Countries need to take urgent measures to adapt to climate change, says the IPCC

Conclusion is in the Summary for Policymakers portion of the report presented in Rio de Janeiro by panel specialists.

By Elton Alisson, in Rio de Janeiro

Agência FAPESP – The effects of climate change are already being observed and felt in several countries and regions of the world, including Brazil. What is needed, therefore, is that governments urgently begin implementing mitigation and adaptation measures so that their populations and economic sectors will be less vulnerable to the changing climate.

These conclusions are from the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) portion of the Report about Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), presented April 1, 2014 at the headquarters of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC) in Rio de Janeiro.

The 44-page document is a summary of the nearly 1,000-page report about impacts, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change prepared by the IPCC and presented March 30, 2014 in Yokohama, Japan.

“The SPM was written particularly for those who make decisions in countries,” said José Marengo, researcher at the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and one of the 1,719 authors of the general report. Marengo is the only Brazilian representative involved in drafting the conclusions included in the summary for policymakers.

“One of the document’s key messages is that climate change is already happening and affecting populations. We will not have to wait another 20 or 30 years to see the occurrence of extreme climate events, such as floods, droughts or heat waves, like those seen in Brazil in recent years,” Marengo said during the event.

According to the researcher, the extreme climate phenomena experienced in Brazil and beyond have helped us understand the magnitude of the climate change problem and have prompted nations to take measures to adapt.

Brazil has implemented a program of subsistence agriculture in the Northeast for improving plants adapted to climate change. It has also dedicated itself to conserving its major ecosystems, such as the Amazon region and the Atlantic Forest, by establishing biological corridors.

According to Marengo, the country still needs to implement some permanent adaptations that will provide definitive solutions to the climate change problems that are affecting the population.

“The first stage of adaptation involves reducing vulnerability to climate exposure now, and this is happening slowly in Brazil,” he said. “The population of the Northeast is often affected by drought, a problem that has always occurred in that region.”

Drought adaptation measures that have been implemented in the Northeast include the construction of cisterns to collect rainwater, said the researcher by way of example.

The problem, however, is that when drought persists, as it has in the region in recent years, there is no way to collect water because there is barely a rainy season, he explained.

“Adaptations to climate change have to be permanent measures. They’re not something that gets taken care of now, with regard to a particular climate problem that is affecting the population, only to then, next year, determine what can be done if the problem comes back,” he said.

Poverty reduction

According to the researchers who wrote the report, the capacity for countries in Central and South America to adapt to climate change has improved in recent years, in part because of initiatives implemented by several nations but also because of reductions in poverty.

Socioeconomic conditions in Central and South America have improved, albeit slowly, since the 2007 publication of the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) by the IPCC, the researchers indicated.

However, there continues to be an elevated and persistent level of poverty and socioeconomic inequality in most of the countries of the two regions, and this situation is making access to potable water, sanitation and suitable housing especially difficult for the groups that are most vulnerable.

The report indicates that this set of factors is contributing to the low adaptability of these populations to climate change. “Climate change is most expected to affect the poorer populations and those in the most tropical regions,” said Marengo.

The report emphasizes that the climate projections made after the AR4 call for temperatures to increase 1.7ºC to 6.7ºC in South America and 1.6ºC to 4ºC in Central America by 2100.

Additionally, rainfall is expected to diminish 22% in the Northeast of Brazil and between 22% and 7% in Central America as well by 2100. In contrast, periods of drought in the tropical region of South America and the eastern Andes and the frequency of very warm days and nights in most regions of South America will increase.

Furthermore, in accordance with the report, the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events such as persistent droughts, strong rains and floods are expected to increase.

Some of the possible impacts of these climate changes in the two regions are the extinction of habitats and significant species, especially in the tropical region of Latin America; the replacement of tropical forests by savannas and semi-arid vegetation by arid vegetation; the increase in the number of people affected by situations of hydric stress (lack of water); and the increase in pests that affect agricultural crops and in diseases such as dengue and malaria among populations.

“The greatest impacts of the climate changes in South America are expected to be in water and food security and in human health,” said Marengo.

Land use changes

According to the researchers who wrote the report, the changes in land use in the two regions – such as deforestation and environmental degradation – are contributing significantly to the worsening of the environment and are expected to aggravate the negative impacts of climate change.

Although rates of deforestation in the Amazon have diminished substantially since 2004, to an average of 4,656 km2 in 2012, regions such as the Brazilian Cerrado still present high indices of deforestation, reporting average rates of 14,179 km2 per year from 2002 to 2008, according to the report.

“The risks of climate change could increase with the elevation of carbon gas emissions generated by the burning of fossil fuels,” said Marengo.

The high levels of deforestation and soil degradation observed in most countries of the region are mainly attributed to the expansion of extensive and intensive agriculture to meet the growing global demand for food.

The two activities that traditionally dominate the expansion of agriculture and cattle raising in South America are soybeans and beef in Brazil. Several of the areas most affected by the expanding agricultural frontiers are along the Amazon Forest borders in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the tropical Andes.

The report notes that “It’s important to consider the political and legal requirements for maintaining control of this process of large-scale land use change as much as possible.”

Focus on adaptation

According to the assessment by Brazilian researchers involved in preparing the report, one of the significant differences between the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) and the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) is the focus on adaptation and mitigation.

For each of the report’s climate change projections for different parts of the world, there are suggestions for adaptations and mitigation actions, said Marcos Buckeridge, professor of the Biosciences Institute of the University of São Paulo (USP) and one of the authors of chapter 27 of the report, which addresses the impacts of climate change on South and Central America.

“The report makes it very clear that the problem of climate change is irreversible and, therefore, adaptive measures must be adopted and implemented,” Buckeridge told Agência FAPESP.

“The phase for mitigation is now winding down, but the phase for adaptation is gearing up because countries have not been able to engage in the mitigation actions that were needed to reduce the impacts,” he said.

In addition to Buckeridge and Marengo, other Brazilian researchers who participated in preparing the IPCC report were Carlos Afonso Nobre, secretary of Policies and Program Research and Development (SEPED) of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI); Maria Assunção Silva Dias of USP; Carolina Dubeux of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; Fábio Scarano of Conservation International; Jean Pierre Ometto of INPE; and Daniel Nepstad of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM).