Coffee Shade Tree Management : An Adaptation Option for Climate Change Impact for Small Scale Coffee Growers in South-West Ethiopia

Peer reviewe

Climate change and increased risk for the insurance sector: A global perspective and an assessment for the Netherlands.

Climate change is projected to increase the frequency and severity of extreme weather events. As a consequence, economic losses caused by natural catastrophes could increase significantly. This will have considerable consequences for the insurance sector. On the one hand, increased risk from weather extremes requires assessing expected changes in damage and including adequate climate change projections in risk management. On the other hand, climate change can also bring new business opportunities for insurers. This paper gives an overview of the consequences of climate change for the insurance sector and discusses several strategies to cope with and adapt to increased risks. The particular focus is on the Dutch insurance sector, as the Netherlands is extremely vulnerable to climate change, especially with regard to extreme precipitation and flooding. Current risk sharing arrangements for weather risks are examined while potential new business opportunities, adaptation strategies, and public-private partnerships are identified. © The Author(s) 2009

Five ways to enhance the impact of climate science

Policy-making is rarely driven by evidence alone. Thus, climate scientists who adopt an ‘evidence-based’ mindset, expecting more science to lead automatically to better policy, are likely to be disappointed. Instead, embracing an ‘evidence-informed’ attitude to policy-making will be more productive, recognising that evidence must be deployed in such a way as to interact persuasively with other factors. Using the 5th Assessment Report of the IPCC as inspiration, this commentary argues that climate scientists would do well to consider five ideas and ultimately embrace an evidence-informed approach to presenting evidence.This work is taken from a larger PhD project currently being undertaken in the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge. This work is very kindly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number ES/I901957/1) and by the Homerton College Charter Scholarship scheme. I would like to thank S. E. Owens, A. Donovan and W. M. Adams for comments, and D. Watson for help with the figures.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available in Nature Climate Change 4, 522–524 (2014) doi:10.1038/nclimate2270 . http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n7/full/nclimate2270.htm

Science-Policy Interactions in MPA Site Selection in the Dutch Part of the North Sea

At the 7th conference of the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD-COP7, Kuala Lumpur, 2004) it was agreed to establish a global network of marine and coastal protected areas by 2012. The defined objectives of this MPA-network are based on the ecosystem approach: to protect biodiversity and other ecological values, and to ensure sustainable use. The (inter)national policy guidelines state that the selection of MPAs should be based on scientific information and ecological criteria only. As a signatory to the Convention, the Netherlands is now faced with meeting this obligation, and the process of designating the first Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the Dutch part of the North Sea is currently in progress. We focus on the science–policy interactions that are part of this Dutch MPA selection process. By taking a closer look at the contemporary site selection process as well as its historical background, we show that ecological, socio-economic and political considerations cannot always be easily separated. Uncertainty is high and the ultimate selection and delimitation of candidate sites rather seems to be the result of a balancing act between ecological, socio-economic and political interests, in which scientific and policy guiding procedures blend with ad-hoc political decision making, and with expert judgment in cases where data is lacking. As such, this paper presents an example of present-day environmental policy making in action

Effects of climate change on exposure to coastal flooding in Latin America and the Caribbean

This study considers and compares several of the most important factors contributing to coastal flooding in Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) while accounting for the variations of these factors with location and time. The study assesses the populations, the land areas and the built capital exposed at present and at the middle and end of the 21st century for a set of scenarios that include both climatic and non-climatic drivers. Climatic drivers include global mean sea level, natural modes of climate variability such as El Niño, natural subsidence, and extreme sea levels resulting from the combination of projected local sea-level rise, storm surges and wave setup. Population is the only human-related driver accounted for in the future. Without adaptation, more than 4 million inhabitants will be exposed to flooding from relative sea-level rise by the end of the century, assuming the 8.5 W m−2 trajectory of the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), or RCP8.5. However, the contributions from El Niño events substantially raise the threat in several Pacific-coast countries of the region and sooner than previously anticipated. At the tropical Pacific coastlines, the exposure by the mid-century for an event similar to El Niño 1998 would be comparable to that of the RCP4.5 relative sea-level rise by the end of the century. Furthermore, more than 7.5 million inhabitants, 42,600 km2 and built capital valued at 334 billion USD are currently situated at elevations below the 100-year extreme sea level. With sea levels rising and the population increasing, it is estimated that more than 9 million inhabitants will be exposed by the end of the century for either of the RCPs considered. The spatial distribution of exposure and the comparison of scenarios and timeframes can serve as a guide in future adaptation and risk reduction policies in the region

Sensitivity of the Himalayan orography representation in simulation of winter precipitation using Regional Climate Model (RegCM) nested in a GCM

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Tiwari, P.R., Kar, S.C., Mohanty, U.C., Climate Dynamics (2017). The final publication is available at Springer via https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00382-017-3567-3. The Accepted Manuscript is under embargo. Embargo end date: 24 February 2018.The role of the Himalayan orography representationin a Regional Climate Model (RegCM4) nested inNCMRWF global spectral model is examined in simulatingthe winter circulation and associated precipitation over theNorthwest India (NWI; 23°–37.5°N and 69°–85°E) region.For this purpose, nine different set of orography representationsfor nine distinct precipitation years (three years eachfor wet, normal and dry) have been considered by increasing(decreasing) 5, 10, 15, and 20% from the mean height(CNTRL) of the Himalaya in RegCM4 model. Validationwith various observations revealed a good improvementin reproducing the precipitation intensity and distributionwith increased model height compared to the resultsobtained from CNTRL and reduced orography experiments.Further it has been found that, increase in heightby 10% (P10) increases seasonal precipitation about 20%,while decrease in height by 10% (M10) results around 28%reduction in seasonal precipitation as compared to CNTRLexperiment over NWI region. This improvement in precipitationsimulation comes due to better representation ofvertical pressure velocity and moisture transport as thesefactors play an important role in wintertime precipitationprocesses over NWI region. Furthermore, a comparison of model-simulated precipitation with observed precipitationat 17 station locations has been also carried out. Overall,the results suggest that when the orographic increment of10% (P10) is applied on RegCM4 model, it has better skillin simulating the precipitation over the NWI region andthis model is a useful tool for further regional downscalingstudies.Peer reviewe

Climate Change and Developing-Country Cities: Implications For Environmental Health and Equity

Climate change is an emerging threat to global public health. It is also highly inequitable, as the greatest risks are to the poorest populations, who have contributed least to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The rapid economic development and the concurrent urbanization of poorer countries mean that developing-country cities will be both vulnerable to health hazards from climate change and, simultaneously, an increasing contributor to the problem. We review the specific health vulnerabilities of urban populations in developing countries and highlight the range of large direct health effects of energy policies that are concentrated in urban areas. Common vulnerability factors include coastal location, exposure to the urban heat-island effect, high levels of outdoor and indoor air pollution, high population density, and poor sanitation. There are clear opportunities for simultaneously improving health and cutting GHG emissions most obviously through policies related to transport systems, urban planning, building regulations and household energy supply. These influence some of the largest current global health burdens, including approximately 800,000 annual deaths from ambient urban air pollution, 1.2 million from road-traffic accidents, 1.9 million from physical inactivity, and 1.5 million per year from indoor air pollution. GHG emissions and health protection in developing-country cities are likely to become increasingly prominent in policy development. There is a need for a more active input from the health sector to ensure that development and health policies contribute to a preventive approach to local and global environmental sustainability, urban population health, and health equity