Implementing Adaptation Strategies by Legal, Economic and Planning Instruments on Climate Change

In international law, a regime includes the entirety of rules and practices within one or several interrelated international treaties (Verheyan 2002). The climate change regime, for the purpose of this chapter, has been connoted as the collection of principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures in international climate change negotiations (Paavola and Adger 2006, see also Krasner 1982; Young 1994). This regime basically has emerged in the context of the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) of 1992 which provides a framework in international law for mitigation as well as adaption as climate response strategy. The term ‘adaptation’, though widely used in climate change agenda, is generally considered as an underdeveloped part of the legal regime of climate change (Linnerooth-Bayer and Meckler 2006). This is because, till date, international climate discourse is mainly focused on mitigation policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for addressing climate change impacts. In that respect, the developed countries agreed, under Article 3.1 of the Kyoto Protocol, for emission reductions by at least 5 % from 1990 between 2008 and 2012. However, scientific research already proved that even the most stringent mitigation efforts cannot avoid severe impacts of climate change in the next few decades (Srinivasan 2006). Most alarmingly, several impacts of climate change have already been evident in many ecosystems and economic sectors as reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its Third Assessment Report (TAR). To cope with these consequences and moderate the impacts of climate change, adaptation as a policy has become prominent in recent climate discourses. These concerns drag the focus on legal aspects of adaptation in the international climate change regime.

The single most promising legal and political opportunity for simultaneously preserving tropical forests and combating climate change in the near future is the developing REDD+ mechanism (for summaries of REDD+ proposals see Parker et al. 2009). REDD+ has been understood primarily, if not exclusively, as a mitigation mechanism by most commentators because it has the potential to significantly reduce the nearly 20 % of global greenhouse gas emissions attributable to the forest and land use sector. However, as REDD+ becomes established, it will inevitably have a significant impact on adaptation in tropical forest regions. This impact will not necessarily be beneficial, but design choices made now—in the early stages of REDD+ development—can shape the mechanism to become a profoundly valuable instrument for advancing adaptation in tropical forest countries (for in-depth discussion see Long 2011; for a discussion focusing on biodiversity benefits see Long 2009). This chapter discusses the options for designing REDD+ to maximize adaptation benefit while retaining its mitigation value.

Energy innovation is a cutting edge and crucial element of addressing climate change. Environmentally sound technology can be commercially deployed over the next decade to achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions in line with scientific recommendations. Global greenhouse gas emissions have risen approximately 50 % since 1970 and are projected to rise by another half by 2030 (Krittivas 2009). In our scramble to understand the recent financial crisis, the international community continues to respond inadequately to the larger threat that climate change poses to security. International indecision regarding who will pay for climate change mitigation and adaptation has exceeded rational behavior. Good governance enhances sustainable development, participation, human rights, rule of law, anti-corruption, transparency, accountability, and access to information (UNESCO 2005). Procedural and substantive measures are at the core of the international community’s ability to agree upon a binding legal framework on climate change.

Though there is much solid evidence that anthropogenic climate change has already had and will increasingly have substantial adverse effects on biota and ecological processes, the chief barrier to effective natural resource governance over the next few decades will likely be the exceptional uncertainty that accompanies attempts to adapt to the effects of climate change on natural systems. Consequently, the effective adaptation of natural resource management to climate change hinges on the development of a regulatory infrastructure that provides public and private actors the capacity to assess and manage uncertainty. This chapter briefly sketches the options originally considered for natural resource governance in the United States, their insufficiency in the key function of managing uncertainty, and how to build a more effective federal system for managing natural resources in preparation for climate change. Uncertainty underscores the value of regulatory experimentation and learning in a largely decentralized and overlapping federal system, and suggests a crucial role for national governments and international institutions of promoting agency learning and inter-jurisdictional information sharing.

Although climate change has been prominently featured on the global scientific and political agendas since the World Climate Conference in 1979 (WCC 1979), the specific importance of adaptation to climate change has only been underlined about 20 years later. The Netherlands, because it lies largely under sea level, has much to benefit from climate change adaptation. Surprisingly, however, although the Netherlands has been very active in pursuing international climate change politics, the country has not put much effort in politicizing climate change adaptation internationally in this early period and domestically published its National Adaptation Strategy only as late as 2007. This chapter attempts to explain the evolution of Dutch climate change adaptation strategies. It examines adaptation policies in four climate-related sectors (water, nature, agriculture and spatial planning) to identify general patterns regarding adaptation strategies in the Netherlands.

The effects of climate change are a growing risk factor for companies. Apart from direct (e.g. extreme whether) and indirect consequences (e.g. emission ceiling, damage to a company’s reputation) climate change is likely to increasingly become the subject of court proceedings, as demonstrated internationally. The article attempts to identify possible risks of liability for damage caused by climate change under German Law (esp. law of torts) as well as take a brief look at the future regarding internalization of the adaptation costs for climate change.

On February 16, 2005, the legal framework for emission reduction according to the Kyoto Protocol and the Burden Sharing Agreement came into force. The Kyoto Protocol includes three main mechanisms for emission reduction, namely Emission Trading, Joint Implementation and Clean Development (Kyoto Protocol 1997). The target is to achieve, by 2012, an emission reduction of greenhouse gases of at least 5 % compared to the basis year 1990. The European Community (since 01.01.1992 European Union) member states are in obligation to reduce their emission output by 8 % (Konzak and Heßler 2006). Complementarily, the Burden Sharing Agreement regulates the contribution quota of every European Union member state to emission reduction until 2012 (Elspas and Stewing 2006). Therefore, in 2005, with introduction of the first trading period (2005–2007), the European Community established the use of the Emission Trading mechanism. Thus, the European Community implemented, as one of the first regions world-wide, one of the three environment protection mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol. As a result, the companies were compelled to trade for a right which had previously been free of charge, namely the right to pollute the air. Already in the first trading period several million emission allowances have been traded. This first emission trading period involved 1,200 companies and 12,000 plants across the 25 European Community member states (Sandhoevel 2006). The companies concerned can be found especially in carbon-intensive industries, such as energy industry and refinery industry. Those industries obtained 78 % of the emission allowances. The production companies, such as coking plant, steel industry, cement industry, glass industry, ceramic industry, cellulose industry, paper industry, got the remaining 22 % of the allowances. In the focus of the companies’ emission reduction were plants related to energy transformation (Salje 2006).

The observations of the climate and the Earth atmosphere during the past 200 years have showed that in the recent years the temperature tends to increase on the global scale. Such an increase is posing a problem in many regions, due to its observable consequences visible as droughts, erosion, scarcity of water for the drinking purposes, etc. Scientists and decision makers are making currently efforts to stop, minimize or at least delay these negative effects. Several policies and strategies are being developed to combat the climate change. The question, however, arises with respect to the efficiency and feasibility of such actions. There is no way to assure the success of all those actions; however, several tools are already being available for the assessment and modelling of the future results being the consequence of the present actions and decisions being currently made. One such a tool is a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). LCA allows decision makers to assess the environmental impact of the product, service or activity before such a product or service is even offered on the market. Simultaneously, the product’s future environmental impacts may be analysed using various scenarios and assumptions. Thus, the potentials dangers may be highlighted and avoided before they occur in the reality. This chapter will analyse and compare the traditional use of this technique and confront single-product LCA with the studies influencing the decision making concerning the climate change on the national and international level. In the first sections of the chapter, the overview of the most important facts about the methodology, tools, and the recent developments of the LCA technique will be given. This will include the ISO standards as well as national and international laws, basing on the LCA principles, such as Energy-using Products Directive and the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) in Germany. Since the LCA principles are incorporated also in the nonbinding standards and agreements, the most important of them will be presented as well.

However, the relatively straightforward modelling of the industrial products, were the material and waste streams are well recognized, complicates when coming to the energy generation from the biomass. The main problems that LCA practitioner encounters in the practice as well as modelling approaches will be presented and discussed in the second section of the chapter. This will include the allocation methodologies for the simultaneous production of the electricity and thermal energy, and/or the question of indirect influence of the products on the environment, being outside the product system analyzed. Such indirect impacts (as i.e. indirect land-use change) may totally change the picture of the bioenergy production in the future, additionally punishing several technologies for the damages made in the developing countries, but simultaneously creating additional advantages for the other bioenergy pathways.

The next section of the chapter will present specific examples of the LCA projects, which show the differences between the LCA approaches on the single-product level as well as the national and international programme level. In the first case, the LCA study will be presented, which has been done for the Siemens Power Generation and compares the LCA results of the two gas turbines. Thus, the product impact on the climate and the GHG emissions may be analysed. In the second case, a study will be discussed which aimed at pointing out the most environmentally friendly (and thus, being worth of the further financial and tax support) biomass conversion pathways for the production of the bioenergy/biofuel from the renewable resources. This includes resources such as straw, manure, wood, etc. converted with the available and promising technologies.

Another possibility of using the LCA technique on the international level will be shown on the example of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). In this case, the LCA may be used effectively as the support tool for the evaluation of the CDM actions, resulting in the reduction of the greenhouse-gas emissions in the developing countries at the lower cost that the same reduction would cause in the developed countries. The possibilities and advantages, but also potential shortcomings of the LCA technique applied in the framework of the CDM methodology will be discussed.

Water is one of the most important natural resources in the context of adaptation to global climate change (GWP 2007). The changing global climate is leading to significant effects on the availability and allocation of water in most river basins. Water collection, filtration and storage in wetlands will play an increasingly important role to secure drinking water and fish supply, availability of water for irrigation and wastewater management or even flood protection. Wetlands provide important services for local communities (e.g. food, drinking water, wild products and raw materials for industry) and play an important role in water purification, flow regulation, and spreading of waterborne diseases. At the same time many wetlands are vulnerable to climate change, e.g. to changes in water allocation or nutrient loading. Junk (2002) and Zsuffa et al. (2008) predict that the increased droughts, water consumption and waste water production will result in further degradation of wetland ecosystems worldwide.

Climate change is a worldwide environmental phenomenon that needs urgent attention by minimizing the impacts through different adaptation processes particularly in developing countries (DCs). This paper exposes some climate change challenges facing developing countries in the twenty-first century. It provides a brief insight into the main factors that predispose Nigeria to the adverse effects of climate change and gives an overview of potential impact of climate change in the Nigeria’s Niger Delta region. The paper attempts to justify the need for developing climate change adaptation polices in the region and calls for mainstreaming climate change and adaptation in development plans and programs. The need for adaptation planning through sustainable urban development is also discussed. The paper suggests possible measures to tackle the challenging risks posed by climate variability and change in the area, such measures may be through the application of appropriate legal frameworks. The legal framework as an adaptation measure will encourage the robust implementation of climate change policies in the area. It will further strengthen decision-making related to the implementation of relevant adaptation plans and programs (PPPs). By establishing appropriate legal and institutional frameworks, a win-win approach geared towards climate change adaptation and mitigation will be achieved in tandem. This can also help in achieving the focal dimensions of sustainable development—socioeconomic development, the conservation of the environment and natural resource base, as well as human well being. Thus, the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will be reinforced in Nigeria and, especially in the Niger Delta region.

Even in the unlikely case that the world soon adopts an ambitious policy to mitigate emissions from gases that cause climate change, it is highly likely that there will still be a substantial increase in global temperature (IPCC 2007). This increase will lead to significant changes in climatic conditions which are expected to become a major threat for biodiversity (Sala et al. 2000). According to a study by Thomas et al. (2004) who estimated extinction risks for sample regions that cover some 20 % of the Earth’s terrestrial surface, 15–37 % of species will be committed to extinction by 2050.

Ukraine is an active participant in global action addressing climate change for the benefit of present and future generations. Ukraine signed and ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in which it was included to the list of Annex I countries as an industrial country with economy in transition. Furthermore, Ukraine’s participation in the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC demonstrates its support of international commitments on climate protection, as well as asserts its aspiration for EU membership in a long-term perspective.

In the recent past, the world has experienced an increasing trend of devastating environmental disasters. The scientific community has agreed that the frequent occurrence of these disasters is closely related to anthropogenic climate change. The victims of environmental disasters—whether from the private or public sector—often face enormous damages. The Western world often tries to cover potential damages by means of insurance. But this only works in very few cases. Existing insurance policies may cover only an insignificant part of the enormous damage. As a result, concern has arisen with respect to the insurability of climate change environmental disasters. This paper aims at clarifying the question of whether and under what circumstances it is possible to secure the risks caused by climate change environmental disasters through risk management. It also highlights the role of different actors within risk management.

With irrefutable evidences from around the globe, climate change impacts are being felt and are adding significantly to the development challenges in ensuring food security and alleviating poverty particularly to most Sub-Saharan African countries as a whole (Low 2005) and the Sudano-Sahel region of Cameroon in particular. This is strongly due to the fact that agriculture is the mainstay in the region where the majority of the population is very dependent on rain-fed agriculture, accounting for more than 90 % of staple food productivity (Calzadilla et al. 2008). Subsistence agriculture provides food, power, stability and resilience of rural livelihood. With the growing number of extreme weather events, the societal vulnerability to the risk associated with climate change and land degradation will exacerbate the present on-going socio-economic challenges in ensuring the food security and livelihood of ruralites.

Today, climate change has become a global problem. Because of the extreme climatic manifestations in many parts of the world, climate change has been drawn to the centre of most discussions. So perhaps the most spectacular and worrying issue which is very poorly understood is the aspect of climate change. As the short- and long-term implications of the phenomenon could have negative impacts on man and his environment, it has logically become an issue of global concern.

Climate change is one of the current global environmental challenges of great concern to the international community. Developing countries such as Cameroon will likely suffer most from its impacts partly because of high dependence on climate-sensitive natural resources such as forests and limited capacity to adapt to the changing climate. Cameroon’s forest ecosystem supplies goods and services for local livelihoods and national development. As climate change will have an undesirable impact on the functioning of the forest ecosystem, the livelihoods of the people that depend on it become inevitably vulnerable. Conservation and Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) for climate change mitigation and adaptation is one of the main responses to this challenge worth examining. Cameroon has taken some conservation and SFM initiatives that could potentially contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Based primarily on thorough review and analysis of policy and law documents as well as relevant literature, this chapter presents Cameroon’s forest sector conservation and management initiatives, especially efforts to practice SFM and the potentials of these initiatives to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation. It identifies the problems often encountered in practicing SFM beneficial for climate change mitigation and adaptation, and proffers recommendations for improvement.

In our modern, technology-based society the constant—actually unlimited—availability of raw materials of energy at low economical costs is a central functional condition. Both the German economy and private households depend heavily on the sufficient supply of cheap energy. The continuous and very one-sided focus on conventional forms of energy is increasingly proving to be a problem because the unpredictability of long-term ecological consequences of the use of fossil energy carriers on the global climate on one hand and the uncontrollability of the risks of atomic energy generation on the other set tasks on our society that can hardly be solved. Furthermore, the limited availability of fossil energy carriers coupled with increasing global energy needs is proving to be a problem. The constantly increasing energy needs of established industrialized nations have, in recent years, met the rapidly increasing demand for energy of transition countries such as China, India or Brazil. In view of the increasing shortage of resources, this has lead to horrific price development in world markets. On a long-term basis, the goal of a conscious energy policy—national as well as international—can therefore only be the development and establishment of alternative energy generation concepts based on regenerative energy carriers. However, the implementation of this objective in practice proves to be very problematic.

In our modern, technology-based society the constant—actually unlimited—availability of raw materials of energy at low economical costs is a central functional condition. Both the German economy and private households depend heavily on the sufficient supply of cheap energy. The continuous and very one-sided focus on conventional forms of energy is increasingly proving to be a problem because the unpredictability of long-term ecological consequences of the use of fossil energy carriers on the global climate on one hand and the uncontrollability of the risks of atomic energy generation on the other set tasks on our society that can hardly be solved. Furthermore, the limited availability of fossil energy carriers coupled with increasing global energy needs is proving to be a problem. The constantly increasing energy needs of established industrialized nations have, in recent years, met the rapidly increasing demand for energy of transition countries such as China, India or Brazil. In view of the increasing shortage of resources, this has lead to horrific price development in world markets. On a long-term basis, the goal of a conscious energy policy—national as well as international—can therefore only be the development and establishment of alternative energy generation concepts based on regenerative energy carriers. However, the implementation of this objective in practice proves to be very problematic.

The topic of climate change is nowadays announced as one of the most important subjects and challenges at the global level. Climate change is expected to have many strong effects on the global environment. Many studies show that climate change has caused a decrease in the agricultural production and in water storage in the Middle East region. For example, in the years 2007–2008, drought took place in Syria that led to a decrease in wheat production by 78.9 % in most of its areas and it reached about zero in rain-fed areas, while in the irrigated areas the average yield dropped by 31 % due to the lack of water needed for irrigation (UNDP 2008). There has been a decrease in groundwater because of a shorter period of the recharge season and the drop in water retention as of snow (Döll and Flörke 2005). Such a decrease of agricultural products and water shortage would definitely impede economic growth and create difficulties against achieving sustainable development in the countries of the region in general (Droubi 2009).

In this paper we explore how use can be made of collaborative information systems for monitoring and coordination in the context of climate change and its effects. We discuss how citizens participate in such initiatives and how participation could be increased.

Maybe it was God who in the beginning created heaven and earth (Gen 1,1), who created mankind (Gen 2,7), who committed nature to us (Gen 2,15). Whether it is a question of creed or not: Our atmosphere is unique. Its special consistence makes it possible for the temperature on the earth’s surface to constantly stay at a certain level, a level at which our environment can unfold and the Garden of Eden can be preserved and protected. And if God has committed nature to mankind in equal shares, all humans bear responsibility for protecting and saving the Garden of Eden. And if not, the same is true by the principle of equity.