Getting it Right on Climate Resilience
By Lisa Goddard, IRI Director
For many parts of the world, especially in developing countries, no early warning systems exist for storms or floods. No decision-support systems provide regular or timely information for farmers that depend on seasonal rains. The impacts are broad – this century has already seen a million deaths and $1.7 trillion in losses due to the interaction of society and geophysical phenomena, primarily extreme weather.
At the U.N. Climate Summit, President Obama announced an executive order directing federal agencies to “incorporate climate resilience” into their international development programs and he tasked them to deploy the U.S.’s “unique scientific and technical capabilities, from climate data to early warning systems.” In other words, they must consider how climate variability and change will impact their projects and investments, and they must work to make the world better informed and prepared for adverse climate and weather events.
For many parts of the world, especially in developing countries, no early warning systems exist for storms or floods. No decision-support systems provide regular or timely information for farmers that depend on seasonal rains. The impacts are broad – this century has already seen a million deaths and $1.7 trillion in losses due to the interaction of society and geophysical phenomena, primarily extreme weather.
Unlike so many other initiatives that get lost in the abstractions of policy and the politics of implementation, the new executive order is action-ready. It has real potential to improve the lives, livelihoods and well-being of millions. The approach it lays out has already been tested. It is working in some of the most impoverished areas of the world to increase food security, decrease vulnerability to disasters and predict outbreaks of diseases such as malaria. It leverages and adds value to existing capacities – from satellites to super computers–and it can build on other recent campaigns that have mobilized science to eradicate poverty, hunger and disease.
For example, since 2009, hundreds of thousands of farmers in Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda have used weather-based crop insurance, or index insurance, to protect themselves against crops loss due to drought. Over time, these farmers tend to better off than those who haven’t had access to insurance, because the insurance enables them to tap in to loans and other resources to increase their productivity and wealth. Global institutions like Oxfam America, SwissRe, the World Bank Group’s Global Index Insurance Facility and the World Food Programme are working with on-the-ground organizations such as the Relief Society of Tigray and the Syngenta Foundation’s ACRE to test and implement this innovation. Their efforts depend on the existence and availability of high quality climate and weather data. Without this, it wouldn’t be possible for banks and insurance companies to offer affordable, sustainable insurance in developing countries.
Science has helped us avert catastrophe many times in the past. Following rapid population growth in the 1950s, the world braced for a succession of famines that threatened to kill a billion people – ten times all the loss of life incurred in both world wars. The world’s top agricultural researchers, with support from earlier US administrations, foundations and universities, teamed up with governments and development agencies to implement the Green Revolution – saving hundreds of millions of people and supporting unprecedented global economic growth.
Scientists are still working on issues of food production as we see global population heading to 9 billion over the next few decades, and we are working to manage the escalating impacts of natural disasters.
A critical obstacle to achieving benefits of science worldwide is the availability, access and informed use of good data. In the U.S., we have immediate access to real-time weather observations, forecasts, disaster warnings, insurance and public-health surveillance. But this is not true for most of the developing world, because all of these tools and products require robust data on the climate and the natural environment for research, monitoring and analysis, and this data is largely unavailable. In the poorest countries, a lack of data and information turns relatively manageable phenomena into unexpected events and catastrophes and makes rapid economic progress nearly impossible. The good news is that with targeted investment and local collaboration, we can turn things around relatively quickly.
Much can be done with the science, but we know that efforts will be more effective and efficient when done in collaboration with the affected communities, nations, and regions. Work must focus on the relevant problems in their geographical and geopolitical contexts. The President directed U.S. agencies involved in development to be active in this process, which is absolutely the right approach. He realizes that it is not just the science; it is also the development perspective of improving lives and livelihoods by working locally.
In the last two decades, we have made significant progress in bringing the best climate science, forecasting and decision-support tools to developing world. This has been possible because of the efforts of a number of public and private research and nongovernmental organizations, including Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society. Among U.S. federal agencies, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Agency for International Development have led the efforts to fund science-driven, climate-risk-management approaches to adaptation and development. Compared to the scale of the problem, the efforts have been relatively small and specific. Nevertheless, an active community has coalesced around these issues and has shared its knowledge, experiences and best practices. By expanding and focusing the U.S. government’s role, President Obama has opened the way for much broader collaboration and more rapid progress that will reach millions more vulnerable people.
Without the new executive order, innovations in climate risk management and resilience would still eventually trickle down because of our past and current efforts. But this would take decades and millions more lives would be lost unnecessarily. Now we have a framework on which to act and which will support our actions.