Mainstreaming climate risk management: Lessons from emerging practice to achieve resilience in Africa

This seminar is part of the Risk and Resilience Seminar Series hosted at the Smith School in Hilary Term 2011.

Tom Downing Presentation Slides

Tom Downing

Seminar summary: This presentation reported on the challenges at two levels where the Global Climate Adaptation Partnership has active engagements. At the regional and project level, the African Development Bank is implementing its action plan under the Climate Risk Management and Adaptation Strategy. At the national level, governments in Eastern Africa are reviewing their strategies and portfolios, assessing the medium term investment requirements and developing the institutional basis for coordinated action. The emphasis on climate adaptation extends several key principles regarding the value of information in making decisions, adaptive pathways and multiple lines of evidence. In stark contrast to approaches that seek to predict future impacts, the GCAP approach is designed to support effective decision making and institutional capacity. Tools for navigating pathways through the adaptation landscape include scorecards for screening projects and adaptation signatures. 

Speaker Biography: Dr Tom Downing  is the Director of the Global Climate Adaptation Partnership, (GCAP).  He was formerly Reader in Climate Policy in the Environmental Change Institute of the University of Oxford, and has been the science advisor to the UK Climate Impacts Programme, and research fellow in the University of Birmingham and National Center for Atmospheric Research.  Currently he is visiting professor in Oxford University in the School of Geography and Environment and Queen Elisabeth House, as well as chair in social vulnerability with the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security. His major interests are vulnerability and adaptation to climate change and climatic hazards, with an emphasis on developing participatory, actor-oriented methods (such as agent-based social simulation).  He has published over 100 papers, books, reports and book reviews, including the Atlas of Climate Change (with Kirstin Dow).  Recent projects include the UK national assessment of climate change and demand for water (CCDEW), agent-based simulation modeling in support of integrated water management in Europe (FIRMA), seasonal climate forecasting in southern African and potential implications for sustainable livelihoods (CLOUD), frameworks and methods for vulnerability and adaptation to climatic hazards and climate change (ADAM, CLEAR and NAPA) and development a collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (AdaptCost).