WEBINAR: Series Adaptation Futures

28-30 April 2020. Adaptation Futures is the flagship event of the World Adaptation Science Program, which is one of the four components of World Climate Programme (WCP) based on the

World Meteorological Organisation Congress XVI Resolution 18. The sixth edition of this conference, Adaptation Futures 2020, was scheduled to be co-hosted by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and the World Adaptation Science Program (WASP) in New Delhi from 27th – 30th April 2020, however, in view of the alarming levels of spread and severity of the COVID-19 outbreak, has been postponed 28 September – 1 October, 2020.

Given the postponement of the actual events, this series of webinars have been designed as a precursor to the conference, highlighting the need to accelerate adaptation in today’s uncertain times an additional platform to feed into the global adaptation dialogue. This series of webinars focused broadly on the issues of Climate Change, Adaptation Action, Health and Climate Justice.

28th April 2020, 4PM IST
Advancing the Adaptation Agenda in Times of Uncertainty
Event Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88677442582…
Meeting ID: 88677442582
Password: 841049

29th April 2020, 4PM IST
Adaptation with a Human Face - Moving Towards ClimateJustice
Event Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83299739649…
Meeting ID: 83299739649
Password: 514601

30th April 2020, 7:30PM IST
Event Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86123566723…
Meeting ID: 86123566723
Password: 599217

28 April. Advancing the adaptation agenda in times of uncertainty 

Successful adaptation action must be temporally and geographically contextual, while simultaneously building future resilience that takes into account the multiple unknowns and uncertain futures. This panel discussion seeked to deconstruct the advancing of adaptation agenda in times of uncertainty – bridging the gaps between science, policy and practice perspectives. Facilitator 

• Mr R R Rashmi: Distinguished Fellow, TERI; Member, Steering Committee, Adaptation Futures 2020
• Mr Aromar Revi: Director, Indian Institute for Human Settlements 
• Dr Ania Grobicki: Deputy Director for Adaptation, GCF; Member, Science Committee, Adaptation Futures 2020 
• Mr Arghya Sinha Roy: Senior Disaster Risk Management Specialist (Climate Change Adaptation), Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department, Asian Development Bank 
• Ms Marylaure Crettaz: Head of International Cooperation and Counsellor, Embassy of Switzerland, India 
• Dr Johanna Nalau: Adaptation Science Theme Leader, Cities Research Institute, Griffith University; Member, Science Committee, Adaptation Futures 2020

29 April. Adaptation with a Human Face

Moving Towards Climate Justice Climate change is happening now, and it is destroying livelihoods, infrastructure and communities, forcing people to move from their homes, towns and countries around the world. The planet’s poorest and most vulnerable are suffering the worst effects, despite having contributed the least to its cause. The panellists viewed climate change adaptation through a human lens, furthering the discourse on safeguarding the rights of the most vulnerable people and on ensuring equitable and fair sharing of the burdens and benefits of climate change and its impacts. This dialogue also highlighted the role of community-led solutions, knowledge sharing and empowerment for local action. 

• Facilitator Dr Saleemul Huq: Director, ICCCAD, Independent University, Bangladesh; Senior Fellow, IIED, London; Member, Science Committee, Adaptation Futures 2020 
• Dr Richard Klein: Senior Research Fellow, SEI 
• Prof Coleen Vogel: Distinguished Professor, University of the Witwatersrand; Member, Science Committee, Adaptation Futures 2020 
• Dr Ashish Chaturvedi: Director-Climate Change, GIZ India 



Mr. Stirbat spoke about EU's emphasis
on social considerations in resilience action
going forward while also highlighting
the need for more science-based policy
and action, in general.

• Dr Georgina Cundill Kemp: Senior Program Officer, IDRC, Canada; Member, Science Committee, Adaptation Futures 2020
• Mr Liviu Stirbat: Deputy Head, Adaptation Unit, Directorate-General, Climate Action European Commission 
• Ms Christina Chan: Climate Resilience Director, World Resources Institute

30 April. Climate Change and Health 

As the world faces one of the greatest and most wide-spread health crisis of modern times, there is increasing concern over its possible linkages to climate change as well as what other implications to health, that climate change may have. This panel discussion focused on these pressing issues of climate change, its impact on health and the role of adaptation in addressing these issues. 

• Facilitator Dr Kristie Ebi: Professor, Department of Global Health, University of Washington; Member, Science Committee, Adaptation Futures 2020 Panelists 
• Ms Suruchi Bhadwal: Senior Fellow, TERI; Co-Chair, Organising Committee, Adaptation Futures 2020 
• Dr Niranjan Saggurti: Director, Population Council, India 
• Prof Christopher Gordon: Country Engagement Lead - Ghana, CDKN 
• Dr Sari Kovats: Associate Professor, Faculty of Public Health and Policy, The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine 
• Ms Elena Villalobos Prats: Technical Officer, Climate Change and Health, WHO

Related:

5 May 2020. What can the climate change community learn from the Covid-19 crisis? By Estelle Rouhad for Future Climate for Africa

Many parallels have been drawn between the health crisis and the climate crisis. On social media, the climate change community has joyfully compared the new prominent role for science given by policy-makers with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, wondering if the same weight could be given to climate science informing policy.

UMFULA, and its wider Future Climate for Africa programme, has at its core the objective of improving science in terms of climate processes and projections and climate impacts on the African continent to inform policy for more sustainable development and greater resilience to climate change.

For five years, UMFOLA has worked in partnership with policy and decision-makers in Malawi and Tanzania. By better understanding their needs, we have been more effective in producing information that is useful and potentially useable in the sectors of water, energy, food and biodiversity.

To better engage with and be relevant to policy-makers, Howarth and Painter (2016) highlight how important it is to have research outputs that are clear, succinct, more accessible and contextualised.

Enabling this requires open channels of communication between researchers and policy-makers. Ways of engagement have been discussed at length within FCFA and in particular various co-production methods have been tested.

UMFULA has also explored how to make climate information useful, useable and used in policy and practice in the sub-Saharan context. More on this will be published later this year.

But perhaps before engagement can take place, there needs to be a conversation about the role of research in policy. In this context, Hulme (2016) distinguishes the “curiosity-driven research” from the “research oriented towards decision support for the large and diverse constituency of stakeholders” such as in support of climate services.