Mitigation or adaptation?

PARIS CLIMATE MEET : The main issue is whether India and other developing countries should focus more on mitigation or adaptation at the global negoti

Climate change is hitting the headlines almost every day in anticipation of Paris Climate Convention starting November 30. Currently, there is a complex negotiating text, which needs to be agreed to in Paris to signal global agreement to address the climate change.

There are mainly only two options to address climate change; adaptation and mitigation. Mitigation in simple terms: i) reducing the emissions of global warming causing greenhouses gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxide and methane from burning of coal, natural gas and petroleum fuel, cement production, deforestation and agriculture production and, ii) creating carbon sinks in forests.

Adaptation to climate change refers to adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects. Adaptation is enabling human societies, natural ecosystems, agriculture (crops and farmers), fisheries (and fishermen) etc to cope with adverse effects of climate change or building resilience in them.

Mitigation provides long term benefits over decades or centuries and at the global level. While adaptation provides immediate benefit at local level.  There is general understanding that both adaptation and mitigation are needed. The main issue that is to be addressed here is, should India and such developing countries focus more on mitigation or adaptation at the global negotiations.

Mitigation or adaptation choice becomes very important in the context of the promised US$ 100 Billion per year of climate finance through Green Climate Fund (GCF). How much of this annual funding should go to mitigation and adaptation? Which is more important in the Indian context?

It is true India has a large population depending on climate sensitive and vulnerable sectors such dry land agriculture, coastal fisheries, plantation crops and forests. Even now the farmers, mountain communities and fishermen are subjected to droughts, deficit rainfall, unseasonal rainfall, floods, hurricanes, cyclones, coastal flooding, landslides etc. The risk and adverse impacts of such events will be enhanced under climate change.

According all the scientific evidence, climate change is already occurring and impacting agriculture, water resources etc. Thus, there is no doubt that there is a need to build resilience of such communities, agriculture and fisheries production systems to adapt to climate change. The recent unseasonal rainfall, deficient rainfall and surplus rainfall in different states bears testimony to this. There are short term and long term adaptation measures.

Short term measures could be compensating farmers in case of crop failures, insurance, soil and water conservation, shifting cropping pattern to short duration crops or varieties, multiple crops etc. Long term measures could include, building sea defence walls, cyclone proof shelters, breeding drought and heat resistant crops, agro-forestry, provision of irrigation etc.

In the global climate negotiations under the UN, the focus was initially completely on mitigation to reduce the GHG emissions, Kyoto Protocol etc. Now, there is an attempt to balance adaptation and mitigation or to focus largely only on adaptation or mitigation, in the final proposed agreement in Paris. In the long term interest of the poor and natural ecosystems, what should be the focus of Paris agreement?

The safe answer would be a proper balance between mitigation and adaptation, since both measures are needed, keeping in mind the short term adaptation requirement and long term need to solve the climate change problem through mitigation.

India is spending over Rs 2 lakh core (over US$ 30 billion) annually, which is a conservative estimate, combining state and Central government programmes, which can be considered as contributing to adaptation. These programmes though not designated as adaptation programmes, do incorporate many activities and practices that provide adaption benefits. They include programmes such as MGNREGA, Integrated Watershed Management programme, National Afforestation programme etc.

Funds utilisation

There are various estimates of efficiency of utilisation of these funds, which is supposed to be a small percentage of the massive allocation or investments. It is also common that most states do not even spend the allocated money to these developmental programmes, which have the potential to deliver the adaptation benefits. In this context the relevant question to be asked is does India should fight for the share of the adaptation fund?

Till now, less than US$ 10 billion has been committed to Green Climate Fund (GCF). It is highly unlikely that the promised $100 billion per year would ever be made available and there are plans to include many ongoing public and private sector investments in energy and developmental programmes under GCF.

Assuming a liberal and ambitious allocation of say $50 billion becomes available annually, and it is allocated equally between mitigation and adaptation. Bulk of the adaptation funds under GCF are likely to go to the groupings of countries which are poorer and more vulnerable like 48 Least Developed Countries and 51 Small Island Developing Countries.

For a large country like India, with over 600-700 million people depending on monsoon rainfall, coastal fishing, in-land fishing, collection of forest products etc, international financing for adaptation would always form an insignificant fraction of the investment required.

At the most GCF could finance a few innovative adaptation ideas, capacity building programmes and demonstration projects. Further, investments in adaptation programme is likely to provide only short term relief to the vulnerable communities, for which there is no shortage of national funds.

Thus, India should be focusing more on mitigation financing, which requires transfer of advanced technology and investment funding for large scale promotion of renewable energy, energy efficiency, industrial processing and transportation options to mitigate climate change. In the long term interest of sustaining food grain and fish production, fresh water supply, conservation of biodiversity, ideally the only solution is mitigation, aimed to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and stabilise the concentration of GHG in the atmosphere to limit the global warming below 2 degree centigrade.

(The writer is a professor at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore)