SciDev.Net

This factsheet from The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) aims to answer common questions about the role of reducing forest emissions in tackling climate change.

This includes explaining why reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) is important and identifying the four key challenges facing REDD projects — measuring carbon, making payments, accountability and funding. The authors summarise ongoing global initiatives to implement REDD, including the UN REDD Programme Fund and the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility.

A glossary of terms used in the debate is included as well as a list of facts and figures on key variables such as forest cover and forest loss. Contact details for some of the key people involved in CIFOR research are provided.

The third IPCC assessment report, Climate Change 2001, includes this section on the links between climate change and health. It offers a detailed look at how variations in climate, such as temperature or rainfall, could affect vector-borne disease. In particular, it evaluates computer models that predict climate impact on dengue fever and malaria. The assessment also looks at specific diseases such as leishmaniasis or schistosomiasis, explaining how the disease is spread and how changes in the environment might alter that spread.

The authors take a holistic look at the various factors involved. For example, in assessing schistosomiasis, they also consider the irrigation systems that will likely be needed to cope with expected water shortages resulting from climate change. The schistosomiasis parasite uses water snails as an intermediate host, so irrigation systems will need to be designed in such a way that they do not cause snail populations to multiply.

An update to the research on climate and vector-borne disease is also included in the fourth IPCC assessment report[796kB] although not in as much detail.

This Nature paper reviews evidence that a changing climate poses significant health risks and that global warming over the past few years has already increased illness and death worldwide.

Infectious diseases are strongly affected by climatic variations because the vectors that carry the bacteria or viruses do not have thermoregulatory mechanisms, say the authors. One of the most important existing sources of climatic variability is El Niño. This weather system has been shown to influence malaria in South America, rift valley fever in east Africa, cholera in Bangladesh and dengue fever in Thailand. If, as some scientists have suggested, climate change alters El Niño, the consequences will be significant.

The authors say there are some promising early warning systems for infectious disease. In Botswana, for example, two-thirds of the inter-annual variability of malaria can be predicted from sea surface temperatures and monthly rainfall.

As global temperatures rise, vector-borne disease is set to increase in the developing world but patterns will vary across countries. This review looks at how the prevalence of vector-borne disease will change in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America.

As the authors explain, urbanisation levels will determine which diseases are likely to hit hardest. For example, dengue fever is a largely urban disease and will affect South America, where over 70 per cent of the population live in cities, far more than it will Sub-Saharan Africa, where less than 30 per cent of people live in urban areas. Malaria, by contrast, will have a bigger impact in Africa.

As ecosystems change, so will the distribution of vector species. Some will find their habitats expanded. A positive note is that most vectors cannot survive above about 40 degrees Celsius, so regions in which warming tips the temperature over this level could well see a drop in vector-borne disease — this is starting to be seen in Senegal, for example.

But the precise extent to which climate variability affects vector-borne disease is yet unknown, say the authors, which hampers evidence-based policy change.

This report provides a policy framework for assessing the impacts of climate change on health, including vector-borne disease, by considering five challenges: informational, poverty and equity-related, technological, sociopolitical and institutional.

It begins with a detailed outline of climate science so far and the financial cost of adaptation. The informational challenges relate to better monitoring and surveillance to gather urgently needed data on disease and mortality in different regions, and early warning systems to predict extreme weather events and associated disease outbreaks. Technological challenges include the development of vaccines for diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.

How do policymakers tackle such challenges? A key move will be for government and non-government agencies, academia and civil society to collaborate internationally. Surveillance and primary health information systems in developing countries must be improved and local communities need to share adaptation strategies.

Adapting to climate change also means investing in food security, clean water supplies and reforestation. Policymakers also need to stimulate industry to develop low-cost methods for recycling wastewater and desalinating sea water. Mitigating and adapting to climate change, say the authors, has become inextricable from policies to eradicate poverty or closing the gap on social inequalities and health.

This feature article, published in the Environmental Science and Technology journal, uses the Cordillera Azul national park in Peru as an example to introduce mechanisms for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) that are under global discussion. 

The author discusses both the potential importance of and challenges associated with REDD projects. For example, although Cordillera Azul has been established as a national park by the Peruvian Government, funds for conserving it are still needed.

The article outlines some important milestones in progressing to an international framework for REDD, but notes that important details are yet to be resolved, such as how to ensure that beneficiaries of REDD funds deploy them effectively to protect forests.

The article suggests that active forest management is important and concludes with a brief introduction to the principle of proactive investment in natural capital (PINC) — the idea, promoted by the Global Canopy Programme, that forests should be regarded not only as a source of emissions, but rather as a public utility providing global ecosystem services that should be paid for.

This book, written by researchers at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), poses several critical questions that must be addressed in designing a global framework for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) to be implemented after 2012, when the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol runs out.

The authors frame their discussion within the 3E criteria, first proposed in the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, of carbon effectiveness, cost efficiency and equity/co-benefits. Questions posed include how to set scales and baselines, deal with leakage, ensure permanence, and achieve co-benefits.

They examine various technical solutions for monitoring, reporting and verifying REDD projects, including remote sensing techniques and forest inventories. The political implications of implementing different technical options to distribute REDD income across different countries are also addressed.

The book highlights the need for flexibility in REDD strategies due to differences between countries and the need to allow for room to adapt to changes to the mechanisms as lessons are learned from initial implementation.

This guide to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), published by the Global Canopy Programme, reviews many of the REDD proposals under discussion in global climate change negotiations.

The authors highlight why strategies for REDD are needed, then outline and compare the 32 government and nongovernmental proposals being considered by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They frame their analysis by examining the proposals in terms of scope, reference level, distribution mechanisms and financing options.

Visual comparisons are included to show where proposals agree and differ, and highlight areas with emerging consensus. For example, the proposals generally agree that reference levels should be set at a national level, and that a phased approach using a combination of different financing approaches could be most appropriate. Some challenges for reaching agreement on REDD measures and areas of current research are also highlighted.

The book includes a chapter summarising key research on REDD, including the Meridian Institute's Options Assessment Report, written for the Norwegian government, and several papers published by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

This paper, prepared for the Global Urban Summit, proposes a framework for building climate change adaptation and mitigation measures into India's urban renewal programmes. This involves multiple government stakeholders at national, state and city levels.

The author begins with a description of the urbanisation trends in India and outlines the climate risks facing the subcontinent, including changing rainfall patterns and the potential for more drought, flooding and extreme weather events like cyclones.

The author outlines the vulnerability of urban populations and suggests that reducing it requires a public policy shift towards mainstreaming climate change risk assessment, adaptation and mitigation measures into ongoing national hazard mitigation programmes, and linking them to urban renewal in the largest cities.

Specific measures highlighted by the author include making building data public, building flood defences, strengthening existing infrastructure to withstand disasters and relocating highly vulnerable populations.

This annotated bibliography of mostly online resources covers the relationship between biofuels and climate change.

The bibliography is divided into ten sections: Biofuels; GM trees; carbon sinks and trading; land use change — effects on atmospheric carbon; deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions linked to biofuels; biofuels and food production; biofuels production — what's the energy balance?; bio-regional energy; food miles; and other oil crops — search facilities.

The role of developing countries in climate change mitigation has been and continues to be a contentious issue. Developing countries' emissions are predicted to surpass those of industrialised countries within the first half of this century, but no formal commitments to reduce emissions have been made.

This report, prepared for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, examines six countries — Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa and Turkey — in the context of climate change mitigation. Ongoing efforts in these countries have helped reduce emissions, though not necessarily in the name of mitigating climate change.

The authors find that overall, over the past three decades, these countries have reduced the growth rate of their emissions by 300 million tonnes. The motivations for such efforts include poverty alleviation, economic development, energy security and local environmental protection. This demonstrates that climate change mitigation can and does occur in the context of development that aims to be sustainable.

This report is comprehensive for the countries studied. It is very accessible and likely to be of interest to anyone engaged in the debate about mitigation in the South.

The report is available in pdf format only. An executive summary is availably online here.

This article analyses Indian initiatives to mitigate climate change associated with a predicted rise in greenhouse gas emissions. It describes four scenarios for emissions, as modelled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and discusses India's vulnerability to the associated impacts of climate change. The article then goes on to describe ongoing national mitigation strategies — highlighting improvements made in petrol and diesel quality, forest conservation policies, the growing use of renewable energy sources and the research initiatives put in place by India's National Communication to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to study greenhouse emissions.

This collection of reports summarise the findings from a collaborative project between the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and India's Ministry of Environment and Forests that involved eight Indian research institutes. The reports look specifically at the predicted impacts of climate change on sea level, water resources, agriculture, forestry, energy and human health in India. Each report includes a section looking at the policy implications of the predicted impacts and/or the need for further research.

This collection of nine research articles, published by the Indian Academy of Sciences, presents the latest findings of a network of studies conducted by leading scientific institutes and researchers in India. They examine the likely national impact of climate change on issues such as water availability, tropical cyclone frequency, changes in forest type and malaria transmission rates. The collection also includes an analysis of current and predicted trends for greenhouse gas emissions from India, as well as commentary on mitigation strategies for ensuring sustainable development.

The World Bank provides assistance to India to reform the country's power sector at the state level. This site details these efforts — for example, Orissa, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan are supported by a lending instrument of the bank called Adaptable Program Loan (APL). The document is also available as a pdf [152KB].

Before submitting its initial National Communication to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, India prepared various reports on climate change, vulnerability and adaptation. This executive summary outlines the findings of an Energy and Resources Institute project funded by Winrock International.

This briefing paper was written for members of the Indian parliament. It provides a basic introduction to the science of climate change, the impacts predicted for India, and considers linkages between global warming and the country's economy, and food and water security.

This paper was prepared for a COP-8 side event by the Indian delegation in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme. It is a case study of climate-induced impacts in India's Orissa state — based on household data — with links to food security and rural development.

Coping strategies to reduce vulnerability are important in areas prone to recurring floods and cyclones. The strategies vary from minor dietary changes and increased reliance on off-farm income, to major adjustments including disposal of assets and out-migration. The results of this work suggest that 96 per cent of the participating households have adopted at least one strategy to address drought, flood or cyclone vulnerability.

The report makes five key recommendations to reduce vulnerability to climate-induced natural disasters. First, that coping mechanisms should be supported by scientific crop research to reduce losses due to extreme events. Second, that as far as agriculture is concerned, temporary monetary reliefs should be replaced by a permanent solution. Third, that drought proofing should be prioritised over drought relief. Fourth, that the feed requirements for livestock in affected farming communities be addressed. Fifth, that governments and specialised non-governmental organisations create self-help groups to support local communities.

Electricity consumption in India has more than doubled in the past decade, and demand is continuing to outstrip supply. Despite large investment into the power generation sector, India suffers from an electricity deficit and peak supply shortages.

This paper has three parts, an overview of electricity in India; models, scenarios and results for future electric options in India; and conclusions. It examines the government's role in electricity generation, the source fuels used for generation, and problems associated with power distribution. The results of the model and scenarios lead to the conclusion that the near-exclusive government ownership, a supply-side orientation, and tariff distortions led to an unsustainable path before 1990. A more flexible energy and technology mix would provide a useful hedging strategy for sustaining demand in the future.

An excellent, comprehensive analysis, with useful background and various energy scenarios make this important reading for anyone interested in India's energy future.

This is the last of a four-part Foreign Policy Centre article titled "India as a new global leader" and argues that energy security will be a major challenge for India's future. It provides many examples of ongoing initiatives to meet the country's growing energy demand.

The first part of the article considers how democratic politics have influenced India's growth patterns. It then argues that India's energy vulnerability is greater than that of China, for example, because of a greater dependence on petroleum products shipped from the Gulf region. An analysis of India's energy sector shows that the country's natural gas demand is quickly outgrowing India's production capacity. Setting this in a context of foreign policy, the article then analyses the constraints on remedying this energy vulnerability.

This informative, well-written report is valuable reading for those interested in energy and foreign policy.