he learnt from his elders. “We need to control the country so it doesn’t control us,” Les said. “We want to incorporate our traditional land management methods. We managed our country not with rakes, shovels and bulldozers but with fire.” The insight and the benefits of utilising Indigenous fire knowledge was no more apparent than during the recent devastating bushfires in Western Australia. These fires damaged large areas of the GWW directly. In the nearby community of Esperance one fire led to the loss of four lives, with reportedly more than 280,000 hectares of farmland burnt, along with houses, sheds, machinery and almost 5,000 livestock. Ngadju mobilised to help fight these fires and provided valuable insight into the current landscape. They also currently operate a small ranger team in the GWW and undertake a mix of contract land management. Read More here
16 December 2015, WRI, Form AND Function: Why the Paris Agreement’s Legal Form Is So Important. Because the Paris Agreement is a universal, legally binding agreement to tackle climate change under international law, it joins other such agreements as the highest expression of political intent and will. Yes, it has binding and non-binding components, but overall it is durable and underpins decisive real-economy change and drives corresponding national legislation and policy. Entering into legally binding agreements sends a strong signal to corporations, planners, investors and other implementers that governments will enforce climate policies. This is an agreement between countries in which each country indicates its intent to be bound at the international level. Each country follows its own domestic authorization process based on its own unique legal system, before joining this international agreement. This legal form makes the Paris Agreement, adopted December 12, 2015 at COP21, fundamentally different from the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol was a product of its time, with only a small number of countries taking on binding emission reduction targets. The Paris Agreement moves beyond that, achieving legal rigor while ensuring universal participation. While Kyoto succeeded in reducing emissions in some developed countries, it only had binding targets for a few countries. By contrast, the Paris Agreement includes every country and thus has to accommodate the different development stages of those countries. The targets themselves are not binding, but all countries are obliged to prepare, communicate and maintain their targets and pursue domestic measures to achieve them. Framing the obligation in this way is likely to increase the likelihood of implementation, since the targets are nationally-determined and in many countries, already anchored in nationally binding laws and regulations. It’s a more accommodating way to bind countries to deliver their national plans, while recognizing that some countries are not in a position to have their targets stated directly into a treaty. The Agreement has strong legally binding provisions on how to measure, report and verify emissions reduction commitments. Countries will be required to measure their emissions in the same way, report on them in the same frequency and format and have them verified through an independent technical process. The Agreement also ensures that countries must come to a multilateral setting to discuss progress on implementation of their emissions reduction targets. This commitment from all countries provides the means to track progress on how countries implement their commitments. This means there are opportunities to “name and shame” countries for not meeting their commitments. It is here that the court of international public opinion acts to judge and pressure countries. More specifically, the Paris Agreement includes a set of legally binding obligations on a range of issues, including: Read More here