Introduction to CRiSTAL (Climate Risk Screening Tool – Adaptation & Livelihoods)

1. Introduction to CRiSTAL (Climate Risk Screening Tool – Adaptation & Livelihoods) Jo-Ellen Parry, Program Manager, Climate Change and Energy jparry@iisd.ca Second IMI CLIMTRAIN workshop November 19, 2008

2. Outline of Session • Project Background • Introduction to the Tool • Zambia Case Study • Small Group Work • Feedback and Q&As

3. Project Background:Livelihoods and Climate Change • Initiated in 2001 as a response of the NGO community to the emerging need to adapt to climate change • Objective: Promote an integrated approach that draws from four communities that have long tackled vulnerability reduction: disaster risk reduction; environmental management; poverty reduction; and climate change. • Project goal: To strengthen the role of ecosystem management and restoration (EM&R) activities in reducing the vulnerability of communities to climate-related hazards and climate change • Partners: International Union for the Conservation of Nature; the Stockholm Environment Institute—US; Intercooperation; and IISD

4. Phase 1: Laying the Foundations(2001 to 2003) • Working with the four communities: • Established conceptual framework for vulnerability reduction • Identified, examined and communicated successful EM&R actions that reduce the vulnerability of communities to climate-related hazards and climate change • Mangroves in Vietnam; • Watershed restoration in India; • Aquifer management in Iran; • Forest landscape restoration in Central America • Main conclusions: • Starting point of adaptation: reducing current vulnerabilities • Need for bottom-up, local level adaptation • Vulnerability reduction must be based on livelihoods • Livelihoods of the poor are heavily dependent on environmental resources  adaptation must integrate NRM / EM&R activities

5. Phase One Finished…Where Next? Phase One: • Provided examples of EM&R actions that reduce vulnerability to climate-related disasters and climate change • Increased understanding of EM&R practitioners that their activities may potentially enhance adaptive capacity…but how to integrate this understanding systematically into projects? Phase Two: • Focus on the development and field test of a practical tool that facilitates risk reduction and adaptation • Focus on community-based EM&R and Sustainable Livelihood projects

7. CRiSTAL: Introduction Rationale • Community-level projects may improve adaptive capacity or constrain it…but the link may not be obvious. • Need a decision support tool to assess this link. Goal • To promote the integration of climate change adaptation into community-level projects

8. CRiSTAL: Why? Purpose • Help users to systematically understand the links between livelihoods and climate • Enable users to assess a project’s impact on community-level adaptive capacity • Assist users in making adjustments to a project to improve its impact on adaptive capacity

9. CRiSTAL: Who? How? Users • Community-level project designers and managers Approach • Draw on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) model • Use SL Framework to focus on elements of coping / adaptive capacity at local level • Logical, user-friendly, participatory process Format: • Excel-based program available on-line and in CD-ROM format

10. CRiSTAL: Assumptions • Useful and usable local climate change information not accessible / available • Can use current climate situation as basis for analysis • Users (i.e. project designers/managers) have adequate information on local climate and livelihood context to use tool quickly • CRiSTAL can support efforts to develop an adaptation strategy suited to the specific needs of the user

11. Developing & testing CRiSTAL

12. CRiSTAL’s structure M1: Synthesizing info on climate and livelihoods Q1: What is the climate context • Impacts of climate change? • Current hazards • Impacts of hazards • Coping strategies • Q2: What is livelihood context? • Resources? • How affected by hazards? • How important to coping? M2: Planning and managing projects for adaptation Q3: What are impacts of project activities on livelihood resources that are… • Vulnerable to climate risks? • Important to coping? • Q4: How can project activities be adjusted to reduce vulnerability and enhance adaptive capacity? • Synergies and barriers

13. CRiSTAL Consultations • Local visits & consultations key • Consultations involve: • Introductory discussion on climate change • Current climate stresses • Livelihoods—how affected by climate and current coping strategies • Two General Approaches • Consultations feed into tool • Go through tool with community • Consultation formats • Informal discussions • Organised workshops • Something in between… • Multiple consultations – focus on different social groups

20. Early findings & lessons • CRiSTAL provides a useful framework for understanding the links between climate change, people’s livelihoods and potential impacts of project activities on adaptive capacities • But it is really only a framework – it won’t do the analysis for you. • CRiSTAL framework is adaptable • Can also be a validation process – validating local observations; existing project strategies • Adjustments are often small; are not asking project managers to do anything drastically different • Participatory process is time-consuming but essential • CRiSTAL can complement other tools on the ‘market’

21. Example: Zambia

22. IUCN Climate Change & Development Project Pilot phase in Zambia January to September 2007 Objective: Ensure that national policies and development interventions in Zambia reduce vulnerability and enhance adaptive capacity to climate change Full-size project in Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique December 2007 to December 2010 Objective: CC related policies and strategies lead to adaptation activities that emphasize the role of forests and water resources in supporting people’s livelihoods and associated farming systems

23. CC Assessments using CRiSTAL • Get an indication of the risks related to climate change at the local level • Introduce CRiSTAL to implementing teams of four on-going projects, helping them assess climate-related risks and adjust project activities so they do not have negative impacts on local coping strategies • Provide information on climate hazards and local coping strategies to decision-makers and other actors involved in national level climate change policy (e.g. NAPA and National Communication processes)

24. Project Sites & Agroecological Zones CRiSTAL used with 8 rural stakeholder groups at 4 field project sites located in 3 different agro-ecological zones

25. CRiSTAL Process Module 1: Setting climate and livelihood contexts • Meetings with 8 rural community groups: beekeepers, members of women’s clubs, members of charcoal burners association, farmers, fishermen, and members of village resource management committees Module 2: Planning and managing projects for CC adaptation Meetings with: • Local project teams • Staff from development organizations and programmes • Government officials from departments of forestry, agriculture, and fisheries

28. Results: Climate Hazards • Variability is a feature of the Zambian climate, which has a history of droughts and floods • Community consultations revealed rise in the frequency and severity of extreme events, including droughts, floods and high temperatures, and decrease in length of the rainy season • Findings in line with IPCC climate change observations and predictions for the 20th and 21st centuries: • ↑ frequency of warm spells and heat waves over most land area • warmer and more frequent hot days and nights • ↑ area affected by drought • ↑ frequency of heavy precipitation events

29. Results: Impacts of climate hazards

30. Results: Impacts of climate hazards (2) • The rise in extreme climatic events is negatively affecting the natural, physical, financial, and human resources that are crucial for people’s livelihoods, and is leading to increased food insecurity and health issues • The severity of current impacts points out the communities’ high vulnerability to climate change and variability • CC not the only factor involved (e.g. resource management plays a role as well), but CC provides an additional threat that adds to, interacts with, and can reinforce existing risks, placing additional strains on the livelihoods and coping strategies of communities

31. Results: LR most affected by hazards

32. Results: Coping strategies • Current coping strategies include: • income diversification (charcoal burning, honey production, fishing, grass selling) • gathering wild foods from the forest • using medicinal plants to treat diseases • However, these coping strategies are not sufficient to deal effectively with present climate change and variability • When facing climate hazards, small scale farmers rely heavily on access to alternative natural resources from forests and wetlands • e.g. wood, charcoal, grass, honey, wild plants, fish

33. Results: LR resources most important to coping

34. Results: Impact of activities on key LR resources • Most project activities had both + and - potential impacts on resources that are important for people’s adaptation • Project teams were able to come up with small modifications to project activities in order to: • decrease potential negative impacts on livelihood resources • increase positive impacts • transform neutral impacts into positive impacts • Completion of the synergies and barriers matrix allowed project teams to see if these modifications were feasible and which barriers would need to be removed

35. Results: Adjusting project activities Examples of activities analyzed in Luapula Province (PLARD project) • Setting up fish processing facilities • Promoting productivity of cassava • Fishing (as alternative food and income source) and increasing production of cassava (which is drought resilient) are important coping strategies to deal with drought and floods But, due to current climate variability and change: • Fish stocks ↓due to higher water temp (exacerbated by continued over-fishing) • Big post-harvest cassava losses due to very high humidity levels during storage Modifications proposed by project teams: • Promote local fisheries management groups and sustainable fishing practices • Possibility to introduce fish farming, instead of solely relying on wild fish stocks – this would need an impact assessment as well • Development of techniques for cassava storage – should be a priority before promoting cassava productivity

36. Results: Adjusting project activities (2) • Going through the process provided the opportunity for project teams to understand more clearly links between project activities and CC vulnerability and adaptation • Also useful in sensitizing project teams, governments and communities on the necessity of including CC as an important issue in decision making

38. SMALL GROUP WORK

39. QUESTIONS?