Pastoralist areas are Vulnerable to climate change hazardsand disater risks

1. Climate Change, Mitigation and
Adaptation and Key Pastoral
Resource Management in Pastoral
Areas
Daniel Temesgen (PhD)
15-16 Nov 2011 Adama

2. Climate change manifests itself through:
• Changes in average climatic conditions. For
example, some regions may become drier or
wetter on average
• Changes in climate variability : rainfall &
Temperature variation
• Changes in the frequency and magnitude of
extreme events .
• Changes in sea levels

3. • Emissions of greenhouse gas from human
activities are a significant driver of climate
change, and that climate change poses a threat
to current development.
• The Focus on limiting greenhouse gas
emissions associated with human activity,
particularly the burning of fossil fuels such as
coal, oil and gas.

4. • Collective evidence suggests that the
observed changes over the past fifty years can
be mostly attributed to human activities.
• The warming trend in the global average
surface temperature is expected to increases
in the range of 1.4 to 5.8 ºC by 2100 in
comparison to 1990 (IPCC 2001a).

5. • There has been a general trend of
atmospheric warming in Ethiopia. According
to the National Meteorological Agency (NMA,
2007) the average minimum temperature in
Ethiopia has been increasing by 0.37ºC per
decade in the last sixty years.

6. • In the Ethiopian highland, the temperature has
been increasing by 0.3ºC per decade (Muna,
2006).
• In the southern lowland regions of Borena, Guji
and South Omo temperature has increased by
0.4ºC per decade in the period 1950-2000
• the temperature increase in the lowland regions
has been much faster with bigger implications.

7. • Coupled with declining and unreliable patterns in
the rainfall, increasing temperatures in pastoral
regions will exacerbate the water and feed
shortages thus making the environment more
and more vulnerable to increased aridity and
degradations.

8. An analysis of the average annual rainfall trends in
the past four or five decades in Ethiopia shows a
more or less constant trend (NMA, 2007).
• However, an increasing trend of rainfall was
observed in central Ethiopia
• an overall declining trend was recorded in the water
stressed northern and southern lowland regions.

9. • changes in the seasonality, distribution and
regularity of rainfall than the overall amount of
rainfall.
• The main rainy season is also seen as becoming
progressively shorter –
• it starts later and finishes earlier than it used to be –
and the rains in general are becoming more
unpredictable.

10. • Of all the environmental and socio-economic shocks
and stressors drought is the most common
adversely impacted sustainable livelihoods of
pastoralists.
• The eastern lowlands of Ethiopia are vulnerable to
drought and there have been notable droughts in
this part of the country throughout human history

11. • Previous droughts and the frequency of
rainfall deviation from the average suggest
that drought occur every 3-5 years in the ;low
land regions of Ethiopia
• every 8-10 years for the whole country (Haile
1988, 90).

12. • In recent years, flood hazards in Ethiopia have
become more frequent and of increasing severity.
• For instance, floods in 2006 have battered huge
portions of eastern, southern and northern Ethiopia.
• Floods that have also occurred in 2007 and 2008
have caused huge havoc on the livelihoods of many
rural people.

13. • recent changes in the climate system have
brought about rapid changes which have
affected natural resources,

14. • Although there are many other potential drivers
the contribution of changing weather patterns
(such as more frequent droughts, increasing
temperatures, and shortening rainy seasons that
prevent grass growth and propagation) could be
significant

15. • The decline in the amount of rainfall, the
erratic nature of the rains and even the failure
of the main or short rainy seasons, aggravated
by climate change, is creating serious water
shortage and stress

16. • Climate change is expected to affect disease and
pest distribution, range, prevalence, incidence
and seasonality but the degree of change remains
highly uncertain .
• through changes in temperature, precipitation,
humidity and wind patterns
• Heat stress and drought are likely to have further
negative impacts on animal and human health
and disease resistance

17. • Drought
• Declining rangeland is reducing the amount
and quality of feed
• Less water is making the situation more
difficult.
• Lead to Animals venerability to endemic and
newly emerging varieties of animal diseases,
which can be linked to the changing climate
and the extreme weather conditions

18. • Mitigation is tackling climate change by limiting greenhouse
gas emissions.
• Vulnerability: the degree to which a system is susceptible to,
and unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change,
including climate variability and extremes
• It is dependent on a wide variety of institutional, economic
and environmental factors, not all of which are linked
directly with the climate

19. • The ability to respond and adjust to actual or
potential impacts of changing climate conditions
in ways that moderate harm or take advantage of
any positive opportunities that the climate may
afford.
• Adaptation is about reducing the risks posed by
climate change to people’s lives and livelihoods.

20. • Adaptation is a broad concept covering actions by
individuals, communities, private companies and
public bodies such as governments.
• Successful adaptation can reduce vulnerability by
building on and strengthening existing coping
mechanisms and assets, targeting climate change
vulnerability with specific measures, and integrating
vulnerability reduction into wider policies

21. • A serious disruption of the functioning of a
community or a society involving widespread
human, material, economic or environmental
losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability
of the affected community or society to cope
using its own resources.

22. • The concept and practice of reducing disaster
risks through systematic efforts to analyze and
manage the causal factors of disasters,
including through reduced exposure to
hazards ,lessened vulnerability of people and
property, wise management of land and the
environment, and improved preparedness for
adverse events.

23. • The ability of a system, community or society
exposed to hazards to resist, absorb,
accommodate to and recover from the effects of a
hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including
through the preservation and restoration of its
essential basic structures and functions.

24. • Mismanagement in natural resource contributes to the
vulnerability of human systems to disaster, and that
enhanced management can provide a tool for
vulnerability reduction.
• conservation of particular natural systems will in many
circumstances offer adaptation opportunities.
• A range of the tools for implementing effective
management of natural areas have been developed are
available.

25. • Today, there are two main disciplines
concerned with human vulnerability to
climate extremes –those of climate change
and disaster management.

26. • Disaster risk and climate change reinforce each
other.
• Disaster risk is an intrinsic characteristic of
human society, arising from the combination of
natural and human factors and subject to
exacerbation or reduction by human agency.
• While the adverse impacts of climate change on
society may increase disaster risk, disasters
themselves erode environmental and social
resilience, and thus increase vulnerability to
climate change..

27. • Recognition of the linkages between climate
variability, climate change, and extreme events
has fostered a small but growing literature on the
connections between disaster risk reduction and
climate change adaptation. This literature shows
that there is a great potential for coordinated
efforts towards addressing adaptation. The
disaster risk community
• .

28. • Advocates using the tools, methods and
policies of disaster risk reduction as a basis for
addressing the risk aspects of climate change.
Methodologies and experiences in working
with vulnerable people and their needs
through community-based initiatives are
emerging as a cornerstone for disaster risk
reduction

29. • At the same time, the climate change
community offers a growing body of research
and experience on adaptation as a social
process, with an emphasis on strategies and
measures to reduce vulnerability and enhance
the capacity to adapt to shocks and stressors.
• This includes initiatives aimed at building
resilience through community-based
adaptation.

30. • Given these overlapping areas of expertise
and empirical experience, there have been
numerous calls for increased collaboration
between the two communities.

31. • strategies for disaster risk reduction and climate
change adaptation have until now evolved largely in
isolation from each other through different conceptual
and institutional frameworks
• The disaster risk management community has gone
through various paradigm shifts since the early 1970s.
• Throughout these stages the “disaster” or
humanitarian community has refined its practical and
conceptual approach from managing disasters by
addressing the hazards, to understanding and
addressing the underlying factors and vulnerabilities
that turn hazards into disasters, culminating in the
disaster risk reduction framework.

32. • Climate change adaptation has a somewhat shorter history,
emerging in the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) signed in 1992. However, the
UNFCCC and the Kyoto protocol predominantly addressed
18 climate change mitigation and policies and measures to
reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases.
• Recently that adaptation came to the forefront as a key
concern within the UNFCCC.109 The possibilities for Least
Developed Countries to develop National Adaptation
Programmes of Actions (NAPAs) and the Nairobi Work
Program—a 5- year (2005-2010) initiative under the
UNFCCC,110 were important first steps towards both
enhancing the understanding communities of adaptation
and catalyzing action on adaptation

33. • The Bali Action Plan (BAP), agreed upon at the In the
BAP, risk management and disaster risk reduction are
identified as important elements of climate change
adaptation.
• Further, the BAP emphasizes the importance of
“building on synergies among activities and processes,
as a means to support adaptation in a coherent and
integrated manner.”
• comprehensive formal scientific assessment has been
undertaken yet of the research findings and empirically
based activities that are emerging from the two

34. • Climate change will compound existing
poverty. Its adverse impacts will be most
striking in the developing nations because of
their geographical and climatic conditions,
their high dependence on natural resources,
and their limited capacity to adapt to a
changing climate.

35. • Within these countries, the poorest, who have the
least resources and the least capacity to adapt, are the
most vulnerable.
• Projected changes in the incidence, frequency,
intensity, and duration of climate extremes (for
example, heat waves, heavy precipitation, and
drought), as well as more gradual changes in the
average climate, will notably threaten their livelihoods
– further increasing inequities between the developing
and developed worlds.
• Climate change is therefore a serious threat to poverty
eradication. However, current development strategies
tend to overlook climate change risks.

36. • Developing adaptive capacity to minimize the
damage to livelihoods from climate change is
a necessary strategy to complement climate
change mitigation efforts. Climate change
adaptation – all those responses to climatic
conditions that reduce vulnerability – is
therefore an integral and urgent part of
overall poverty reduction strategies.

37. • Adaptation should not be approached as a
separate activity, isolated from other
environmental and socioeconomic concerns
that also impact on the development
opportunities of the poor. A comprehensive
approach is needed that takes into account
potential synergistic and antagonistic effects
between local and global environmental
changes as well as socioeconomic factors.

38. Changes in mean Impact on poverty
climate, variability,
extreme events
Increased temperature Lowered output and labour productivity, high
and changes in precipitation reduce inequality, impacts on trade, and fiscal and
agricultural and natural resources. macro-economic lead to reduced economic
growth, and poverty- reducing effects
Change in precipitation, Reduced productivity and security of poor
run-off and variability people’s livelihood assets, and reduced access
leads to greater water stress. for the poor to their livelihood assets
Increased incidence or intensity of Less effective coping strategies among the poor,
climate related disasters leads to and increased vulnerability of poor people
damage to assets and infrastructure
Temperature, water and
vegetation changes
contribute to increased
prevalence of disease

39. THANK YOU
10/27/2011 39