Author: Tanya Marwah

While at COP22 in Morocco, I was also lucky enough to liaise with IUCN’s Ecosystem Based Adaptation (EBA) team, whom I helped with coordinating a couple of side events during the first week of the conference. With support from research organizations, NGOs and governments across the world, IUCN has taken the lead in creating an informal alliance, known as the Friends of EBA, or FEBA. FEBA partners range from The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International, to environmental ministries in Nepal and Germany, and UNFCCC Adaptation Fund representatives.

In their most reduced form, EBA approaches look for “nature-based solutions”, and attempt to leverage the central role of ecosystems and biodiversity in enhancing human adaptive capacity to respond to climate change. EBA can be defined as the conservation, management and restoration of ecosystems to combat climate change, and some examples of EBA include sustainable agriculture, IWRM, and mangroves restoration. Interestingly, while the term was introduced by conservationists, it is by design, a human-centered concept. The idea is simple – to help nature become a tool we can use.

FEBA partners were quick to recognize the positive feedback loop from pursuing EBA strategies – using and adapting resilient landscapes to tackle the ravages of climate change enhances both the health of ecosystems and species within them, and these landscapes then function as a buffer zone, like wetlands, which protect human settlements from further losses of life and property, when the next hurricane blows in.

On the one hand, EBA approaches are low cost, because they leverage existing natural infrastructure. However, they’re also site-specific, and are forced to depend on both the build-up of political will at the national level, and community buy-in at the local one. Paolo Domondon, from RARE’s Philippines office, reiterated the link between EBA effectiveness and community management, and how this buy-in would be more easily achieved through interventions that targeted behavioral changes in the community (in say, valuing their marine resources more highly) alongside capacity-building at the local level.

Small island states and low lying coastal states are the most vulnerable to natural disasters, and unavoidable climate change, such as sea level rise. Given their small economies and often limited populations, financing seems to inevitably come up in these kinds of conversations. Issus of equity, vulnerability, and historical responsibility prick sharpest here, especially considering – island states are bearing the brunt of climate change impacts, and adaptation financing is just barely getting off the ground.

In this context, Seychelles’ “debt-for-nature” swap is a genius stroke – it’s the first ever debt taken by a country to fund climate adaptation efforts, where the returns will be measured, at least in part, through a strong marine conservation component. With the Nature Conservancy’s stewardship, Paris Club creditors have extended a $30 million debt swap to the Seychelles government, which will be used to finance adaptation efforts, and in time also result in the establishment of an endowment for the continued protection of Seychelles’ oceans. Specifically, the financing would aid in the implementation of a Marine Spatial Plan, and requires more marine protected area coverage in the next 5 years.

Finally, one of the recurring themes across discussions on EBA was the desperate need for further research and data collection, and impact evaluation. Several speakers stressed the need to collect data and understand what we’re measuring when we’re trying to quantify the benefits arising from an EBA intervention. The point was made that when evaluating the benefits of EBA, we may also consider the potential “avoided losses” that would have otherwise accrued in the absence of entire ecosystems, or the ability to live in vulnerable coastal areas. Pradeep Kurukulasuriya, a UNDP panelist at one of the events, discussed the importance of using currently nascent EBA experiments as opportunities to evaluate the net impact associated with such programs, and donors backed this up by underscoring the need for actionable information that investors can rely on.

The bottom line is – while ecosystem based adaptation sounds great in principle, and has even in worked in practice, we must be ruthlessly honest about its efficacy and sustainability in varying geographies and at different points in time. Seeing as EBA is an evolving, nascent concept, it is very important to ask  – What criteria do we use to measure potential losses and benefits for an EBA intervention? Is there a financing/equity issue involved, and if so, how do we overcome this? What does “EBA success” look like?

Given my interest in climate justice and issues of equity in climate negotiations, I’ve followed the “climate fates” of small island developing states with much interest, post Paris. Thus, I focused my attention on attending both official negotiations and discussions as well as side events on the topics of adaptation, and loss and damage, including disaster insurance, while at COP22. In this first Part, I discuss a couple of side events at the COP that dealt with loss and damage, and climate insurance. In a second installment, I will attempt to explain the concept of Ecosystem Based Adaptation, which aims to provide an innovative approach to tackling adaptation challenges in the context of climate change.

One of the first events I attended at COP22 was an official side event titled “What would an inclusive framework to address L&D look like?” The panel began with the premise that “loss and damage” (L&D) has varying conceptions, and that attempting to understand what this meant elicited a spectrum of views from experts across the globe. While some suggest that L&D refers to all potential climate change impacts that may be dealt with through mitigation and adaptation, others (followers of the “existential typology”) emphasise the need for new L&D approaches to address the unavoidable harms that will fall upon vulnerable countries. Importantly, those that do not believe L&D is restricted to mitigation and adaptation action under the Convention also ask that it be applied to impacts of all climate-related events rather than just those that can be attributed to climate change, and that a focus is maintained on addressing vulnerability at the community level.

Panelists went on to discuss the role of risk analysis in helping identify a policy space for L&D frameworks, categorising L&D approaches into two buckets – curative measures for unavoidable and unavoided impacts (due to technical/financial constraints, but otherwise avoidable), and transformative measures to avoid or manage intolerable risks. A presentation focused on national mechanisms that could be deployed further highlighted the linkages between L&D and risk management regulation and infrastructure, including both insurance as well as disaster management frameworks.

Several speakers pointed out the importance of moving beyond the attribution debate (“Was this caused by human-induced climate change?”) towards a humanitarian perspective – for example, the very real existential threat to low-lying islands and coastal nations like Bangladesh was recognised as a serious issue, whether all the damage could be attributed to climate change, or not. Speakers talked about the need for legal protection from international law and financing for forced displacement caused by climate change, and mentioned the Nansen Initiative, in this regard. Given the complete refusal to consider including “compensation” within the L&D framework at Paris, and unfavourable international migration and refugee law architecture, this suggested shift in attitudes was heartening, to say the least.

At another side event, panelists discussed the importance of providing insurance solutions for adaptation. The consensus emerged that climate risk insurance could in fact contribute to building resilience amongst vulnerable communities, and a classic example of co-benefits would be the increases in agricultural productivity that are often experienced after a drought insurance scheme has been put in place.

Importantly, a researcher from the UN University’s Munich Climate Insurance Initiative shared 7 guiding “pro-poor” principles that would help make climate insurance work for those most vulnerable; these are listed and briefly discussed below –

1. Comprehensive needs based solutions – insurance schemes should be tailored to local needs and conditions, and integrated with comprehensive risk management strategies that improve resilience;
2. Value to client/community – insurance schemes must provide reliable coverage that is valuable to the insured, which is crucial for uptake;
3. Affordability – schemes must be made more affordable to increase coverage, and this is important to satisfy equity concerns;
4. Accessibility – aligning efficient and cost-effective delivery channels with the local context is key for scaling up;
5. Participation – inclusive, meaningful and accountable involvement of (potential) beneficiaries and other relevant local stakeholders – in the design, implementation and review of insurance products – creates trust and provides a basis for local ownership and political buy-in;
6. Sustainability – safeguarding economic, social and ecological sustainability is crucial; and
7. Enabling environment – actively building an enabling environment that accommodates and fosters pro-poor insurance solutions.

Finally, the panel wrapped up by discussing the value of climate insurance beyond compensation, highlighting other co-benefits such as the importance of knowing the “price tag” for risk through risk transparency, enabling increased individual/economic activity through providing a “safety net”, and building up research and data on the issue.

As excited as I was to attend COP22 this year, I felt a twinge of regret at missing witnessing in action what I was sure would be a momentous election – after all, America was going to install her first female President in the White House, am I right? Turns out I, along with a large swathe of the US of A, got that one wrong. Horribly wrong.

Midway through our first week at the COP, I awoke in Morocco to the completely unfathomable election results. As an international student, woman and POC living in America, I felt immediately threatened. Unsafe. Unwelcome. In a country I’ve fallen in love with in the one year since I came to grad school. Our Duke contingent, and other students and scholars I met over the course of the day, weren’t doing much better. Maybe it was just me projecting, but I could feel a shroud of despair cloak the COP’s proceedings that day. People huddled together discussing immediate potential ramifications, and students commiserated in informal support circles, while the US delegation blockaded itself and refused to speak to anyone, including the press on November 9, the day after elections. I found solace at a circle led by members of indigenous communities as well as NGO community organizers – several people in the audience cried softly as the speakers’ compassion overwhelmed those of us who were still in shock.

Our current President-elect has been quite adamant about his climate skepticism, from calling climate change a Chinese hoax, supporting cuts in clean energy funding, and pushing for more coal production, to threatening to dismantle the EPA and pull USA out of the Paris Agreement, the landmark climate action deal arrived at just last year at COP21. This is, to put it lightly, terrifying. And terrifyingly ignorant. Faced with these ominous and imminent consequences, finding the heart to “keep calm and carry on” at COP was difficult for me – I can’t imagine what Parties who depend on proactive US climate policy (and the concomitant funding) were feeling!

A few days later, we had the pleasure of getting a coffee with Prof. Nate Hultman, Director of UMD’s Center for Global Sustainability, to try and get a sense of what comes next for America and climate change, and what these elections mean for both the Paris Agreement (Agreement) as well as future climate action. Talking this out with someone who for one, knows what he’s talking about, and two, has worked in DC and with the White House closely on climate policy in the past, helped me adjust my lens on the issues and attempt to identify both potential stumbling blocks as well opportunities for climate action and policy in soon-to-be Trump country.

By all accounts, President-elect Trump isn’t a friend of the environment, or clean energy, in America. However, there does exist an elaborate system of checks and balances at the federal government level that prevent the man from running roughshod over every law and regulation he happens to take issue with. This is the semi-good news; more on the domestic angle in a minute.

I’d argue instead, that the international ramifications of his stance on climate change are more damaging, and likely more enduring. We could assume, given Trump’s support for the idea that America needs to revert to isolationist economic and development policies, that he will, at the very least, refuse to ratchet up international development aid, which includes a bulk of current climate finance commitments. In fact, sanctioning the disbursal of pledged amounts is an annual affair carried out by the (now predominantly red) Congress, so it’s safe to say that’s not something the global community can count on in the years to come. Further, the conspicuous absence of USA’s contributions to climate funding could easily lead to the breakdown of global cooperation on combating climate change, and would leave several developing and least developed countries in the lurch, without any financing to help them meet their mitigation, adaptation and reporting targets under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (Convention), and under the Agreement.

As for his threat to withdraw the US from the Agreement? Yes, this is actually possible, and could be triggered as early as January 2018, IF Trump were to withdraw from the Convention, under which the Agreement was adopted. Is he likely to do it? The jury’s out, but the hope is this climate change stuff just isn’t high enough on his agenda in the first year to merit the effort needed to implement these changes.

So, what’s the good news you ask? Let’s look at what opportunities and hurdles exist in the implementation of America’s domestic climate policies. President-elect Trump has named a climate science denier, Myron Ebell of the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, to head his EPA transition team. This is worrying, and points to the importance of tracking who Trump allows the privilege of having his ear, in his cabinet and in the White House.

However, notwithstanding his cabinet choices, the role of sub-national, regional and non-governmental actors can and must expand greatly, in the fight against climate change. Several progressive states have already implemented cap and trade programs, such as under California’s cap and trade statute, and under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative which serves nine American states. City corporations and municipalities can fight climate change through implementing local policies and regulation, and states could consider implementing carbon taxes and stricter fuel emissions standards without overreaching or interfering with federal environmental policy, over which it is assumed Trump will have considerable oversight, if he so wishes.

Further, even as the Clean Power Plan is being challenged in DC’s Circuit Court, utilities and other corporates are already making cost-effective investments in transformative clean energy technologies that are rapidly reducing emissions across the power sector. Over 350 such companies have even signed a statement directed at Trump and the US Congress, the week after elections, in support of the Clean Power Plan’s vision and the need to stay ambitious and on the “Paris path”. Similarly, the EPA regulates too many industries, natural resources and ecosystems, under too many statutes to be summarily disbanded, and President Trump would have to have his Congress enact new legislation replacing the EPA with another body tasked with their original functions – again, this is highly unlikely.

What’s the bottom line? As is true for a lot of his policy platforms, we know very little about the specifics of Trump’s environmental mandate. Backtracking on the Agreement and/or the Clean Power Plan would prove difficult if not impossible, and switching back to reliance on coal is short-sighted – the hope is that he does not prioritize these strategies over other items on the immediate agenda. A more successful approach might be to focus on climate efforts that capture the imagination of America’s new President, by playing into his weakness for big ideas and manufacturing, and leveraging his competitive streak against China. In the meanwhile, we should rally our regional partners and governments to fight harder than ever to protect our environment from the ravages of climate change and promote the adoption of clean energy – it is at the regional level that the real work begins, and it begins now.