Valdur Lahtvee esitlus Roheliselt Foorumilt 2014

1. Adaptation to Climate Change –
mainstreaming into sector
policies of the Baltic Sea Region
29.04.2014 Warsaw, Poland
CBSS-Baltic 21 – Roundtable Climate
Change Adaptation in the Baltic Sea Region
Valdur Lahtvee, SEI Tallinn Centre
www.sei-international.org

2. Latest milestones of adaptation
policy for Baltic Sea Region (BSR)
• European climate adaptation platform (Climate-
ADAPT) launched in March 2012;
• EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change
adopted in April 2013;
• BaltAdapt Project: Baltic Sea commenced in
September 2013,with Baltadapt Strategy for
adaptation to climate change in the BSR and
Action Plan
• IPCCC WGII Report on Impacts, Adaptation and
Vulnerability released in March 31st, 2013
valdur.lahtvee@seit.ee

3. IPCC WGII Report
Climate Change 2014:Impacts,
Adaptation and Vulnerability
• The report by IPCC Working Group II brings
together the latest knowledge on the impacts of
climate change, the vulnerability and exposure
of humans and the natural world to these
impacts, and adaptation to climate change. The
report is the second of four reports that together
will form the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report.
The first report, on the physical science basis of
climate change, was finalized last September.
valdur.lahtvee@seit.ee

4. SEI Contribution to the IPCC AR5
WGII Report
• Dr. Richard Klein, CLA ch 16: Adaptation
opportunities, constraints and limits
• Dr. Lisa Schipper, LA ch 21: Regional context
• Number of authors: 309
• Number of countries represented: 70
valdur.lahtvee@seit.ee

5. IPCC AR5 WGII: Scenarios for Global
Temperature Change
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6. Climate Risks Scenarios 2014
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7. Climate Risks Scenarios 2001 (AR3)
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8. Risks and adaptation potential:Europe
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9. Key messages from AR5
valdur.lahtvee@seit.ee
• Climate change over the 21st century is projected
to increase displacement of people (medium
evidence, high agreement).
•Climate change can indirectly increase risks of
violent conflicts in the form of civil war and inter-
group violence by amplifying well-documented
drivers of these conflicts such as poverty and
economic shocks (medium confidence).

10. Key messages from AR5
valdur.lahtvee@seit.ee
•The impacts of climate change on the critical
infrastructure and territorial integrity of many states are
expected to influence national security policies
(medium evidence, medium agreement).
•Throughout the 21st century, climate-change impacts
are projected to slow down economic growth, make
poverty reduction more difficult, further erode food
security, and prolong existing and create new poverty
traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and
emerging hotspots of hunger (medium confidence).

11. Key messages from AR5
valdur.lahtvee@seit.ee
• Adaptation is place
and context specific,
with no single
approach for reducing
risks appropriate across
all settings
(high confidence).
•A first step towards adaptation to future
climate change is reducing vulnerability and
exposure to present climate variability (high
confidence).

12. Key messages from AR5
valdur.lahtvee@seit.ee
•Poor planning, overemphasizing short-term
outcomes, or failing to sufficiently anticipate
consequences can result in maladaptation
(medium evidence, high agreement).
• Greater rates and magnitude of climate
change increase the likelihood of exceeding
adaptation limits (high confidence).

13. Mainstreaming CC Adaptation
valdur.lahtvee@seit.ee
WHY
•The latest information from EU research estimates that
failure to adapt to climate change will cost € 100bn a year in
2020, increasing to € 250bn in 2050
• Each euro spent on flood protection could save six euros
in damage costs. Floods caused direct economic losses of
more than € 90 billion between 1980 and 2011
HOW
Mainstreaming means “to integrate adaptation objectives,
strategies, policies, measures or operations such that they
become part of the national and regional development
policies, processes and budget at all levels and stages”.

14. Mainstreaming CC Adaptation
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STEPS TO CONSIDER
- raise the understanding of the CC and adaptation,
- identify how climate change will affect specific areas,
-inform about the essential elements with regard to climate
change as well as sustainable development,
-plan relevant actions for increased resilience
-support knowledge transfer from the global to the local
level and trans-nationally,
-enhance capacities to deal with the issue of climate
change in a cooperative, integrated and sustainable manner
-always consider climate resilience in mind when planning
and/or investing

15. National Adaptation Strategies 2013
valdur.lahtvee@seit.ee
National
adaptation
strategies in16 of
33 EEA countries:
(AT, BE, CH, DE,
DK, ES, FI, FR,
HU, IE, LT, MT,
NL, PT, SE, UK)

16. BaltAdapt
• Baltadapt project developed a transnational
climate change adaptation strategy for the Baltic
Sea Region, which focuses on the sea and the
coastline.
• The Strategy and its accompanying Action Plan
were officially launched and presented during
the Baltadapt Conference "Adaptation to Climate
Change in the Baltic Sea Region" in Riga,
Latvia, 3-4 September 2013
• http://www.baltadapt.eu/index.php?option=com_
content&view=article&id=93&Itemid=224
valdur.lahtvee@seit.ee

17. BalticClimate
• The BalticClimate toolkit is an empowering
knowledge transfer instrument for actors on the
local and regional level who are not necessarily the
experts on climate change, but who have an
important role to play in the preparation, financing
and decision making related to the implementation
of climate change measures: policy makers,
spatial planners and business people.
• Toolkit is available in 6 languages: ENG, BYL,
DEN, GER, EST, LAT, LIT, NOR, POL, RUS, FIN,
SWE http://www.toolkit.balticclimate.org/en/home
valdur.lahtvee@seit.ee

18. Mainstreaming climate adaptation
in ESI Funds 2014-2020
• Agreement between MS to allocate 20% of
financing of climate related activities incl.
adaptation
• Implementation not as good as was expected
e.g. Estonia declared in it’s revised OP for ESI
Funds that 17, 72% of finances are allocated for
climate action
valdur.lahtvee@seit.ee

19. Useful sources for climate change
adaptation related information
• http://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/transnational-
regions/baltic-sea/adaptation-actions
• http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/brief/eu/index_
en.htm
• http://www.baltadapt.eu/
• http://mayors-adapt.eu/
• http://www.toolkit.balticclimate.org/
• http://www.baltex-
research.eu/ecosupport/dss/index.html
valdur.lahtvee@seit.ee

20. SEI climate change adaptation
global knowledge sharing platform
weADAPT http://weadapt.org/
Thematic areas:
• Adaptation Decision Making
• Climate Adaptation Training
• Communicating Climate Risk
• Economics of adaptation
• Ecosystem-based Adaptation
• Forests and Climate Change
• National Adaptation Planning
• Synergies between adaptation and mitigation
• Transforming Governance
• Urban adaptation to climate change
• Using Climate Information
• Vulnerability
valdur.lahtvee@seit.ee