A new genre, born from novels and movies about climate change, has surfaced. "Cli-fi," short for "climate-change fiction,” are novels and movies set in the present or the near future that put the true story of climate change in fictional settings and scenarios. They help us better understand our climate not with scientific statistics nor government charts but by engendering raw emotions with stories that are relatable.

I coined the cli-fi term to serve as a platform for writers and film directors who create art about the biggest existential threat humankind has ever faced. We need novels and movies that go beyond abstract predictions and statistics to show the moment-by-moment reality of a possibly painful future, and the tragic price we may have to pay for our passionate devotion to all the wrong things.

Climate Change is one of the most important challenges facing the world in this century in all the four dimensions of sustainable development (ecological, economic, social and cultural). Europe takes a leading role in the necessary response to these challenges. Severe impacts are unavoidable and European adaptation strategies must be supported by a coherent base of knowledge on its key vulnerabilities and response options. Such a base can only be generated by European, national and regional policy-relevant research.

CIRCLE-2 is focused on the interface between Climate Change science and policy. Through the promotion of networking activities it aims to maximise the degree to which research outcomes address both national and European climate policy needs.

The CIRCLE-2 Climate Adaptation INFOBASE, is a publicly accessible, online database on Climate Adaptation research. The INFOBASE includes relevant information on European research projects funded at national and local levels as well as transnational projects funded within the framework of CIRCLE1 and CIRCLE-2 ERA-Net. The INFOBASE is limited to projects with a completion date subsequent to 2005, and by the end of CIRCLE-2 (set to 2014) it will cover a timeframe of 10 years (2005-2014) of European Climate Adaptation research.

The INFOBASE aims to contribute to the mapping of national, local and transnational CCIVA projects in a larger Europe, as well as other countries that want to contribute. The information at InfoBase will allow to address the fundamental gaps in the understanding of how Climate Adaptation science has evolved over the past decade and to provide policy-makers, the scientific community and research managers, with relevant facts and figures on the larger Europe research landscape on climate change adaptation.

If you are aware of climate adaptation research projects in your country please insert them using the INFOBASE user interface or contact the CIRCLE-2 coordination at circle2infobase@fc.ul.pt

Reaching out to the Cambrdige climate community

Represented by Max Edkins and Ivan Bruce, Connect4Climate (C4C) was honored to participate in the 2013 Cambridge Climate Forum on March 15. 

It's 5 o'clock in the morning. I'm wide-awake struggling with jetlag, but glad about it because it gives me time to reflect.

Since January this year I have been an active part of the Connect4Climate team at the World Bank, and what exciting months these have already been. In 2011 I was honoured to receive the special prize of the Connect4Climate Photo and Video competitions with my photograph Climate Theatre and my video The World Has Malaria. At the time my partner Astrid Westerlind Wigström and I were running a number of rural climate change communication interventions in South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania and Kenya under the ClimateConsious Programme.

Working with local partner NGOs we engaged communities to tell their climate change experiences through photostories. These were re-worked into an educational climate change theatre or film script and participatory community productions were initiated. The theatre/film teams performed their shows in communities in the region and educational discussions followed the performances/screenings. Thinking back I am excited to see how far the climate message has progressed.

There’s no question, the environmental and social challenges of the 21st century are complex. While design alone may not solve all of these issues, Big Future Group believes that many of the adverse effects of climate change can be mitigated by sustainable design. As designers, we hope to address not only the immediate physical effects of climate change on communities, but also provide a framework of practices that advances quality of life issues with minimal impact to respective ecosystems over time, with specific attention to sustainable practices that minimize human impact on water, land, energy consumption, and biodiversity. These sustainable building methodologies can help people adapt, and sometimes even benefit from the effects of extreme environmental conditions that have become the new normal.

While sustainable design remains at the forefront of climate related dialogue, Big Future Group approaches the conversation from a different perspective: a multi-disciplinary collaboration of research and expertise. The founders—Sharon Davis, Julie Farris, Arun Rimal, and Eric Rothstein—met while working on the design and construction of an award-winning Women’s Opportunity Center in Kayonza, Rwanda. Together, they represent fields of architecture, engineering, hydrology and landscape architecture, to collectively explore multi-faceted solutions to food shortages, flood/drought, deforestation, unavailable access to energy, poor sanitation and health conditions, and an increasing carbon output.

Their work in Rwanda is a good example of the work they’ll be doing moving forward. The project, sponsored by Women for Women International, is made up of 20,000 sq ft of space covered by roofs that serve to shade and shelter women, and simultaneously harvest rainwater with durable cisterns. Rwandan women living in the area handcrafted a half-million bricks on site in order to build classrooms, which are made up of curved walls that create intimate communal spaces. The project also incorporates a landscape designed to nourish the community, a communal kitchen, lodging, and a marketplace to sell goods made there. While working together on this transformative project, the four decided that the Women’s Opportunity Center project was just the beginning, and that more work was to be done. In June of 2011, they founded Big Future Group.

Utilizing innovation-generating design methodologies, Big Future Group will develop achievable goals for specific community-based projects, and multi-disciplinary teams will research, design, and build sustainable infrastructure for areas in need. Big Future Group’s projects are focused on scalable, replicable and transferable measures, as these practices are essential to sustainability and viability.  The projects also aim to serve each community’s unique site conditions, values and communal needs, which can often lead to unexpected opportunities for innovation, essential for future progress.

To learn more about Big Future Group and their initiatives, visit www.bigfuturegroup.org.

The Media Watch on Climate Change (MWCC)  is a continuously updated knowledge repository on climate change and related environmental issues. A visual dashboard provides interactive means to access this repository, analyze stakeholder perceptions, and track emerging trends in online coverage. The system collects, filters, annotates and visualizes documents from a wide range of English, French and German sources – news media, social networking platforms, Web sites of Fortune 1000 companies and environmental organizations. The capturing of stakeholder communication, automatically and in real time, enables an unprecedented level of transparency.

Stakeholders must manage and apply relevant knowledge to address societal issues effectively, and to ensure that change is conceived and implemented on both regional andsociety-wide scales. Understanding the reach of the topics various parties discuss and the opinions they voice is a complex process that requires knowledge on how topics and stakeholders relate to each other.

Insights into this process was one of the topics at a recent World Bank communication conference in Washington D.C. Organized by the Connect4Climate team,  this event brought together a unique, multi-disciplinary group of scholars and multi-sector leaders who are experts incommunicating climate change to a broad audience. They invited me to present impact and communication success metrics developed for NOAA Climate.gov, and used visual tools of the MWCC to analyze Earth Day 2015 online coverage.

A bond is a fixed-income asset issued by a public or private entity that wants to raise capital for their work. When an investor buys a bond they are purchasing debt to be paid back to them at a specific amount on a set time schedule.

But what do bonds have to do with climate change? Bonds can be used as a mechanism to allocate capital towards addressing social and environmental problems. Social impact bonds are gaining traction for a wide variety of social issues. Through the purchase of green bonds, also known as climate bonds, investors can assist in the funding of climate change projects.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the finance arm of the World Bank Group, is leading the way when it comes to green bonds. Large name investors in IFC’s issuance include Blackrock, State Street Global Advisors, and California Public Employees’ Retirement System. In February 2013 IFC issued one billion US dollars in green bonds—the largest amount by any entity to date. These bonds are solely for funding renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other climate projects in developing countries.

International organizations are not the only actors moving forward with green bonds, and projects are not confined to developing countries. The Climate Bonds Initiative, which provided the Climate Bonds Standard in 2011 to help investors screen the validity of the environmental claims of green bonds, released an extensive Bonds and Climate Change: the state-of-the-market in 2013 report. Here are the highlighted statistics:

• The total universe of bonds linked to key climate themes stands at USD 346 billion, double last year’s estimate
• The issuance of new climate-themed bonds was USD 74 billion in 2012, up 25% on 2011.
• China accounts for USD 127 billion of the total, followed by the UK and France.
• CO2 transport, notably rail, accounts for 75%, followed by clean energy and climate finance.
• 89% of the USD 346 billion universe is investment grade

Momentum and the market for green bonds is building. Green bonds and climate bonds were one of the main discussion points at the UN Investor Summit on Climate Risk 2014 (watch the video below) where 500 global financial leaders recently came together in New York. The Green Bond Principles were also recently created, reflecting the commitment of large investment banks such as JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, and many others. The Principles are multi-stakeholder developed, voluntary guidelines. According to the press release, The Principles were designed to:

‘to provide issuers with guidance on the key components involved in launching a Green Bond, to aid investors by ensuring the availability of information necessary to evaluate the environmental impact of their Green Bond investments and to assist underwriters by moving the market towards standard disclosures which facilitate transactions’.

Standardization will help all parties understand the emerging green bond market and encourage its effectiveness and growth. Green bonds are the next step in using market mechanisms for climate change adaptation and mitigation around the world, increasing investors’ ability to directly support a transition towards low-carbon economies.

From February 18 to 19, the twelve country project teams that form the World Bank/Global Environment Facility Sahel and West Africa Program (SAWAP) in support of the Great Green Wall are meeting at the Africa Union to share knowledge and best practices to enhance the resilience of African landscapes, lives, and livelihoods – especially the poorest who deeply depend on natural resources for environmental and food security.

SAWAP, a $1.1 billion flexible investment umbrella with 12 country-led investment operations, is the World Bank and GEF’s contribution to the African initiative to help transform the region into a stable, sustainable, resilient region. The program was developed in 2011 under the TerrAfrica partnership, and is reinforced by a regional hub project Building Resilience through Innovation, Communication and Knowledge Services (BRICKS). With the support of Connect4Climate BRICKS facilitates cooperation among the country projects and Great Green Wall partners on operational problems and solutions facing country project teams.

Mrs. Tumusiime Rhoda Peace, Commissioner of the Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union, interviewed by Ethiopian media. She stresses importance of the Great Green Wall Initiative addressing the conference. Credit: Max Thabiso Edkins

“The Great Green Wall for the Sahara and Sahel Initiative is the first and only program conceived, engineered and created by the Heads of State of the African Union,” stated Mrs. Tumusiime Rhoda Peace, Commissioner of the Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union. “This Wall is made up of the multimillion dollar programs like the SAWAP and BRICKS, multiple sectors and stakeholders, and ultimately the ‘ecological infrastructure’ that generates jobs, food and water security.”

The Second SAWAP Conference is being held in Ethiopia to celebrate the country's successful Sustainable Land Management Program that has so far restored 15 million hectares and transformed the lives of 30 million people in less than 10 years.

H.E. Ato Sileshi Getahun, State Minister of Agriculture of Ethiopia, emphasized benefits of Sustainable Land Management. Credit: Max Thabiso Edkins

“The poor are affected the most by climate change. Sustainable Land Management helps build resilience and reduce communities’ vulnerability, while also creating pathways out of poverty. … We look forward to greening out landscapes and empowering communities to build their resilience,” said H.E. Ato Sileshi Getahun, State Minister of Agriculture of Ethiopia.

Drylands in Sub-Saharan Africa account for 43% of land area, 50% of population – about 325 million people and 75% of agriculture land used for both crops and livestock production. Poverty is heavily concentrated in drylands with about 75% of Africa’s poor people and by 2030, 40 to 100 million more people could be sensitive to shocks.

“It is becoming more and more apparent that addressing the effects of climate change requires multidimensional interventions and the concerted efforts of all of us,” said Guang Zhe Chen, World Bank Country Director for Ethiopia. “As World Bank President Jim Kim says, resilience is about development and development is about resilience. One cannot exist without the other. That is why the World Bank has been working with Governments and partners to help affected countries find lasting solutions to the challenges they face.”

 

Guang Zhe Chen, World Bank Country Director for Ethiopia highlights importance of resilience to address climate change and poverty. Credit: Max Thabiso Edkins

BRICKS is being implemented by three regional centers: the Interstate Committee to Combat Drought in the Sahel (CILSS), the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS) and West and Central Africa Office of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Each organization delivers specialty services to the SAWAP portfolio to enhance quality and promote regional integration.

“The merit of the BRICKS’s arrangement is that it allows us, African regional centers of excellence, to collaborate together in a united way, up our game and leverage our capacity,” said Dr. Djime Adoum, Executive Secretary of the CILSS. “OSS is in charge of geospatial applications and monitoring and evaluation, IUCN is a leader in biodiversity and communications strategies and CILSS is responsible for exchange of best practices and knowledge management. This allows us to offer effective services to the 12 country project teams and respond to their needs.”   

The Second SAWAP Conference brings together 12 country proejcts under BRICKS to enhance sustainable land management. Credit: Max Thabiso Edkins

What is adaptation?

Climate change is affecting all nations across the globe. It might be a little late to avoid some irreversible changes in the climate, but we cannot ignore adaptation strategies. We all must learn to manage the risks that have arisen as a result of shifts in climate. But what does adaption really mean? Adaptation generally means investing in basic infrastructure and programs to protect us against the effects of climate change, but why, then, is adaptation different in different economies around the world?

While rich countries adapt by providing their nations with early warning and defense systems, poor countries are left to face much more challenging problems as they lack the resources and finances to cope. When faced with a drought the poor may suffer hunger from crop losses, but rich places, such as the state of California in the United States, develop extensive systems of reservoirs and water transfer channels to maintain flows to dry areas. When floods hit, floodwaters and communities in Vietnam's Mekong Delta have to depend on swimming lessons and life jackets for survival, while the UK is able to fund flood management and coastal erosion projects annually. Why should swimming be a sport in one country and a means of survival in another?

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In Kenya, farmers till their land to plant drought resistant crops. Photo credit: Elijah Mumo (Voices4Climate Competition)

UNICEF and the Ministry of Education in Mongu, Western Zambia are advocating for projects to construct floating schools that cannot be destroyed by floods to help children who are forced to drop-out of school until the waters subside because their families cannot afford to relocate to dry areas. However, such projects are still far from implementation due to lack of funds.

La situation du Conseil National Climat avec son Président du Comité de Gestion, également Président du Comité de Gestion de l'ANPN, Président de la commission d'attribution des bourses, Directeur général de l'Agence gabonaise d'études et d'observation spatiale, Conseiller spécial du Chef de l'Etat, Etienne MASSARD KABINDA MAKAGA interpelle le responsable de Brainforest que je suis du fait de notre engagement dans le processus FLEGT en tant que point focal société civile au Gabon et partie prenante du débat sur les changements climatiques en qualité de membre de ACCRA CAUCUS. 


Le Conseiller du Ministre de l'Economie, Jean Philippe NDONG BIYOGHO vient de remplacer le Conseiller économique du Premier Ministre, Nicolas ZEKPA au poste de Secrétaire permanant du Conseil National Climat. Considérant que ce sont des questions d'environnement, pourquoi le Ministère de l'Environnement ne joue pas ce rôle de Secrétaire permanent ? Où est passé la logique fermement défendu par Massard MAKAGA selon laquelle le Secrétariat permanent doit être assuré par un Représentant du Premier Ministre ? Alors que le Conseil est présidé par le Chef de l'Etat, pourquoi un Représentant du Premier Ministre n'assure pas la présidence du Comité de gestion pour autant que ça représente un cadre interministériel, et que le secrétariat permanant soit assuré par le Ministère en charge de l'Environnement ? 


S’il nous était demandé de revenir sur les conditions de création du Conseil Climat, nous dirions que l'idée part d'un comité interministériel changement climatique sous l'autorité du Premier Ministre présenté en son temps par le Ministre MABALA. Alors que le texte est en cours d'examen au Secrétariat Général du Gouvernement, le Conseiller du Président de la République nouvellement nommé fait irruption dans la salle et intimide les commissaires. Résultat, le Secrétariat Général du Gouvernement va surseoir à l'examen du texte. A la surprise générale, quelques mois plus tard, vers le mois d’avril 2010, le Ministre Mabala se verra présenter un décret à signer soumis par le Ministre Ministre Emile DOUMBA en charges des relations avec les Institutions Constitutionnelles. 


La question qui me brule les lèvres et celles des des observateurs de la question du climat au Gabon est la suivante : A-t-il fallu qu'un ancien Directeur général de l'environnement soit nommé à la Présidence de la République pour que cette Institution assume les questions de climat ? D'où sort soudainement l'expertise de Monsieur Massard en matière de climat alors qu'il n'est en contact de ces questions que lorsque l’ancien Vice Premier
Ministre, chargé de l’Environnement Madame Georgette KOKO le nomme Point Focal Climat ? Où en est-il avec sa spécialité de chercheur en biochimie?