Ranieri Sabatucci – who is in charge of the Pacific region at the European Commission’s Development Directorate-General – talks about how climate change will affect different parts of the developing world and the EU’s efforts to help them.
Is climate change affecting each developing country in a different way?
Yes. The IPCC’s work to produce more precise information on regional and local impacts is still on-going, but some of the main impacts by region are:
Africa
Climate variability lies behind much of the prevailing poverty, food insecurity and weak economic growth in Africa today. Climate change will increase this variability and Africa will suffer earliest and hardest because of weaker resilience and greater reliance on climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture.
The severity and frequency of droughts, floods and storms will increase, leading to more water stresses. Changes in agricultural, livestock and fisheries productivity will take place, and Africa will face greater food shortages, as well as a spread of water-related diseases, particularly in tropical areas.
Studies estimate that a 2oC temperature rise could mean a loss of 4.7% of gross domestic product in the region – most as a result of losses in the agricultural sector. A temperature rise of 2.5-5 oC would be worse – putting 128 million people at risk of starvation and up to 108 million people will be affected by flooding and sea-level rises of between 15 and 95cm.
Caribbean
Recent scientific findings confirm that temperature and rainfall patterns are changing in the Caribbean region, with unprecedented and more frequent weather extremes, such as tropical cyclones, severe floods and droughts.
In this region, more than 50% of the population live within 1.5km of the shore. Sea level rises will exacerbate flooding, storm surges, erosion and other coastal hazards, threatening the vital infrastructure, settlements, coastal ecosystems and fishery resources that support the livelihoods of entire communities.
The Caribbean will also suffer from reduced fresh water resources which will become insufficient to meet demand during low-rainfall periods.
Pacific
Impacts on Pacific island nations include the flooding of coastal areas where the majority of their inhabitants reside, loss of freshwater supplies, loss of biodiversity, destruction of critical infrastructure, and a substantial increase in the incidence of serious diseases, such as cholera and malaria.
In many cases, these impacts will ultimately render many Pacific island nations uninhabitable, destroying some cultures that began more than 40 000 years ago.
What implications do these varying impacts have for EU development policies?
Development co-operation has an important role to play in supporting the countries that are particularly vulnerable to climate change, especially the least-developed countries and small island developing states.
There is obviously a different perception of the consequences of climate change in the different regions. In the Pacific, for instance, EU dialogue with the Pacific countries has highlighted the importance of such issues as cultural identity and enhanced adaptation policies, also covering relocation and climate-induced migration.
Development policies obviously have a crucial role in the least-developed countries and climate change is a key challenge for their sustainable development strategies. This means that an assessment of the short, medium and long-term implications of global warming should be conducted country by country and region by region to determine the extent of the impacts and the kind of responses required.
As climate change imposes an additional burden on developing countries, finance provided for adaptation and mitigation, should, as a result, increase overall development funding.
Does the assistance to developing countries take into account their individual environmental and climatic situations?
It does more and more. There is a genuine need to increase the understanding of how climate change will affect developing countries, together with work assessing regional and local impacts more precisely.
It is necessary to enhance their capacities to develop responses with corresponding budgets, and reflect them in adaptation strategies. Integrating this knowledge and using it consistently and systematically as a basis for decision-making is the real challenge that I see developing countries facing. It will require appropriate coordination amongst different sectors and well functioning institutions. In the adaptation domain, it will also require moving beyond the current project-based approach towards a more strategic one.
EU efforts maintain this focus through a number of instruments, including the Global Climate Change Alliance and the EU Strategy on Disaster Risk Reduction.
Can you provide a concrete example of this tailored approach?
The Pacific island of Vanuatu is a typical example. In 2008, the Global Climate Change Alliance provided €3.2 million to support national authorities in integrating climate change in their national plans and in co-financing with other donors.
Adaptation actions include:
- Early warning systems to provide timely information to farmers to enable them to cope with flooding
- Promotion of water harvesting and storage in coastal communities
- Restoration of wetlands, re-plantation of coastal vegetation to reduce flooding, coastal erosion and the impact of storm surges
- Promotion of farming practices that conserve soil moisture, reduce run-off and soil erosion
- The mapping and demarcation of high-risk areas and help for coastal communities in better management of their land and water resources
Are there countries that are more at risk than others? What is the EU doing to help such countries?
The Bali Action Plan, agreed at the UN Climate Conference at the end 2007, identified and prioritised developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse impact of climate change. These are the least-developed countries and small island developing states, and countries in Africa affected by drought, desertification and floods.
The priorities of the Bali Action Plan are our compass and they guide instruments, such as the Global Climate Change Alliance and the Disaster Risk Reduction Strategy. The ‘Risk and poverty in a changing climate’ report, produced in June 2009 by the UN's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, acknowledges that disaster risk is not evenly distributed.
The report states that loss of life and property from weather-related disasters rose significantly from 1990 to 2007, with floods being the biggest single cause. Large developing countries, led by China, India, Bangladesh and Indonesia, suffered the biggest mortality in absolute terms, but in relation to population, the highest tolls were in Dominica, Vanuatu and Myanmar.
Poor small-island states and poor landlocked states, which can suffer economic damage for years after an extreme weather event, are most in danger, according to the report. Together, these states account for more than two-thirds of countries with "very high" economic vulnerability to such disasters. “Disaster risk is increasing fastest in low- and low-middle income countries with rapidly growing economies,” said the report. “These countries have rapidly increasing exposure but relatively weak institutions. While they are making improvements in risk-reducing capacities, these have yet to catch up with rising exposure.”
Risk depends not only on the weather, but also on how people are exposed to such events and whether governments are prepared to deal with the threat and have the means to do so.