Sri Lanka must prepare now to deal with climate change impacts - ADB

The Sri Lankan Ministry of Environment with assistance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Tuesday unveiled a draft National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy that should help the South Asian nation meet and overcome the massive challenge of climate change.

vMinistry of Finance Director General of the Department of Development Finance Dr. D S Jayaweera lights the oil lamp at the event.  ADB Sri Lanka Resident Representative Dr Richard Vokes (right), Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment Vajira Narampanawa and Climate Change Specialist at ADB Vidhisha Samarasekara are also present.

Speaking at the workshop in Colombo to discuss the climate change adaptation strategy for Sri Lanka, Dr.D.S.Jayaweera, Director General of the Department of Development Finance, Ministry of Finance and Planning warned that climate change will impact all the major economic development projects currently underway in Sri Lanka.  Greater Colombo and other metropolitan regions now being expanded are “highly sensitive” to rising sea levels, flooding and other symptoms of climate change, he said.

“Sri Lanka’s people, particularly its poor, are already struggling with the impact of climate change and it is imperative that Sri Lanka adapts to climate change with the utmost urgency, said Vidhisha Samarasekara, Climate Change Specialist at ADB, who unveiled the strategy at the conference.‘ ADB looks forward to timely approval of the strategy, and is keen to continue its engagement with Sri Lanka on climate adaptation,” she added.

The draft strategy, proposes action and investments to help Sri Lanka buffer climate impacts in sectors ranging from agriculture, tourism to housing and health. The strategy, based on discussions with dozens of state agencies, research institutes, non-government organizations, and private companies advocates an integrated approach. It outlines five ‘Strategic Thrusts’: mainstream climate change concerns into national planning and development; improve climate resilient and healthy human settlements; minimize climate change impacts on food security; improve climate resilience of key economic drivers; and safeguard natural resources and biodiversity from climate change impacts.

When formally adopted by the Government, the strategy is expected to stimulate improved environmental management and better preparedness in all sectors to cope with climate change. Such careful planning and investment could help Sri Lanka turn current threats into future opportunities.

Currently, climate change considerations are not included in development and public investment planning in Sri Lanka. This puts at risk investments of over SLR 4.3 trillion (approximately $ 38.5 billion) that Sri Lanka has lined up for the 2006-2016 period.

The strategy estimates that SLR 47 billion (approximately $ 428 million) of additional funding is needed, over and above current allocations, between 2011 and 2016, to implement its recommendations.

Dr.Richard Vokes, Country Director, ADB Sri Lanka Resident Mission, said Sri Lanka can and should access the growing volume of climate related funding that is increasingly available at a global level. “I believe this adaptation strategy forms a basis for the government of Sri Lanka to harness and mobilize a wealth of resources and support from the international community,” he said.

Vajira Narampanawa, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment, invited everyone in state, corporate and civil society sectors to collaborate in implementing the climate change adaptation strategy in the national interest. “We need to mobilize action on many fronts, and we also need resources from national and international sources,” he added.

ADB, based in Manila, is dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth, and regional integration. Established in 1966, it is owned by 67 members – 48 from the region. In 2009, it approved a total of $16.1 billion in financing operations through loans, grants, guarantees, a trade finance facilitation program, equity investments, and technical assistance projects. ADB also mobilized cofinancing amounting to $3.2 billion.

World farming to get $200 million in climate aid

LONDON (Reuters) -- Development agencies worldwide are joining forces to spend $200 million in a 10-year programme to help the agriculture sector prepare for climate change and cut greenhouse gas emissions, farm research groups said on Wednesday.

The funding will go to research on how to feed a growing, more affluent world population in the face of expectations of worsening floods and droughts.

“The food security challenge facing us as humans is large,” said Gerald Nelson, a senior research fellow with the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, speaking to reporters alongside other farming experts.

By 2050 as a result of climate change, global “potential to produce food” could decline by 5 to 10 percent, after an average increase through 2020, said Andy Jarvis, an agriculture policy expert at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, based in Cali, Colombia.

Higher temperatures and more variable rainfall will produce agricultural winners and losers, especially favoring cooler, northern hemisphere countries that do not suffer food shortages.

“It shows globally there’ll be greater inequity in production,” said Bruce Campbell, head of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which will help direct the new research programme.

The programme will use an Australian climate model to look at how rising temperatures and rainfall changes affect 50 major crops worldwide including sorghum, millet, sweet potato, wheat, rice and maize.

Climate models point to accelerating declines in production of rain-fed wheat worldwide of 2.2 percent by 2020, 4 percent by 2050 and 18.6 percent by 2080, unless climate change is curbed or effective adaptive measures are put in place, scientists told reporters.

Early work shows that West Africa could see declines in soybean, wheat, potato and sorghum production, but some gains - at least initially - in crops such as sugarcane and sweet potato.

In India’s Indo-Gangetic Plain, a major rice and wheat breadbasket that feeds 600 million people, higher temperatures in March would damage heads of wheat as these fill out, cutting harvests, Jarvis said.

Maintaining adequate food production in the face of climate pressures may require some societies to switch their staple crops, if varieties more tolerant of drought, floods and pests cannot be successfully developed, Jarvis said.

In one example of how to increase production and cut greenhouse gases at the same time, herders could curb emissions of methane from their livestock and as much as triple milk and meat production by grazing animals on specialized grass species rather than wild pasture.

Agriculture produces between 20 and 33 percent of the world’s carbon emissions, depending on whether the conversion of forests to farmland is included, scientists say.

The project aimed to reduce poverty by 10 percent by 2050 in targeted “hot spot” regions in Africa and India, and reduce the number of malnourished poor in those areas by 25 percent, as well as curb greenhouse gas emissions by “millions of tonnes,” Campbell said.