Climate Change and Livelihoods

LIVELIHOODS ON THIN ICE

Climate change represents a profound challenge to the lives and livelihoods of everyone, but particularly those living in developing economies acutely dependent on natural and nature-based resources. If the international community fails to act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, it is estimated that the damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more. In contrast, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established by UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization, suggests that less than 1% of GDP spent over the next 30 years may be sufficient to avoid the worst.

The challenge is brought into sharp focus in regard to glaciers, where accelerated melting is threatening entire ways of life and, indeed, life itself. Data from almost 30 reference glaciers in nine mountain ranges indicate that between the years 2004-2005 and 2005-2006, the average rate of melting and thinning more than doubled.

The findings by the World Glacier Monitoring Service, which is supported by UNEP, confirm and bring forward the 2007 forecasts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. These indicate that glaciers, for example in the Himalayas, could in large part disappear by the 2030s unless urgent action is taken to decisively reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

WHEN THE GLACIERS OF THE WORLD ARE MELTING

The implications are sobering. The current trends in glacial melt suggest that the Ganges Indus, Brahmaputra and other rivers that criss-cross the northern Indian plain may become seasonal rivers in the near future as a consequence of climate change, with important ramifications for poverty and the economies in the region. Half a billion people in the Himalaya-Hindu-Kush region and a quarter billion downstream who rely on glacial melt waters for drinking water, agriculture and industrial use could be seriously affected.

Meanwhile, there is also concern over the emergence of vast lakes, the result of accelerated glacial melt, and their associated Glacial Lake Outburst Floods, or GLOFs, which can send huge quantities of water down valleys when these artificially-created water bodies burst their soil and stone banks.

A recent survey by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, in collaboration with partners including UNEP, pinpointed over 2,300 glacial lakes. Field studies of the six glacial lakes in Bhutan indicate that more than 20 of them are now considered potentially dangerous to communities and livelihoods.

Concerns over melting glaciers are not confined to Asia. In the Pyrenees, Spanish scientists recently reported that glaciers there had shrunk by up to 90%. In the United States, where hydro-power companies in California are already drawing up coping strategies in respect to reduced snow-melt, the IPCC says that “Heavily-utilised water systems of the western US and Canada, such as the Columbia River, that rely on capturing snowmelt runoff will be especially vulnerable”.

A 2˚C warming by the 2040s is likely to lead to sharply reduced summer flows coinciding with sharply rising demand. The experts estimate that Portland, Oregon, for example, will by then require over 26 million additional cubic metres of water as a result of climate change and population growth. This will coincide with a fall in summer supplies from the Columbia River by an estimated five million cubic metres.

Meanwhile, scientists warn that in Latin America most of the tropical glaciers could melt away during the period 2020 to 2030 with the trend already reaching critical conditions in Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. Changes in temperature and humidity are the primary cause for the observed glacier retreat during the second half of the 20th century in the tropical Andes.

In the next 15 years, inter-tropical glaciers are very likely to disappear, affecting water availability and the generation of hydropower.

THE ARCTIC - THE SMALLEST AREA OF SEA-ICE EVER

The situation in the Arctic is also of acute concern, especially for indigenous peoples who rely heavily on marine resources and hunting.

In 2008, the second smallest area of Arctic sea-ice was left following the summer thaw since satellite monitoring began in 1979. The National Snow and Ice Center in the United States found that the minimum sea-ice cover, which occurred on 12 September, was somewhere over 4.52 million square kilometres. “While 2008 saw 10% more ice cover than in 2007, the lowest figure on record, it was still more than 30% below the average for the past three decades. Taken together, the two summers have no parallel,” according to UNEP’s Year Book 2009.

For the second year in a row, there was an ice-free channel in the Northwest Passage through the islands of northern Canada. 2008 also witnessed the opening of the Northern Sea Route along the Arctic Siberian coast – the two passages have probably not been open simultaneously since before the last ice age some 100,000 years ago.

How these developments will affect Arctic communities will depend to a large extent on the governments of the region in terms of management, including management of shipping, but also the rapidly emerging prospect of more intense fisheries. Already, however, the thinning ice and increasing number of extreme weather events are taking their toll. For example, there is concern about the Sámi and their reindeer herds facing food shortages as a result of climate change.

The impact on lives is also grimly chronicled in a small cemetery in Iqaluit, Canada, on the shores of Frobisher Bay, where victims include those whose snowmobiles have plunged through thin ice and others on ships that have overturned in unusually strong winds. Other impacts include those that result from the thawing of permafrost, including the slumping and buckling of infrastructure such as buildings, roads and pipelines.

LIVELIHOODS AND SEA LEVELS

The melting of ice in the Arctic also has implications for the whole world, particularly coastal regions. It is estimated, for example, that 30% of Africa’s coastal infrastructure could be inundated, including coastal settlements in the Gulf of Guinea, Senegal, the Gambia and Egypt.

The situation appears to be even more serious than had previously been thought. The Greenland ice sheet, which could raise sea levels by six metres if it melted away, is currently losing more than 100 cubic kilometres a year – faster than can be explained by natural melting. Losses from the West Antarctic ice sheet have increased by 60% between 1996 and 2006, while the losses from the Antarctic Peninsula have increased by 140%.

In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated that sea levels might rise by between 18 cm and 59 cm in the coming century. But many researchers now believe the rise will be even higher, partly as a result of new assessments of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. One study estimates a sea level rise of between 0.8 and 1.5 metres, while another suggests a sea level rise of two metres in the coming century from outflows of ice from Greenland alone.

A one-metre rise in sea levels worldwide would displace millions of people: around 100 million people in Asia, mostly Bangladesh, eastern China and Vietnam; 14 million in Europe; and eight million each in Africa and South America. It is not just higher sea levels, but the combination of these and more extreme weather events that risk lives and livelihoods.

Towards the end of the century – in a strong warming scenario – a current one-in-a-hundred-year flood in New York, for example, could have a return period of three to four years, according to the IPCC.

LIVELIHOODS AND AGRICULTURE

Extreme weather events and other phenomena related to climate change will be of key concern to agricultural-based communities, coming as they do against a backdrop of population rise allied to the current, less than optimal, management of croplands, water usage and the entire food production and distribution chain.

A recent report by UNEP, The Environmental Food crises: Environment’s role in averting future food crises, suggests that, globally, water scarcity may reduce crop yields by up to 12%.

• Climate change may also accelerate the incidence of invasive pests – insects, diseases and weeds – reducing yields by an additional 2-6% worldwide by 2050.
  
• Meanwhile, continuing land degradation, particularly in Africa, may reduce yields by another 1-8%.
  
• Eight to 20% of croplands may also be lost to urban sprawl, biofuels, cotton and land degradation by 2050.
  
• Yields may become depressed by 5-25% due to pests, water scarcity and land degradation.
  

There is also increasing concern about the productivity of the oceans, not least the impact of rising levels of carbon dioxide on the pH of the marine environment and the implications for fisheries and shell-building organisms at the base of the food chain.

In Dead Water, a report spearheaded by UNEP, says increasing acidification may reduce the availability of calcium carbonates in sea water, including a key one known as aragonite, which is used by a variety of organisms for shell-building. Cold-water and deep-water corals could be affected by acidification by 2050, as could shell-building organisms throughout the Southern Ocean and into the sub-Arctic Pacific Ocean by 2100.

These are just some of the reasons the world needs to act on climate change, not least because of the impact on livelihoods.

LIVELIHOODS - THE CLIMATE FOR OPPORTUNITY

It is clear that the best form of adaptation is mitigation. Emissions of greenhouse gases must be cut and cut fast in order to stabilise concentrations in the atmosphere and stem future temperature rises.

Acting on climate change should be seen not as a brake on economic activity or livelihoods but rather as an accelerator to a low carbon, more resource-efficient and innovative global economy.

Under the banner of UNEP’s Global Green New Deal/Green Economy initiative, we have been working with the International Labour Organization, trades unions and employers bodies. The Green Jobs report says that:

• In recent years, 2.3 million people have found new jobs in the renewable energy sector alone, and the potential for job growth in the sector is huge. 
  
• Employment in alternative energies may rise to 2.1 million in wind and 6.3 million in solar power by 2030. 
  
• Renewable energy generates more jobs than employment in fossil fuels. Projected investment of US$630 billion by 2030 would translate into at least 20 million additional jobs in the renewable energy sector.
  
• In agriculture, 12 million people could be employed in biomass, for energy and related industries. In a country like Venezuela, an ethanol blend of 10% in fuels might provide one million jobs in the sugar cane sector by 2012.
  

A worldwide transition to energy-efficient buildings would create millions of jobs, as well as ”greening” existing employment for many of the estimated 111 million people already working in the construction sector.

Investment in improved energy efficiency in buildings could generate an additional 2 - 3.5 million green jobs in Europe and the United States alone, with the potential much higher in developing countries.

In Nigeria, a sustainable biofuels industry based on cassava and sugar cane crops might sustain an industry employing 200,000 people. India could generate 900,000 jobs in biomass gasification by 2025; of these, 300,000 would be in the manufacture of stoves and 600,000 in areas such as processing into briquettes and pellets, and the fuel supply chain.

In South Africa, the government-backed Working for Water initiative – which employs more than 30,000 people, including women, young people and the disabled – also sees opportunity in crisis. The country spends roughly $60 million annually on fighting invasive alien plants that threaten native wildlife, water supplies, important tourism destinations and farmland. This work is set to expand as more than 40 million tons of invasive alien plants are harvested for power-station fuel. As a result, an estimated 500 megawatts of electricity, equal to 2% of the country’s electricity needs, will be generated, along with more than 5,000 jobs.

LIVELIHOODS - ADAPTATION

Even with action to curb emissions, many societies, and especially vulnerable ones, will need to adapt and will need assistance to do so in order to preserve, but also enhance, livelihoods. Let me mention just a few of the many options that need to be explored. Take rainwater harvesting, for example.

Kenya, with a population of somewhere under 40 million people, actually has enough rainfall to supply the needs of six to seven times its current population.

Ethiopia, where just over a fifth of the population is covered by domestic water supply and an estimated 46% of the population suffers hunger, has a potential rainwater harvest equivalent to the population needs of over 520 million people.

Unlike big dams, which collect and store water over large areas, small-scale rainwater harvesting projects lose less water to evaporation because the rain or run-off is collected locally and can be stored in a variety of ways.

Rainwater harvesting equipment, including containers and mini-reservoirs or “earth pans”, have been installed in a Maasai community in Kisamese, Kajiado, some 30 minutes drive from Nairobi in the Ngong Hills. The project has the capacity to store over half a million litres of water and has led to the development of small kitchen gardens and improved agricultural plots that are contributing to food security. Wood lots, which can be harvested for fuel for cooking, have also been established.

Agnes Mosoni Loirket, a Maasai community leader in Kisamese, told the UN climate convention meeting in Nairobi in 2006 that the accessibility of water has lessened the work-load and the amount of time spent fetching water. “Before the project, some women used to leave early and sleep close to the river, leaving school children going to school unattended... that has all changed,” she said.

SMALL INTERVENTIONS MAKE A DIFFERENCE

The five-year Assessments of Impacts and Adaptations to Climate Change, funded by the Global Environment Facility and carried out by UNEP in cooperation with 350 researchers, the START secretariat in Washington DC and the Academy of Science for the Developing World in Trieste, Italy, also highlighted some shining examples.

Three case studies were undertaken in Sudan – one in the dry, drought-prone and often degraded lands of Bara Province of North Kordofan; another in Arbaat, Red Sea State; and a third at El Fashir, North Darfur – to see if communities can be made more resilient to climatic shocks. The findings indicate that relatively minor but well thought out interventions can boost livelihoods and reduce vulnerability if they are supported by community involvement and, in many cases, involve the empowerment of women and services such as veterinary facilities and micro-credit.

In Bara, small-scale irrigated vegetable gardens, pest management, a switch from goats to sheep, sand dune stabilisation and other measures have been tested as adaptive measures. The project in Bara has seen land rehabilitation rise by almost 60%, the carrying capacity for livestock rise by over 45% and forage production climb by 48%.

In Arbaat, various practical and institutional measures have been tested, including the deployment of rainwater harvesting and tree planting alongside micro credit schemes, adult literacy for women and training for improved agricultural practices. The work in Arbaat has led to land productivity increasing by 12% and crop productivity by almost 20%, with improvements in both the quality and quantity of water.

Meanwhile, research by UNEP and the UN Conference on Trade and Development has spotlighted the adaptive and livelihood benefits of organic agriculture, focusing on 114 small-scale farmers in over 20 African countries.

Yields had more than doubled where organic or near-organic practices had been used, with the yield jumping to 128% in east Africa. The study found that organic practices outperformed traditional methods and chemical-intensive conventional farming, and also found strong environmental benefits such as improved soil fertility, better retention of water and resistance to drought. The research also highlighted the role that adapting organic practices could have in improving local education and community cooperation.

"GREEN" THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

Climate change represents a major challenge to people’s livelihoods in developing as well as developed economies. In the past, societies facing shortages and tough times could move elsewhere, but this is becoming less and less possible in a world of six billion people, rising to over nine billion.

However, combating climate change also represents an important chance to “green” the global economy and create a sustainable economy for the 21st century, a century in which companies and communities that manage scarce or finite resources more intelligently are rewarded; a century in which a new generation of decent employment prospects is possible if, in crisis, we embrace opportunity.