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Indigenous peoples across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) already perceive and experience negative effects of climate change and variability. Although the overall economic impact of climate change on gross domestic product (GDP) is significant, what is particularly problematic is that it falls disproportionately on the poor including indigenous peoples, who constitute about 6.5 percent of the population in the region and are among its poorest and most vulnerable (Hall and Patrinos 2006). This book examines the social implications of climate change and climatic variability for indigenous communities in LAC and the options for improving their resilience and adaptability to these phenomena. By social implications, the authors mean direct and indirect effects in the broad sense of the word social, including factors contributing to human well-being, health, livelihoods, human agency, social organization, and social justice. This book, much of which relies on new empirical research, addresses specifically the situation of indigenous communities because our research showed them to be among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. A companion book (Verner 2010) provides information on the broader social dimensions of climate change in LAC and on policy options for addressing them. This book will help to place these impacts higher on the climate-change agenda and guide efforts to enhance indigenous peoples' rights and opportunities, whether by governments, indigenous peoples' organizations and their leaders, or non-state representatives.

This book analyzes the risks to Nigeria's development prospects that climate change poses to agriculture, livestock, and water management. These sectors were chosen because they are central to achieving the growth, livelihood, and environmental objectives of Vision 20: 2020; and because they are already vulnerable to current climate variability. Since other sectors might also be affected, the findings of this research provide lower-bound estimates of overall climate change impacts. Agriculture accounts for about 40 percent of Nigeria's Gross Domestic product (GDP) and employs 70 percent of its people. Because virtually all production is rain-fed, agriculture is highly vulnerable to weather swings. It alerts us that increases in temperature, coupled with changes in precipitation patterns and hydrological regimes, can only exacerbate existing vulnerabilities. The book proposes 10 practical short-term priority actions, as well as complementary longer-term initiatives, that could help to mitigate the threat to vision 20: 2020 that climate change poses. Nigeria's vision can become a reality if the country moves promptly to become more climate-resilient. Climate variability is also undermining Nigeria's efforts to achieve energy security. Though dominated by thermal power, the country's energy mix is complemented by hydropower, which accounts for one-third of grid supply. Because dams are poorly maintained, current variability in rainfall results in power outages that affect both Nigeria's energy security and its growth potential. In particular, climate models converge in projecting that by mid-century water flows will increase for almost half the country, decrease in 10 percent of the country, and be uncertain over one-third of Nigeria's surface. The overall feasibility of Nigeria's hydropower potential is not in question. On grounds of energy diversification and low carbon co-benefits, exploiting the entire 12 gigawatts (GW) of hydropower potential should be considered. Nigeria has a number of actions and policy choices it might consider for building up its ability to achieve climate-resilient development.

This book takes both a global as well as a local perspective in assessing the impacts of climate change on the economy, agricultural sector, and households in three of the MENA countries; Syria, Tunisia and Yemen. The major channels of impact for global climate change are through changing world food (and energy) prices, especially since all the countries under analysis are or have become net importers of oil and petroleum products and many food commodities in recent years. The impacts of local climate change decrease crop yields in the longer run and through them, productivity in the agricultural sector and all the implications this may have on both, the livelihoods of those dependent on the sector as well as the rest of the economy. The analysis also covered what happens when both global and local climate changes work simultaneously for each country. Findings show that in all three countries the effects of climate change are negative for people and the economy-GDP falls and livelihoods suffer. Furthermore, the prevalence of extreme variations in climate-such as the droughts affecting Syria and the floods impacting Yemen-draws attention to the potentially significant drawbacks that are likely to not only affect any strides towards economic growth and development, but may also reverse such strides if appropriate policies are not in place to weather this storm. The analyses in this book apply CGE models.

Climate change is a major source of concern in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and migration is often understood as one of several strategies used by households to respond to changes in climate and environmental conditions, including extreme weather events. This study focuses on the link between climate change and migration. Most micro-level studies measure climate change either by the incidences of extreme weather events or by variation in temperature or rainfall. A few studies have found that formal and informal institutions as well as policies also affect migration. Institutions that make government more responsive to households (for example through public spending) discourage both international and domestic migration in the aftermath of extreme weather events. Migration is often an option of last resort after vulnerable rural populations attempting to cope with new and challenging circumstances have exhausted other options such as eating less, selling assets, or removing children from school. This study is based in large part on new data collected in 2011 in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and the Republic of Yemen. The surveys were administered by in-country partners to a randomly selected set of 800 households per country. It is also important to emphasize that neither the household survey results nor the findings from the qualitative focus groups are meant to be representative of the five countries in which the work was carried, since only a few areas were surveyed in each country. This report is organized as follows: section one gives synthesis. Section two discusses household perceptions about climate change and extreme weather events. Section three focuses on migration as a coping mechanisms and income diversification strategy. Section four examines other coping and adaptation strategies. Section five discusses perceptions about government and community programs.

Agricultural production is inextricably tied to climate, making agriculture one of the most climate-sensitive of all economic sectors. In countries such as Uzbekistan, the risks of climate change for the agricultural sector are a particularly immediate and important problem because the majority of the rural population depends either directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods. Recent trends in water availability and the presence of drought in Uzbekistan have underscored these risks, as has the presence of agricultural pests that may not have previously been found in Uzbekistan. The need to adapt to climate change in all sectors is on the agenda of national governments and development partners. The capacity to adapt to climatic changes, both in mitigating risks and in taking advantage of the opportunities that climate change can create, is in part dependent on financial resources. As a result, development partners will continue to have an important role in enhancing the adaptive capacity of the Uzbekistan agriculture sector. In response to these challenges, the World Bank and the government of Uzbekistan embarked on a joint study to identify and prioritize options for climate change adaptation of the agricultural sector. This report provides a menu of practical climate change adaptation options for the agriculture and water resources sectors, along with specific recommendations, which are tailored to three distinct agro-ecological zones (AEZs) within Uzbekistan, as well as over-arching actions at the national level. This report is organized as follows: chapter one gives current conditions for Uzbek agriculture and climate; chapter two presents design and methodology; chapter three deals with impacts of climate change on agriculture in Uzbekistan; chapter four presents identification of adaptation options for managing risk to Uzbekistan's agricultural systems; chapter five presents cost-benefit analysis; and chapter six gives options to improve climate resilience of Uzbekistan's agriculture sector.

Changes in climate and their impact on agricultural systems and rural economies are already evident throughout Europe and Central Asia (ECA). Adaptation measures now in use in Moldova, largely piecemeal efforts, will be insufficient to prevent impacts on agricultural production over the coming decades. There is growing interest at country and development partner levels to have a better understanding of the exposure, sensitivities, and impacts of climate change at farm level, and to develop and prioritize adaptation measures to mitigate the adverse consequences. The approach of this volume is predicated on strong country ownership and participation, and is defined by its emphasis on 'win-win' or 'no regrets' solutions to the multiple challenges posed by climate change for the farmers of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The solutions are measures that increase resilience to future climate change, boost current productivity despite the greater climate variability already occurring, and limit greenhouse gas emissions-also known as 'climate-smart agriculture.' Specifically, this report provides a menu of climate change adaptation options for the agriculture and water resources sectors, along with specific recommendations that are tailored to three distinct Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZs) within Moldova. This menu reflects the results of three inter-related activities, conducted jointly by the team and local partners: 1) quantitative economic modeling of baseline conditions and the effects of climate change and an array of adaptation options; 2) qualitative analysis conducted by the expert team of agronomists, crop modelers, and water resources experts; and 3) input from a series of participatory workshops for national decision makers and farmers in each of the AEZs. This report provides a summary of the methods, data, results, and adaptation options for each of these activities.

The Paris Agreement introduced an ambitious goal of limiting warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. Here we combine a review of modelled pathways and literature on mitigation strategies, and develop a land-sector roadmap of priority measures and regions that can help to achieve the 1.5 °C temperature goal. Transforming the land sector and deploying measures in agriculture, forestry, wetlands and bioenergy could feasibly and sustainably contribute about 30%, or 15 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) per year, of the global mitigation needed in 2050 to deliver on the 1.5 °C target, but it will require substantially more effort than the 2 °C target. Risks and barriers must be addressed and incentives will be necessary to scale up mitigation while maximizing sustainable development, food security and environmental co-benefits.

While the energy sector is a primary target of efforts to arrest and reverse the growth of greenhouse gas emissions and lower the carbon footprint of development, it is also expected to be increasingly affected by unavoidable climate consequences from the damage already induced in the biosphere. Energy services and resources, as well as seasonal demand, will be increasingly affected by changing trends, increasing variability, greater extremes and large inter-annual variations in climate parameters in some regions. All evidence suggests that adaptation is not an optional add-on but an essential reckoning on par with other business risks. Existing energy infrastructure, new infrastructure and future planning need to consider emerging climate conditions and impacts on design, construction, operation, and maintenance. Integrated risk-based planning processes will be critical to address the climate change impacts and harmonize actions within and across sectors. Also, awareness, knowledge, and capacity impede mainstreaming of climate adaptation into the energy sector. However, the formal knowledge base is still nascent?information needs are complex and to a certain extent regionally and sector specific. This report provides an up-to-date compendium of what is known about weather variability and projected climate trends and their impacts on energy service provision and demand. It discusses emerging practices and tools for managing these impacts and integrating climate considerations into planning processes and operational practices in an environment of uncertainty. It focuses on energy sector adaptation, rather than mitigation which is not discussed in this report. This report draws largely on available scientific and peer-reviewed literature in the public domain and takes the perspective of the developing world to the extent possible.

For aiming to keep global warming well-below 2 °C and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 °C, as set out in the Paris Agreement, a full-fledged assessment of negative emission technologies (NETs) that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is crucial to inform science-based policy making. With the Paris Agreement in mind, we re-analyse available scenario evidence to understand the roles of NETs in 1.5 °C and 2 °C scenarios and, for the first time, link this to a systematic review of findings in the underlying literature. In line with previous research, we find that keeping warming below 1.5 °C requires a rapid large-scale deployment of NETs, while for 2 °C, we can still limit NET deployment substantially by ratcheting up near-term mitigation ambition. Most recent evidence stresses the importance of future socio-economic conditions in determining the flexibility of NET deployment and suggests opportunities for hedging technology risks by adopting portfolios of NETs. Importantly, our thematic review highlights that there is a much richer set of findings on NETs than commonly reflected upon both in scientific assessments and available reviews. In particular, beyond the common findings on NETs underpinned by dozens of studies around early scale-up, the changing shape of net emission pathways or greater flexibility in the timing of climate policies, there is a suite of “niche and emerging findings”, e.g. around innovation needs and rapid technological change, termination of NETs at the end of the twenty-first century or the impacts of climate change on the effectiveness of NETs that have not been widely appreciated. Future research needs to explore the role of climate damages on NET uptake, better understand the geophysical constraints of NET deployment (e.g. water, geological storage, climate feedbacks), and provide a more systematic assessment of NET portfolios in the context of sustainable development goals.

Global warming alters surface water availability (precipitation minus evapotranspiration, P–E) and hence freshwater resources. However, the influence of land–atmosphere feedbacks on future P–E changes and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here we demonstrate that soil moisture (SM) strongly impacts future P–E changes, especially in drylands, by regulating evapotranspiration and atmospheric moisture inflow. Using modelling and empirical approaches, we find a consistent negative SM feedback on P–E, which may offset ~60% of the decline in dryland P–E otherwise expected in the absence of SM feedbacks. The negative feedback is not caused by atmospheric thermodynamic responses to declining SM; rather, reduced SM, in addition to limiting evapotranspiration, regulates atmospheric circulation and vertical ascent to enhance moisture transport into drylands. This SM effect is a large source of uncertainty in projected dryland P–E changes, underscoring the need to better constrain future SM changes and improve the representation of SM–atmosphere processes in models.Surface water availability will change under climate change and is impacted by feedbacks between the land and atmosphere. Soil moisture exerts a negative feedback on water availability in drylands, offsetting some of the expected decline.