Mainstreaming climate risk management - NEW FAO brochure
The Climate Risks team within FAO’s Office of Climate Change, Environment and Biodiversity (OCB) has developed a climate risk screening system to climate-proof programmes and projects and ensure they comply with the highest international standards from concept to final evaluation.
Why screen for climate risks?
Climate variability and changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are key drivers behind the increasing number of undernourished and food insecure people in the world. In developing countries, climate-related disasters are responsible for 26 percent of the damage and loss absorbed by agriculture and, worldwide, 83 percent of economic losses absorbed by agriculture are attributed to drought. When weather shocks coincide with major economic slowdowns and other transboundary threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic and locust swarms, the risks to agricultural systems, livelihoods and food availability are amplified.
The need for a fundamental shift from disaster response to prevention and early action on weather-related hazards is essential, and FAO is working to systematically enhance climate risk management across the board.
Lev Neretin, Environment workstream leader for OCB emphasizes that "a key element required for sustainable and climate resilient development in agriculture is making sure that agricultural investment projects are informed by robust evidence about past and future climate risks".
Climate risk screening is an important first step in systematic climate risk management across FAO. FAO's work on climate risk management combines the latest advances in science and digital technologies to analyse weather and climate data and scenarios, geospatial and other land-use related information to come up with an integrated assessment of climate risks in specific geographies and sub-sectors. The gist of the work is to steer programming and decision-making from risk-responsive towards risk-informed by turning complex data into an easily understandable risk matrix with a suite of resilience measures for policymakers, farmers and agricultural end-users.
What's in the brochure?
The brochure, Mainstreaming climate risk management into FAO programming, outlines how agricultural climate risks are identified, drawing attention to the main components – hazards, exposure, vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Included in the brochure are snapshots of four FAO-GEF projects, with some of the risks identified and climate resilient interventions proposed. Climate resilient measures and in-depth assessments are specific to every project and depend on the nature of risk. They vary from innovative solutions such as climate services (tailor-made information based on agrometeorological data) to participatory capacity building and nature-based solutions. For example, the Food system, Land use and Restoration impact program in Uzbekistan was classified as having a moderate climate risk. The country experiences extreme fluctuations in air temperature. To deal with the risk of extreme heat, one of the climate resilient measures proposed is to enhance refrigeration during storage and transport of dairy products, avoiding food and income losses.
Climate risk assessments are necessary to ensure risk considerations and appropriate climate resilient practices are mainstreamed in projects from the earliest stages.
For more information:
http://www.fao.org/climate-change/our-work/areas-of-work/climate-risk-management/en/
Join Friday’s webinar ‘Digital innovation to tackle climate change and transform food systems’ where speakers will share some of the examples of innovative early warning solutions that provide farmers with information and advice.