MAINSTREAMING CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION IN AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION
Slide 13
Increasing Uncertainty and Surprises
• Likely that climate change will bring more
surprise events
• Disaster risk reduction often based on belief in
a ‘stationary climate’ – i.e. what we have seen
before is an excellent record for what we are
likely to see in the future. It deals with known
risk
• Climate change will act as a multiplier of risk –
creating situations that might never have been
experienced before
Slide 16
2012
Strategies
Strategies need to have both
• Immediate and
• Long-term benefits
• No regrets strategies address non-climate
development needs (eg. Food security) and also
support adaptation to CC.
• They address multiple risks – immediate and
long-term needs.
FOOD SECURITY and DRR must come first
Slide 14
Adaptive Capacity -
Adaptive capacity is the ability of a system (people) to adjust to
climate change (variability and extremes) to moderate potential
damage, to take advantage of potential opportunities, or to cope
with the consequences
Adaptive capacity means that not only are communities able to
respond to and recover from hazard events in the short term,
but they are able to adapt over the long term to changes in
their environment.
Improve understanding of trends and their local impacts.
• Ensure access and action on relevant information
• Build confidence and flexibility to learn and experiment.
Slide 17
Zimbabwe: droughts, environmental degradation, veldt
fires, etc
Slide 15
Building adaptive capacity
Ability to adapt is closely linked to poverty reduction
• Need to tackle both immediate and longer term threats
• Food and livelihood security are of greatest importance
• Need to reduce underlying vulnerability
• Strengthen capacity to adapt – diversify livelihoods,
alternative incomes, etc
• Need to accept uncertainty and engage in SCENARIO
building based on local meteorological data.
A Training Manual on Use of Climate Information and Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment for
Agricultural Extension Staff in Zimbabwe
Page 112