Difference between revisions of "Integrating Climate Change into the ICZM planning process - Establishment"

This is an important stage of the ICZM process. The aim is to set out an operational foundation for the subsequent preparation of the strategy or plan and its implementation, to begin the process of understanding the challenges facing the area and the differing perceptions of those challenges, and to begin building a constituency of support for the strategy or plan.

As far a climate change is concerned, the main concern is to ensure that there is institutional coordination with bodies responsible for climate adaptation and mitigation strategies and plans. All countries have an obligation to produce a communication to the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change, detailing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), as well as vulnerability assessments and some actions to adapt to climatic changes. Thus from the outset any actions on climate change under the ICZM should be coordinated with the National Communication Office of the country. In addition, local authorities in many coastal zones are already planning to introduce measures to respond to some of the expected impacts of climate change. It is essential that these authorities and their plans and procedures be brought into the ICZM process at this initiation stage.

Establishing coordination mechanisms

The IMF document identified three groups that constitute the governance structure for the ICZM: the steering group, the technical group and the consultative group. As far as climate change is concerned, its mainstreaming requires the following:

1. At least one representative from national government or the higher-level competent local administration(s) should have familiarity with climate issues, possibly because s/he is involved in one of the other bodies dealing with this topic.
2. The technical group needs at least one person with working knowledge of adaptation to climate change
3. The consultative group should include someone from the National Communication Office as well as representative from all sectors where climate issues have been assessed as being important at stage 1.4 Scoping

The governance structure is decided during the preparation of the national ICZM strategy and implemented in drawing up the national and local plans.

Defining territorial scope

Climatic changes will have impacts on areas that do not respect the boundaries of a coastal zone as defined in the ICZM. Sea level rise, for example may well affect areas outside the defined zone, and extreme events could impact on areas that extend beyond the defined boundaries, yet are part of an integrated area that includes the coastal zones.

As the IMF document states, it is necessary to be practical in defining the territorial scope of the areas to be covered under the plan. The ‘competent’ coastal units should be reconciled with the ecosystem, economic, social and political criteria as appropriate. This also applies to maritime zones, where the economic and social criteria should be applied, including coastal tourism, culture, agriculture and economic uses, but also includes patterns of transport and accessibility and urbanisation. In general it makes sense to retain the use of administrative boundaries where possible to maintain the integrity of stakeholder accountability and recognition, policy conformity and statistical information. A pragmatic compromise of ecosystem and administration is required.

The issue of boundary definitions is something to be brought up during the preparation of the national ICZM strategy, with, in our opinion, a pragmatic view as outlined above being the recommended approach. When the national plan is being prepared more details should be provided on how to deal with conflicts between administrative definitions and ecological, economic, social and political zones. Some resolution of these conflicts should be proposed in the National Plan. The local plans should then work with the agreed boundary definitions.

Defining governance context

As noted at the outset, the institutional context for climate change planning is already well established. In addition to the National Communication Office, and local and regional governments that are considering actions to adapt to climate change, several line ministries and departments have some involvement. These include:

• Ministry of Agriculture, for possible impacts in terms of crop yields Ministry of Environment, especially the Department dealing with water management and ecosystem health
• Ministry of Health, dealing with consequences of heat waves, vector and water borne diseases and increased risks of food contamination with higher temperatures
• Departments responsible for land classification (local and central).
• Ministry of Tourism

In addition one must not forget that the private sector is actively engaged in the coastal areas. Individuals and enterprises with significant investments will be well aware of the increased climate risks and will be planning to take some measures. These measures, however, will depend very much on what policies the government is putting in place and there is a strong inter-linkage between actions by the two sets of actors. It is critical that the ICZM be aware of the private sector’s plans and provide it with the right framework and incentives so it can make a cost effective contribution to adapting to climate change.

The actions needed to address climate change will involve all these and many of them they will be giving some thought to developing policies to address the problems that are likely to arise.

The ICZM needs to liaise with all of them to understand their positions and, ideally, play the role of coordinating their efforts for the effective management of the coastal zones. This can only be done if the ICZM has buy in at the highest level and recognition for its capacity to play this coordinating role. The identification of the key institutional aspects of the ICZM should be done in the national ICZM strategy, including those relating to addressing climate change. In the national and local plans these linkages should be implemented, ensuring that all the important stakeholders are included in the process of preparing the plan.

Scoping

The main problems arising from climate change have been broadly identified under the following headings: damage to infrastructure from sea level rise and flooding, declines in agricultural yields, health risks from heat waves, risks to human life from extreme weather events, possible declines in tourism in the high season and possible increases in the shoulder seasons due to changes in climate, shortages of water due to changes in precipitation and possible saline contamination of groundwater, damages to ecosystems from changes in temperature and water availability.

These are the general set of problems that should be noted in the ICZM strategy but not all will apply in all coastal zones. It is at the stage of preparing the ICZM local coastal plans that the ones most relevant to the respective areas need to be identified.

The main drivers and pressures from climate change include the following: sea level rise, changes in precipitation (causing declines in water availability in some areas and during some seasons and causing floods in other areas and other seasons), increased frequency of extreme events (hurricanes, floods etc., heat waves) and possible increases in risks of vector and water borne diseases. At this stage an identification of these pressures, and an idea of where and when they are likely to be most serious, is required. As noted in the IMF document, the pressures will depend, among other things, on future plans for land use, which is a key determinant of the impacts that result from the climate-related factors just identified. The climate drivers will also depend on policies for water and land management that are in place or likely to be introduced.

The national ICZM strategy should note the important climatic drivers and pressures. It is at the national plan stage that national level data will be collected and at the local plan stage that further relevant data will be assembles. There are data sources that provide information at some degree of spatial disaggregation (see the websites listed at the end of this report). For further information on the likely pressures, a downscaling exercise may be needed, but this can be undertaken, if required, at a later stage in the process.

The scoping stage, including also risk identification, is primarily a desk exercise in conjunction with key stakeholders and technical experts from relevant sectors. As noted in the IMF document risk vulnerability is conventionally categorised according to the:

• Nature of the risk and its consequence
• Magnitude of the possible adverse consequences from each risk
• Probability of occurrence of each risk