Partnership
Oxfam GB is the NGO partner
to this project. In the last ten years, Oxfam has provided in excess of £9.5
million to support communities affected by droughts and flooding in southern Africa.
Oxfam's concerns and longer-term development strategy relating to climate change
are discussed in the 2001 working in the 2001 report 'Climate Change: The implications
for Oxfam's programme, policies and advocacy'. In the report, the need for improved
understanding of climate vulnerabilities, impacts and adaptive capacities is acknowledged,
with a related focus on adaptation, international equity and justice. Oxfam is
currently scaling up its work from the Pretoria office in South Africa in response
to the current food shortage. Personnel linked with the project are:
Antonio Hill (Policy Advisor - Environment and Sustainable Livelihoods)
Arif Jabbar Khan (Regional Emergencies Co-ordinator)
Craig Castro (Pretoria Office, South Africa)
Muthoni Muriu (Regional Policy Advisor - Southern Africa)
Robin Palmer (Policy Advisor - Land)
For more information visit
Oxfam's Southern Africa
regional website.
Prof. Bruce Hewitson from
the Climate Systems Analysis Group, Environmental and Geographical Sciences, at
the University of Cape Town is working on scenarios for sub-Saharan Africa and
providing climatic analysis for the Project. For more information on the CSAG
visit their website.
The Tyndall Centre for Climate
Change Research undertakes transdisciplinary research into the long-term consequences
of climate change for society and investigates options for sustainable mitigation
and adaptation strategies. It brings together some of the UK's leading environmental
scientists, social scientists, engineers, economists and specialists in the built
environment in a unique collaborative research effort. The Centre's programme
of integrated research aims to identify and develop sustainable solutions to climate
change that governments, business-leaders and decision-makers may evaluate and
implement.
Research at the Tyndall
Centre is organised into four Research Themes that collective advance the science
of integration by developing, demonstrating and applying new methods for integrating
climate change related knowledge. Theme 1 (Integrating Frameworks) adopts a systems
approach for the integration of knowledge across global, national and local scales;
Theme 2 (Decarbonising Societies) examines how long-term carbon emissions reduction
targets might be achieved; Theme 3 (Adapting to Climate Change) answers questions
about how society can adapt to climate change; and Theme 4 (Sustaining the Coastal
Zone) applies integrated analysis to specific coastal environments.
The Centre's headquarters
are at the University of East Anglia's School of Environmental Sciences, with
two regional offices at UMIST and the University of Southampton and Southampton
Oceanography Centre. The Centre's core funders are the Natural Environment Research
Council, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Economic and Social
Research Council, with additional support from the Department of Trade and Industry.
Adapting to
climate change
The ADAPTIVE project contributes
to the Tyndall Centre's research into adaptation
to climate change. This Tyndall research theme is assessing how people the
environment can adapt to unavoidable changes in climate, whether gradual and continuous
or abrupt and extreme.
Most discussions about climate
change focus on gradual changes in average climate conditions. But climate change
will also influence the occurrence of extreme weather events, such as floods,
droughts, heat waves and windstorms. The climate system may also change rapidly
- as has happened in the past. Information is needed to help put protective measures
into action that minimise adverse impacts on society and avoid dangerous changes
to climate.
Researchers in this theme
are analysing the vulnerability of organisations, ecosystems and countries to
gradual and extreme changes in climate, and their ability to adapt. They will
develop scenarios that take into account extremes, uncertainties and abrupt changes
to provide analysis tools that assist decision-makers. They are also investigating
critical thresholds beyond which it will be hard to adapt, such as those related
to abrupt changes in the thermohaline ocean circulation or the melting of polar
ice sheets. The costs and benefits of adapting to climate change will be considered
in the light of uncertainty and timing of adaptive measures. Climate change will
have different impacts on various parts of society, so researchers are also investigating
questions of justice and equity.
For more information visit
the Tyndall Centre Website.
