Cause, conseguenze e strategie di mitigazione Proponiamo il primo di una serie di articoli in cui affronteremo l’attuale problema dei mutamenti climatici. Presentiamo il documento redatto, votato e pubblicato dall’Ipcc - Comitato intergovernativo sui cambiamenti climatici - che illustra la sintesi delle ricerche svolte su questo tema rilevante.

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Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.

We reviewed existing and planned adaptation activities of federal, tribal, state, and local governments and the private sector in the United States (U.S.) to understand what types of adaptation activities are underway across different sectors and scales throughout the country. Primary sources of review included material officially submitted for consideration in the upcoming 2013 U.S. National Climate Assessment and supplemental peer-reviewed and grey literature. Although substantial adaptation planning is occurring in various sectors, levels of government, and the private sector, few measures have been implemented and even fewer have been evaluated. Most adaptation actions to date appear to be incremental changes, not the transformational changes that may be needed in certain cases to adapt to significant changes in climate. While there appear to be no one-size-fits-all adaptations, there are similarities in approaches across scales and sectors, including mainstreaming climate considerations into existing policies and plans, and pursuing no- and low-regrets strategies. Despite the positive momentum in recent years, barriers to implementation still impede action in all sectors and across scales. The most significant barriers include lack of funding, policy and institutional constraints, and difficulty in anticipating climate change given the current state of information on change. However, the practice of adaptation can advance through learning by doing, stakeholder engagements (including “listening sessions”), and sharing of best practices. Efforts to advance adaptation across the U.S. and globally will necessitate the reduction or elimination of barriers, the enhancement of information and best practice sharing mechanisms, and the creation of comprehensive adaptation evaluation metrics.

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A comprehensive review of climate adaptation in the United States: more than before, but less than needed

Climate services involve the generation, provision, and contextualization of information and knowledge derived from climate research for decision making at all levels of society. These services are mainly targeted at informing adaptation to climate variability and change, widely recognized as an important challenge for sustainable development. This paper reviews the development of climate services, beginning with a historical overview, a short summary of improvements in climate information, and a description of the recent surge of interest in climate service development including, for example, the Global Framework for Climate Services, implemented by the World Meteorological Organization in October 2012. It also reviews institutional arrangements of selected emerging climate services across local, national, regional, and international scales. By synthesizing existing literature, the paper proposes four design elements of a climate services evaluation framework. These design elements include: problem identification and the decision-making context; the characteristics, tailoring, and dissemination of the climate information; the governance and structure of the service, including the process by which it is developed; and the socioeconomic value of the service. The design elements are intended to serve as a guide to organize future work regarding the evaluation of when and whether climate services are more or less successful. The paper concludes by identifying future research questions regarding the institutional arrangements that support climate services and nascent efforts to evaluate them.

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Climate services for society: origins, institutional arrangements, and design elements for an evaluation framework

Adaptation needs and options

The report summarizes the science of climate change and the impacts of climate change in the United States, now and in the future.

Climate Change Impacts in the United States

There is growing international interest in the planning, financing and implementation of adaptation to climate change. However, the discussion to date has primarily focused on the public sector’s role, with the private sector viewed primarily as a source of funding or financing. Relatively little attention has been paid to how the private sector is responding to the risks and opportunities from climate change. In this context, this analysis aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of private sector’s role. 
This paper examines the private sector’s progress in adapting to climate change by considering information from sixteen case studies, drawn from a range of industries across the private sector. This is complemented by a high-level analysis of broader private sector adaptation based on responses to the 2009 Carbon Disclosure Project questionnaire. The case studies provide insight into companies’ awareness of potential climate risks and vulnerabilities, their progress in assessing specific impacts on their businesses and possible ways to respond to them, and their implementation of adaptation measures and strategies to manage these risks. The analysis also examines how companies are taking advantage of new business opportunities arising from climate change. 
The paper explores companies’ motivations for implementing adaptation measures, and establishes common factors which can affect companies’ capacities to adapt, their incentives for action, and their perspectives on the need to adapt. The analysis considers how these factors can both encourage and impede adaptation, and assesses potential public sector roles for eliminating barriers to action, encouraging engagement and incentivising private sector investment in adaptation.

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/private-sector-engagement-in-adaptation-to-climate-change-approaches-to-managing-climate-risks_5kg221jkf1g7.pdf?itemId=%2Fcontent%2Fpaper%2F5kg221jkf1g7-en

Private Sector Engagement in Adaptation to Climate Change: Approaches to Managing Climate Risks

Much of the current policy debate on adaptation to climate change has focussed on estimation of adaptation costs, ways to raise and to scale-up funding for adaptation, and the design of the international institutional architecture for adaptation financing. There is however little or no emphasis so far on actual delivery mechanisms to channel these resources at the sub-national level, particularly to target the poor who are also often the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. It is in this context that microfinance merits a closer look.
This paper offers the first empirical assessment of the linkages between microfinance supported activities and adaptation to climate change. Specifically, the lending portfolios of the 22 leading microfinance institutions in two climate vulnerable countries – Bangladesh and Nepal - are analysed to assess the synergies and potential conflicts between microfinance and adaptation. The two countries had also been previously examined as part of an earlier OECD report on the links between macro-level Official Development Assistance and adaptation. This analysis provides a complementary "bottom-up" perspective on financing for adaptation. Insights from this analysis also have implications for OECD countries. This is because microfinance is also being increasingly tapped to reduce the vulnerability of the poor in domestic OECD contexts as well and may therefore have the potential to contribute to adaptation.
The paper identifies areas of opportunity where microfinance could be harnessed to play a greater role in fostering adaptation, as well as its limitations in this context. It also explores the linkage between the top-down macro-financing for adaptation through international financial mechanisms and the bottom-up activities that can be implemented through microfinance.

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Assessing the Role of Microfinance in Fostering Adaptation to Climate Change

Much of the current policy debate on adaptation to climate change has focused on estimation of adaptation costs, ways to raise and to scale-up funding for adaptation, and the design of the international institutional architecture for adaptation financing. There is however little or no emphasis so far on actual delivery mechanisms to channel these resources at the sub-national level, particularly to target the poor who are also often the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. It is in this context that microfinance merits a closer look. This paper offers the first empirical assessment of the linkages between microfinance supported activities and adaptation to climate change. Specifically, the lending portfolios of the 22 leading microfinance institutions in two climate vulnerable countries - Bangladesh and Nepal - are analysed to assess the synergies and potential conflicts between microfinance and adaptation. The two countries had also been previously examined as part of an earlier OECD report on the links between macro-level Official Development Assistance and adaptation. This analysis provides a complementary "bottom-up" perspective on financing for adaptation. Insights from this analysis also have implications for OECD countries. This is because microfinance is also being increasingly tapped to reduce the vulnerability of the poor in domestic OECD contexts as well and may therefore have the potential to contribute to adaptation. The paper identifies areas of opportunity where microfinance could be harnessed to play a greater role in fostering adaptation, as well as its limitations in this context. It also explores the linkage between the top-down macro-financing for adaptation through international financial mechanisms and the bottom-up activities that can be implemented through microfinance.

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This CEPS Working Document reviews the potential impacts of climate change on 11 key indicator categories and 3 large regions covering the entire European Union. Although there remains a considerable degree of uncertainty about local and regional effects, the paper highlights strong distributional patterns. Northern Europe might even experience some positive effects, while the Mediterranean will mostly be negatively affected. Still, the cumulative impacts of climate change on poorer countries will also affect northern European countries, as growing water scarcity and other repercussions in Mediterranean countries could pose social and security challenges through increasing risks of conflicts and migration pressures. The impacts outlined in this paper are a useful starting point for policy-makers when shaping effective adaptation policies for Europe. They underline the need for a European response in the spirit of solidarity, while stressing that the fight against climate change is clearly in the self-interest of the EU and all of its member states.

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Maëlis Carraro

Papers

Private Sector Engagement in Adaptation to Climate Change: Approaches to Managing Climate Risks

Assessing the Role of Microfinance in Fostering Adaptation to Climate Change

Assessing the Role of Microfinance in Fostering Adaptation to Climate Change

Future Impacts of Climate Change across Europe

Future Impacts of Climate Change across Europe. CEPS Working Document No. 324, February 2010