climate information services: experiences from cgiar research program on climate - james hansen
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James Hansen, leader of the of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security's Climate Risk Management theme, presented experiences in providing climate information services to farmers at an International Fund for Agricultural Development East and Southern Africa regional Knowledge Management and Capacity Building Forum, 16-18 October 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya. http://ifad-un.blogspot.com/2013/10/linking-knowledge-to-action-across-east_17.html ccafs.cgiar.org/themes/climate-risk-managementTRANSCRIPT
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Climate Information Services: Experiences from CGIAR
Research Program on Climate
James HansenTheme 2 Leader: Adaptation through Managing Climate Risk
IRI, Columbia University, New York
ESA Climate Change, Land and Gender Workshop
Nairobi, Kenya, 17 October
24 Jun 2013
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The What and Why of Climate Services
Message 1: Climate services can make
a contribution to climate-resilient
development investment.
3
The cost of climate variability
CR
ISIS
HA
RD
SH
IP
FOR
FEIT
ED
OPPO
RTU
NIT
Y
Climatic outcome (e.g. production, income)
Pro
ba
bili
ty d
en
sit
y
• Climate risk contributes to chronic poverty, vulnerability, food insecurity
• Downside risk: shocks
• Opportunity cost: uncertainty
• Affects farmers, markets, the food system, the “relief trap”
• Climate variability is increasing
• Several opportunities to help agriculture adapt are…
• Dependent on information
• Constrained by information gaps
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Examples
• Adjusting farm management and input use
• Community-level early warning and response to rapid onset hazards (flood, storms)
• Characterize risks for targeting agricultural technology and management
• Index-based insurance to protect assets, increase access to credit and inputs
• Improve safety nets and food security interventions
• Government planning and budgeting?
• Understand climate change vs. natural variability vs. non-climatic changes to inform long-term planning
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Salience: What kind of information do farmers need?
• Types of climate information:
• Historic observations
• Monitored
• Predictive, all lead times ≤ ~20 years
• Some generalizations:
• Downscaled, locally-relevant
• Tailored to types & timing of decisions
• “Value-added” climate information: impacts on agriculture, advisories
• Capacity to understand and act on complex information
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Time scales: weather or climate?
• Depends on time horizon of decision
• Generalizations about increasing lead time:
• Decisions more context- and farmer-specific
• Information becomes more uncertain, hence more complex
• Therefore the scope of services needed increases
HOURS DAYS WEEKS MONTHS YEARS DECADES …
WEATHER CLIMATE
• Tillage
• Sowing
• Irrigation
• Crop protection
• Harvest
• Changing farming or livelihood system
• Major capital investment
• Migration
• Family succession
• Land allocation
• Crop selection
• Household labor allocation, seasonal migration
• Technology selection
• Financing for inputs
• Contract farming
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Objective 2: Food System Risk
Management
Climate services in CCAFS Theme 2
Objective 1: Local Risk
Management
Scal
e Objective 3: Climate
Information and Services
Fill key gaps:• Knowledge• Tools & Methods• Evidence• Capacity• Coordination
GENDER & EQITY LENS
Enhanced climate services
Enhanced climate
services
Improved, climate-informed responses
Resilient food systems,Improved food security
Enhanced support for managing risk
Climate-resilient rural livelihoods
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CCAFS climate services experience
Message 2: CCAFS is contributing to
bringing climate services to smallholder
farming and agricultural planning.
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Piloting in Kenya, Senegal, …
• Learning laboratory
• Improved information design
• Workshop process
• Evidence of what is possible
• Demand for scaling up
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Climate services for government planning in Ethiopia
• Engagement, analysis of subnational planning, budgeting process
• Social learning platform, testing, dissemination
• Targeted Outcome: climate-informed planning upstream of existing national emergency decision processes.
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Tackling gender and social equity
• Women disadvantaged when scaling up climate services
• Ongoing project (U. Florida):
• Knowledge of how women are disadvantages and how to overcome bias
• Protocol for identifying and addressing inequity in climate communication
• Gender challenges incorporated into training for intermediaries
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Making climate information useful to farmers
• Spatial scale problem
• Beyond seasonal averages
• Onset, length
• Dry spells
• Growing, chill degree-days
• Challenges
• Gaps in data
• Gaps in daily data
• Capacity of NMS
?
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Making climate information useful to farmers
• Started in Ethiopia, with IRI, U. Reading, NMA, CCAFS
• Satellite + station, 10km grid, 30 year complete record
• “Maprooms” built on Data Library software
• Owned, implemented by NMS
STATION BLENDED SATELLITE
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ENACTS at NMS (Ethiopia, Tanzania, Madagascar, …), AGRHYMET
Enables NMS to customize, generate and disseminate locally relevant climate
information without over-taxing limited human resource
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Pulling the pieces together:World Vision-Tanzania
• World’s largest development NGO
• Secure the Future
Tanzania:
• Reach ~1.7M farmers + pastoralists
• 66 ADP offices• staff, partnership
• infrastructure
• Long-term commitment, where needed
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Investing in Climate Services
Message 3: The right investment,
leveraging other efforts, can bring climate
services to smallholder farmers – at scale
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What can we leverage?
• UN Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS)
• Climate Services Partnership (CSP)
• ClimDev-Africa
• Regional climate centers
• CCAFS Theme 2 hosted by IRI
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What else is needed?Key challenges
• Salience: tailoring content, scale, format, lead-time to farm decision-making
• Legitimacy: giving farmers an effective voice in design and delivery
• Access: providing timely access to remote rural communities with marginal infrastructure
• Equity: ensuring that women, poor, socially marginalized benefit
• Integration: climate services as part of a larger package of support
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What else is needed?Institutional arrangements
• Limitations of supply-driven climate services
• Expand the boundary to agricultural research and development
• Expand the boundaries to give farmers a voice
CLIMATE SERVICE
NMS(climate)
User (farmer)
INFORMATION
CLIMATE SERVICE
NMS(climate)
User (farmer)
VALUE-ADDEDINFORMATION
NARES(agriculture)PARTNERSHIP
CLIMATE SERVICE
NMS(climate)
Co-owner (farmer)
NARES(agriculture)PARTNERSHIP
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Suggestions for investing in climate services for agriculture
• Address climate information supply, communication, use bottlenecks in parallel
• Improving information supply
• Low-hanging fruit for farmer-relevant climate information
• Caution about investing in observing infrastructure alone
• Two-fold path to communication capacity:
• Institutional: through agricultural extension, NGOs
• ICT and media
• Institutional coordination mechanisms. Who owns climate services for agriculture?
• Leverage and coordinate with GFCS, broader climate services community