Russia Burning

Opposition Says Putin Law Cripples Russian Fire-Fighting - Reuters, Aug 3, 2010

Here's the Moscow Times article on the claim by Greenpeace Russia and other groups that the 2007 Forest Code is at fault for the summer wildfires (Aug. 3, 2010, in English, written in Russia by a local journalist)

One way a government can maladapt is to pass laws that impede climate change impact management (like fighting wildfires).

Now this wildfire is costing lives and homes, plus emitting CO2 and destroying forests which act as carbon sinks.

See video of the fires here. The article accompanying is about the destruction of a navy air base. Click on the upper left video still to see more video of the fire.

My thoughts go out to the families in Southwestern Russia.

The Western Governors' Association: "it is the states that will be on the front lines of climate change response..."

The Western Governors' Association has officially asked the Feds to step up to the plate on supporting state-level climate change adaptation.

Read the April 28, 2010, letter from the WGA to the heads of the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, and the Interior, signed by Governors Schwarzenegger and Richardson.

Download WGA Policy Resolution 09-2, "Supporting the Integration of Climate Change Adaptation Science in the West" (June 2009), which establishes a Climate Adaptation Work Group for the western states.

"The Work Group is currently comprised of representatives from WGA projects related to water, wildlife, forests and air."

The policies I'm analyzing in my thesis, at this point...

At this point I'm examining and analyzing fourteen government policy documents for my thesis on climate change adaptation policies in the North Pacific.

Et voila, links (mostly to PDFs):

• Canada: From Impacts to Adaptation: Canada in a Changing Climate 2007 (2008).

- British Columbia: Preparing for Climate Change: British Columbia’s Adaptation Strategy (February 2010).

- Yukon: Yukon Government Climate Change Action Plan (February 2009).

• Japan: Wise Adaptation to Climate Change (June 2008).

• The People’s Republic of China: China’s National Climate Change Programme (June 2007).

• The Russian Federation: Climate Doctrine of the Russian Federation (December 2009).

• The United States of America: Progress Report of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force (March 2010).

- Alaska: Alaska’s Climate Change Strategy: Addressing Impacts in Alaska (January 2010).

- California: 2009 California Climate Adaptation Strategy (December 2009).

---Oakland, California: City of Oakland Draft Energy and Climate Action Plan (April 2010).

- Hawaii: A Framework for Climate Change Adaptation in Hawaii (November 2009).

- Oregon: Final Report to the Governor: A Framework for Addressing Rapid Climate Change (January 2008).

- Washington: Leading the Way on Climate Change: The Challenge of Our Time (February 2008).

---King County, Washington: King County 2009 Climate Report (February 2010).

These are all policy documents produced by advisory groups or environmental ministries/ departments, except for the Russian "Climate Doctrine," which came directly out of the office of the president, signed only by Medvedev. I'm not sure what that means, but it's not at all a bad document in terms of laying out a vision for climate change adaptation. For mitigation of climate change... now, that's another matter. Oil producing nations seem keener on adaptation than on mitigation, I'm realizing. But that's another post for another day.

Adaptation! at America.gov?

Did you know that the U.S. State Department has a blog dedicated to climate change adaptation? Yes, it does! Well, did! Read posts from August 2009 - April 2010.

Apparently the science writer who runs it, Cheryl Pellerin, is moving her operation over to Facebook. I hope she leaves this blog up so I can poke around the blogroll, where I see she has a link to the ACT-Adapt team at Simon Fraser University, whose executive director has caught my eye as someone with an interesting analysis. (And who I am scheduled to interview on Friday.)

-
Update: The U.S. State Department blog that covered climate change adaptation in its final post pointed to a new Facebook group the authors were starting: "Global Conversations: Climate." It looks like that group lasted a year or so.

In Wine There is Truth

Adaptation planners who know the predicted impacts on the world's food supply and civil conflicts are not losing sleep over possible climate impacts on vintners. However, this article makes an interesting point-- grapes are so sensitive that they can be the canary in the coalmine for climate change. And, vintners are often thinking more long-term than your average for-profit business, since they tend to be handed down for generations.

Grapes of Wrath
Apr 26, 2010
Mark Hertsgaard
Writing for the Atlantic's "Climate Report"

Because wine grapes are extraordinarily sensitive to temperature, the industry amounts to an early-warning system for problems that all food crops -- and all industries -- will confront as global warming intensifies. In vino veritas, the Romans said: In wine there is truth.

The World in 2035 - NOAA report in Slate

Warming in America: Mass migrations, water wars, and insect plagues. How will climate change reshape the electoral map? By Jim Tankersley
... Both major political parties could see their power bases erode as Americans, responding to warming temperatures and rising seas, flee the Republican-dominated South and Democratic-friendly coasts.


"Scenarios for 2035" - the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) report the article is covering-- 40 pages of predictions.
... “Scenarios for 2035” presents two ways of looking at the world of 2035. The first is through the narrative text, which provides short stories of the forces, dynamics, and outcomes within each scenario. The second view of the future is provided in the table at the end of the document, which compares the major forces and trends across each of the scenarios. Readers are encouraged to review the three scenarios in this document with an open mind, using them as a point of departure for  thinking about the challenges and opportunities facing NOAA and its extended stakeholder community.

Welcome to my research blog!

I am a climate change adaptation researcher, and this is such an exciting area of emerging policy I decided to start a blog. I hope I can document my research in a way that might be useful to others interested in the neglected step-child of climate change policy: adaptation.

What is climate change "adaptation"? Adjusting systems to respond to the changing climate.

So far, most research on climate change has gone into mitigation strategies, projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Adaptation to the inevitable changes to our climate has been put on a raft behind the mitigation yacht.

However, in the past five years there has been an increasing volume of literature on the need to both mitigate GHGs and adapt to the coming changes. I got on the adaptation raft in late 2008 after attending a presentation by Isabel Hilton on the melting Himalayan glacier. Here's a Jan. 2010 article by her on how insufficient research is being done on that glacier.

My area of interest for the moment is the way adaptation is being grappled with by countries around the Pacific Rim. Enjoy!