Posted on 14 December
2009 - Copenhagen, Denmark - The world's
wealthy nations have a long way to go on
the key negotiating element of climate change
adaptation at Copenhagen, WWF warned today
"Climate change adaptation mechanisms
and measures and especially finance must
be a key part of any successful deal reached
at Copenhagen, but it is an issue starved
of attention, commitments and funds,"
said Kim Carstensen, leader of WWF global
climate initiative.
"With climate impacts
already severely impacting those countries
least able to cope with them, we have the
example of wealthy countries who have made
commitments on adaptation support and finance
in the past but consistently failed to fulfil
their promises.
WWF today presented
an outline of what adaptation measures should
be included in a new climate treaty, together
with case studies of its work on climate
change adaptation around the globe.
Key findings include
the fundamental role of supporting functioning
natural landscapes and ecosystems for securing
freshwater supplies in the face of longer
and more severe droughts and in providing
flood and storm protection in the face of
the more frequent and severe extreme weather
events that are already and will increasingly
impact vulnerable communities.
The global environment
organisation also stressed that limiting
climate change impacts through cutting emissions
and deforestation and adapting to climate
impacts should not be viewed - or negotiated
- separately.
“Although we have masses
of political declarations from world leaders,
agreeing that they will keep global warming
below two degrees, the actual emissions
reduction offers now on the table at Copenhagen
have us on track to a three degree or more
world,” Carstensen said.
“Adaptation in a three
degree world includes the costs of moving
huge numbers of people out of harm’s way,
or starvation’s way or, in the case of many
islands, low lying coasts and heavily populated
deltas, out of the sea’s way.”
WWF maintains that adaptation
requires secure, transparent and accountable
funding with new money rather than cosmetic
reshuffling of existing aid packages. This
should provide immediate near term support
for highly vulnerable countries to immediately
start implementing essential adaptation
measures.
Also needed is international
“insurance” funding to provide financial
aid to countries at risk of being overwhelmed
by climate change impacts or coping with
disaster emergencies. WWF is also supporting
calls from many of the worlds most vulnerable
countries calls for seeking a multilateral
mechanism to compensate for long term loss
and damage such as the loss of entire small
island nation states through sea level rise
– a risk at just 1.5 degrees of average
global warming.
“While there are some
limited offers for short term adaptation
funding on the table, there is little longer
term vision or commitment,” said Carstensen.
“We need to ensure that Copenhagen does
not become the venue where getting some
initial pledged money for adaptation takes
precedence over setting up a secure international
framework for adaptation.”
WWF’s adaptation work
reflects the global to local nature of the
organisation and covers helping to establish
adaptation policy and capacity at national
levels down to working with communities
to improve the resilience of local environments
to climate change impacts and extreme weather
events.
In the Himalayas, the
watershed for more than one billion people,
WWF is helping to research glacial melt,
identify potential dangerous glacial lakes
and in Bhutan, is helping to drain a high
risk glacial lake. The program also includes
commissioning climate vulnerability assessments,
providing community information and trialling
ways to collaborate with farmers and villagers
to safeguard their environment, food and
water supplies and livelihoods.
WWF supporters and partners
in its climate adaptation work include banking
giant HSBC and the UK Department for International
Development.
“These cutting edge
examples of in-country climate change adaptation
in practice are showing again and again
that it is the environment that absorbs
the main impacts of climate change and a
more resilient environment that best protects
communities from climate impacts,” said
Pablo Herrera, Director of Conservation
and Sustainable Development of Argentina’s
WWF affiliate Fundación Vida Silvestre,
who has been analysing the global on the
ground adaptation work.
