Adapting from the Ground Up

December 8, 2015, 2:00 am

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88Lisa Dougherty-ChouxPieter TerpstraSrilata KammilaPradeep Kurukulasuriya

Small businesses are critical yet often overlooked players in climate change adaptation. This report offers specific policy interventions for policymakers, climate finance providers, and large corporations to engage small businesses in adaptation efforts, enabling them to build their own...

Small businesses are well positioned to build resilience to climate change. They are embedded in communities and have exceptional ability to reach the world’s most vulnerable populations.

• Small businesses are the key to sustainable development and building resilient communities because nearly 60% of employment in developing countries rely on small businesses.
• In the developing world, many small businesses work in agriculture, which is especially vulnerable to climate change because of floods and droughts.

• If small businesses are more resilient, then the communities that rely on them are better able to recover from floods, storms, droughts and other extreme events.

Governments have practical, low-cost options for engaging small businesses to adapt to climate change.  This report outlines six steps decision-makers can use to select the policy options that will work for their business community.  The six steps are:

1. Engage stakeholders
2. Prioritize vulnerable sectors
3. Identify drivers to invest in adaptation
4. Identify barriers preventing investment in adaptation
5. Design interventions to catalyze MSE investment in adaptation
6. Implement and scale up 

The report also offers a menu of interventions that policy makers can choose from to help small businesses build resilience.  The menu includes, among others:

• Programs to provide businesses with relevant climate risk information
• Technical assistance and training on managing climate risk
• Regulatory and fiscal incentives to stimulate risk reduction
• Subsidies and tax relief
• Research and development or pilots on climate-related products and services
• Public spending on infrastructure
• Incentives or support for partnerships and cooperatives
• Public risk transfer or risk compensation instruments

Enabling Small Businesses in Developing Countries to Adapt to Climate ChangeFeatured ResourceRecommendations

Developing country governments should:

• Maintain the development paths of their countries by supporting the resilience of vulnerable communities, including by building up innovation
• Develop policies, processes, and activities to engage MSEs in their countries’ adaptation planning, while making sure to:
  • Be inclusive and transparent with national adaptation planning
  • Involve the private sector, especially MSEs and their investors and regulators, from the beginning
• Educate MSEs about climate risks and about the potential assistance they can receive from public institutions with the support of policymakers
• Work with multilateral development banks and NGOs with the capacity to provide support and knowledge, in order to:
  • Encourage multinational corporations, financial institutions, and investors to engage MSEs
  • Delegate responsibility to the city and local levels, where public officials have more direct contact with MSEs

Large private sector actors should:

• Support MSEs in the supply chain by providing financing and technical assistance to strengthen their resilience
• Provide MSEs in low-income countries with better access to finance for adaptation efforts
• Form strong partnerships with public actors to effectively scale up adaptation efforts, given proper planning, implementation, and monitoring

Multilateral and bilateral partners should:

• Provide financial and technical support for national
• Act as knowledge banks and facilitate the transfer of information about successful business practices, initiatives, and pilots to other appropriate contexts
• Support the process of catalyzing engagement in adaptation by ensuring market access for products developed by MSEs in developing countries.
• Work with their own companies that operate in developing countries and provide financial incentives for them to invest in building resilience of small-scale suppliers in their supply chain
• Serve as communicators to inform the global community about the multiplier effect of investing in MSEs for climate change adaptation

Special climate funds should:

• Play a catalyzing role by funding programs for MSEs
• Act as matchmaker and clearing house for private sector adaptation ideas
• Support and complement national efforts by creating regional or national networks that:
  • Help MSEs develop product ideas into bankable projects
  • Support capacity development for implementation
  • Link businesses to possible investors

resilienceadaptationAdaptation and the Private Sectorclimate changesmall and medium enterprise (SME)vulnerability

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6 Ways to Make Small Businesses More Resilient to Climate Change

December 8, 2015, 2:15 am

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6 Ways to Make Small Businesses More Resilient to Climate Change

The private sector generates more than 60 percent of gross domestic product, and micro and small enterprises in developing countries provide around 60 percent of all jobs. So boosting businesses’ resiliency is critical for boosting community resiliency.

Tres formas de ayudar a los países en desarrollo a obtener acceso directo a financiamiento climático

December 8, 2015, 12:52 pm

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Tres formas de ayudar a los países en desarrollo a obtener acceso directo a financiamiento climático

Read this post in English here.

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¿Cómo pueden los países en...

COP21 Q&A: Where Does Climate Adaptation Fit Into the Paris Agreement?

December 9, 2015, 1:41 am

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COP21 Q&A: Where Does Climate Adaptation Fit Into the Paris Agreement?

Climate adaptation is an important part of the discussion at COP21, since climate change is already hitting some parts of the world hard. Here are some key questions and answers about adaptation's role at this pivotal climate conference.

COP21 Q&A: What Role Does Finance Play in the Paris Outcome?

December 9, 2015, 3:05 am

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COP21 Q&A: What Role Does Finance Play in the Paris Outcome?

Experts explain how the Paris Agreement can send a strong signal that the most vulnerable countries will be supported, and that investors need to align portfolios for the inevitable zero-carbon future.

3 Reasons Why Capacity Building Is Critical for Implementing the Paris Agreement

December 18, 2015, 12:28 pm

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3 Reasons Why Capacity Building Is Critical for Implementing the Paris Agreement

Countries are at different stages of development, with different levels of capabilities. This reality must be considered when building a low-carbon and climate-resilient world.

What Does the Paris Agreement Mean for Climate Resilience and Adaptation?

December 23, 2015, 1:29 pm

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What Does the Paris Agreement Mean for Climate Resilience and Adaptation?

The new Paris Agreement places unprecedented importance on actions needed to help people adapt to a warmer world, and solidifies expectations that all countries will do their part to promote greater climate resilience.

When Adaptation Is Not Enough: Paris Agreement Recognizes “Loss and Damage”

December 24, 2015, 8:41 am

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When Adaptation Is Not Enough: Paris Agreement Recognizes “Loss and Damage”

For the first time, loss and damage now resides within the international climate agreement as a standalone concept. It springs from the reality that there are some climate change impacts that cannot be adapted to—impacts that are so severe that they leave in their wake permanent or significantly damaging effects.

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Tackling Climate Change through Budget Transparency

January 4, 2016, 8:49 am

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Tackling Climate Change through Budget Transparency

The urgent imperative of tackling climate change is rarely associated with the dry science of budgeting and fiscal policy—but it should be. Director of WRI's Governance program Mark Robinson explains.

Post-Paris: Key Tasks to Complete Before the First Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement

March 1, 2016, 10:36 am

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The Paris Agreement adopted by all 196 Parties to the UNFCCC at COP21 in 2015 establishes the framework for future climate action and the goals which will guide such action, but it is only the start. Parties must now come back and agree the rules, guidelines and processes needed to implement the Agreement. This graphic chronologically illustrates the specific tasks outlined by the Paris Agreement to be completed before the first meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement. The chart breaks the work down into seven key areas for action over the coming months and years: the ambition mechanism, transparency and accountability, adaptation and loss & damage, finance, capacity building, cooperative action, and technology. The color of each box reflects the work stream that the task falls under and the group responsible for completing each task is included in parentheses after each description.

Project(s): ACT 2015, International Climate Action

Topic(s): Climate

Non-InteractiveEliza Northrop

Tags: cop21, paris agreement, adaptation, ambition, climate finance, technology, transparency, UNFCCC

Climate Adaptation Gains Momentum, Both Politically and Practically

May 10, 2016, 7:44 am

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Climate Adaptation Gains Momentum, Both Politically and Practically

With record-breaking temperatures year after year and escalating extreme weather and climate impacts, the need for adaptation has long been apparent. Now it's finally moving beyond urgency into real action on the ground.

Where Do We Go Now? A Map for Keeping Climate Action on Track After Paris

May 19, 2016, 8:00 am

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Where Do We Go Now? A Map for Keeping Climate Action on Track After Paris

Now that 195 countries have adopted the Paris Agreement, they must develop the rules, processes and guidelines for how it will deliver the goals it's promised. New WRI research provides a to-do list for negotiators.

Lessons on Implementing Community-Based Climate Adaptation Plans in the Lower Mekong Basin

May 20, 2016, 7:36 am

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Lessons on Implementing Community-Based Climate Adaptation Plans in the Lower Mekong Basin

People in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand are bracing themselves for heat-stressed crops, severe flooding and sea level rise. A new study assesses climate adaptation efforts in five sites across the Lower Mekong Basin.

5 Emerging Trends in Climate Resilience

May 24, 2016, 6:00 am

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5 Emerging Trends in Climate Resilience

The Adaptation Futures conference in Holland last week brought together more than 1,700 practitioners and researchers from more than 95 countries—the largest-ever conference on climate adaptation. From the discussions, it's clear than 2016 is quickly becoming the year of action on resilience.

Non-WRI Author Link: 

http://www.wri.org/Katherine%20Warner

Scaling Adaptation

June 6, 2016, 10:15 am

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It is time to think bigger on adaptation. For too long, adaptation activities have been limited to small, time-bound pilot projects and individual efforts. These projects often have a strong grassroots focus—which helps address local needs—but they have limited capacity to benefit large populations and to contribute to policy reform. Truly overcoming the climate change challenge requires scaling up adaptation projects to benefit more vulnerable people.

WRI works to ensure more effective and large-scale adaptation efforts by bridging practical experience into improved policies and programs. Our work began through the lens of India’s rainfed agriculture regions. We connected with implementers across India and systematically captured lessons from their on-the-ground adaptation experience. We then used those lessons to build practical tools and approaches that can widely integrate adaptation into development initiatives.

The centerpiece of our efforts is a framework for identifying good adaptation practices and spreading those practices to achieve adaptation success at scale. We introduced this framework in the report Scaling Success: Lessons from Adaptation Pilots in the Rainfed Regions of India. It includes indicators of good practice, pathways of scaling, conditions that may affect scaling, information on collecting evidence, and methods of influencing policy reform. Based on this framework, WRI has created a tool that policy makers, practitioners and funding agencies can use to assess whether an adaptation project has the potential to scale. WRI is now training national implementing entities of the Green Climate Fund to use this tool to build their capacity to prioritize adaptation options.

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2

Geography: India

Topics: Governance, Africa, Climate

Spreading good adaptation practices to achieve adaptation success at scale.

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Related Projects: Adaptation Finance, Urban Climate Resilience

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Tracking Adaptation Success

June 6, 2016, 10:26 am

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Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of adaptation initiatives is critically important for their long-term success.  M&E helps implementers determine how well projects are working, improve the quality of their work over time, and decide which efforts to scale up as climate impacts intensify. Finance providers in particular require strong M&E systems, so that they know their money is being used effectively. However, M&E for adaptation is especially challenging due to the complexity and uncertainty associated with climate change.

In this context, being ready to learn has never been more important. Adaptation plans and programs must build the learning process into their structure to allow for feedback to reach planners and decision makers, so that assumptions and hypotheses can be continuously tested and revised. Monitoring then becomes an integral part of the adaptation process, and evaluation serves both learning and accountability purposes.

WRI’s work in this area aims to provide practitioners with practical solutions for tracking the success and failure of adaptation initiatives in the context of sustainable development. WRI is currently working with the United Nations Capital Development Fund’s Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL) to create a tracking and performance assessment system that will be rolled out to 11 least developed countries that are receiving LoCAL funding. WRI is also working with the United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations Development Programme on a program in Fiji to create an M&E framework that connects monitoring and reporting efforts across multiple scales and different bodies of work.

Level: 

1

Geography: Bhutan, Cambodia, Fiji, Niger

Topics: Governance, Climate

Providing practical solutions for tracking the progress of adaptation initiatives in the context of sustainable development.

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Related Projects: Brazilian Business and Ecosystem Services Partnership, Adaptation Finance, Urban Climate Resilience, Scaling Adaptation

Q&A: How to Involve Kenya’s Local Communities in Adapting to Climate Change?

August 2, 2016, 6:00 am

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Q&A: How to Involve Kenya’s Local Communities in Adapting to Climate Change?

Communities in Kenya face several disparate climate change impacts, from severe droughts in some areas to flooding in others. CARE International Adaptation Planner Phillip Oyoo explains some of the challenges and solutions to building resilience.

Habitat III

September 13, 2016, 8:12 am

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Cities account for more than 50 percent of the world’s population, and are expected to continue to grow rapidly over the coming decades. It is critical that this growth follows a path that is economically productive, environmentally sustainable and socially equitable.

The United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), a conference that occurs once every 20 years, is an opportunity to set the agenda for global urban development for decades to come. From October 17-20, 2016, key decision makers and stakeholders from around the world will come together in Quito, Ecuador to formally adopt the New Urban Agenda—the outcome declaration of the conference—and make plans for its implementation.

WRI has contributed to Habitat III by leading informative working sessions for key negotiators, providing inputs to drafts of the New Urban Agenda and Issue Papers and working with partners and other stakeholders to shift the discourse around implementation. Finally, WRI will launch the World Resources Report (WRR) on sustainable cities at Habitat III, a series of papers focused on cities’ most urgent priorities for avoiding lock-in.

Level: 

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Topics: COP 21, WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities

An opportunity for the global community to come together to set the agenda for sustainable, equitable and prosperous cities of the future

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Related Projects: World Resources Report

Partnership for Resilience and Preparedness (PREP)

September 16, 2016, 1:35 pm

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The Partnership for Resilience and Preparedness (PREP) is a public-private collaboration to empower a data-driven approach to building climate resilience. PREP aims to help planners, investors, and resource managers more easily incorporate climate risks into their decisions by enhancing access to relevant data and facilitating collective learning. PREP does this through:

Engagement: We promote collaboration among data and information producers and users.

Data: We seek to reduce the barriers to accessing, contributing, and using data for climate resilience.

Platforms: We develop platforms to enhance access to and usability of climate-relevant data and information.

PREP includes representatives from several U.S. government agencies with vast data holdings, leading technology companies, and civil society organizations, and is a Data Collaborative of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. We welcome other entities committed to our mission to join the partnership.

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1

Topics: Climate Resilience, Climate

Enabling collective action to manage climate risks

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Project Site: http://www.prepdata.org

PREP-aring for a Changing Climate by Harnessing the Data Revolution

September 22, 2016, 6:00 am

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PREP-aring for a Changing Climate by Harnessing the Data Revolution

Sonoma County, California and Caldas, Colombia are very different communities, yet they share a common threat—climate change.

Both cities have similar ecological landscapes and agricultural resources. Sonoma’s wine region is vulnerable to changing rainfall patterns and droughts spurred by warming temperatures; Caldas’ coffee fields face devastating floods and landslides.

So they joined forced to tackle their shared problem. Through a USAID program, Sonoma and Caldas experts met in each location for a total of two weeks, identified the best climate data available, determined the risks they face and shared resiliency planning best practices, including engaging farmers and accounting for carbon storage in watersheds. Sonoma shared its climate risk data, and Caldas shared its watershed management planning information, enabling both to learn from the other.

• Amazon Web Services
• CARTO
• Descartes Labs
• Earth Knowledge
• Esri
• Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP)
• Future Earth
• Forum One
• Google Cloud Platform
• Google Earth Engine
• Group on Earth Observations
• Microsoft
• Sonoma County Climate Resilience Team
• U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI)
• U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
• U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
• U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP)
• Vizzuality
• The Weather Company (an IBM Business)
• World Resources Institute

The case of Sonoma and Caldas is a climate resilience success story, but it’s a rare one. Communities like them worldwide face the same kinds of problems, but typically lack necessary access to data and guidance to accurately assess risks. Without this information, they can’t make infrastructure investment decisions to protect themselves from escalating climate impacts.

Help is on the way. The Partnership for Resilience and Preparedness (PREP), a public-private partnership launching today, will harness the data revolution to strengthen climate resilience efforts, streamline climate data delivery, and inform researchers and data providers on which climate data are most valuable.

PREP is being launched by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), World Resources Institute (WRI), U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and a network of entities working on climate impact data.

_{PREP data explorer showing costal power facilities and areas exposed to flooding due to sea level rise and storm surge. Users can view numerous climate datasets provided by U.S. Government agencies, NGOs and private sector partners.}

A Platform and a Partnership for Resilience

PREP convenes government collaborators, tech companies, civil society and local governments around the world to create more resilient communities through:

• An open, accessible platform: While abundant climate data exists, it often resides in government and research silos or is overly technical, with insufficient guidance on which data to use and how to use it. PREP’s first major output is an open-source beta information platform building on the data architecture of WRI’s Resource Watch collaborative. It facilitates access to critical data sets from entities like NASA, NOAA and DOI, transforming them into actionable information that users will eventually be able to contextualize with local knowledge, such as the location of critical infrastructure or vulnerable populations in a specific community. Data flows in and out of the PREP platform from multiple sources, with users like local governments, businesses and real estate developers accessing government data for their specific locations.
   
• Designed by communities, for communities: PREP’s beta platform is being launched with collaborating communities in Sonoma County, California; Puget Sound, Washington; and Porto Alegre, Brazil. Over the next 12 months, PREP will work with other communities, while continually adding new datasets and case studies as they become available, as well as new partners. Eventually, the PREP platform will also help communities like Sonoma and Caldas find each other, connect, and share data and stories of the risks they face and how they are building resilience.
   
• A Platform AND a Partnership: PREP is more than just a data platform—it will also feature working groups including the world’s leading researchers and data providers, such as federal agencies. This will allow planners consuming climate data to interact directly with the data providers, with both groups learning from each other. Analysts will get climate change data tailored to their location and context to make smart planning decisions, while science translators will learn which tools can help them meet the tailored needs of local planners.
   
• Customization: In the next planned upgrade of the platform, users will be able to create customized dashboards showing live indicators of climate risk, access and visualize data without worrying about storage shortages or software challenges, and create a learning environment with other communities.

_{PREP dashboard developed in collaboration with the Sonoma County Climate Resilience Team. Within the dashboard, users can find information about how Sonoma is being affected by climate change and how they are adapting to it.}

Over the next 12 months, we will expand the functionality of the platform. Here’s one example of how we envision it will be used:

Imagine a town planner is developing a climate risk assessment in response to growing public concern after a spate of storms and floods. She convenes a team to conduct an assessment using PREP. The team easily accesses data on climate change and variability—such as temperature increases or sea level rise and rainfall projections—and combines them with local data about critical infrastructure and their vulnerabilities, such as roads, housing developments or power plants. The team can then integrate these findings and data points into their own online community dashboard to provide insights into how climate change could impact their specific circumstances, making long-term planning more climate resilient.

Creating a More Resilient Future

Sonoma and Caldas were lucky—thanks to USAID, they found each other to solve climate resilience challenges. But with a rapidly changing climate, we need a way for all communities to understand the risks they face and get resilience planning assistance.

PREP can help connect communities on the front lines of climate change find the information they need. Visit the PREP beta platform to join the growing partnership, and harness the data revolution to make neighborhoods around the world more resilient.