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Getting the Better of Global
Climate Change
This story of the month will be online during both
December and January. We wish all of our readers a peaceful and
restful holiday season as well as a productive
2008.
During the 13 th UN Climate Change Conference in Bali,
Indonesia, CGIAR Chair Katherine Sierra, speaking at a press
briefing on December 8, announced a new strategic initiative for
stepping up CGIAR-supported research aimed at confronting the
disastrous impacts of global climate change.
Under this new initiative, the CGIAR is calling on the
international community to boost investment in research that is
vital for enabling rural people to cope with the rising threat. In
2006, the CGIAR's combined expenditures on research related to
climate change amounted to nearly US$70 million, or 15 percent of
its total budget of $470 million. But now, under a policy
formulated during the CGIAR's 2008 Annual General Meeting, held
at Beijing in early December, it is seeking to at least double that
amount.
In support of Sierra's call for a major increase in research
investment, the Alliance of the Centers, together with the CGIAR
and Science Council Secretariats, prepared an overview of the
CGIAR's current work related to climate change, which is
summarized in the remainder of this article.
As the overview document points out, all 15 CGIAR Centers have
assigned climate change a central place in their research efforts,
and some have set up programs dealing exclusively with this theme.
Through these efforts, the Centers have built strong capabilities
and comparative advantages in three main areas:
- Gauging the vulnerability of agriculture, natural resources and
rural communities
- Breeding crops for stress tolerance, while developing better
practices for sustainable crop and environmental management
- Supporting the development of policies that are conducive to
sustainable agricultural growth
As a result, the Centers are now poised to expand current
research and undertake new collaborative efforts that are
fundamental for enabling developing country agriculture to adapt to
and mitigate the expected impacts of global climate change.
 Calling Attention to the Vulnerability of
Agriculture
Global climate change poses an ominous threat to food security
and to rural livelihoods in the developing world. On this point,
scientists are now universally agreed, though some uncertainty
remains about the magnitude of the damage that can be expected. In
any case, farmers in the tropics and subtropics will see
fundamental changes in rainfall patterns as well as rising
temperatures, which will intensify pest outbreaks and reduce crop
productivity. Further damage will come from more severe and
frequent extreme weather events, such as drought and flooding. At
some locations, those trends are already in evidence.
The particular vulnerability of agriculture in developing
countries is now well understood, in large part thanks to the
important efforts of the International Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC). Among the many specialists who helped the IPCC craft its
central messages (conveyed through a series of reports released in
2007) were various scientists working in the Centers supported by
the CGIAR.
For this purpose, CGIAR scientists drew upon a wealth of
experience and information, together with powerful analytical
tools. Much of their work, carried out in collaboration with
numerous partner organizations, has been aimed at helping poor
farmers achieve sustainable rural livelihoods, despite variable and
severe weather, together with increased pressure on
agriculture's natural resource base.
Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change
The impacts of global climate change on agriculture vary over
time and across locations, depending on different agroecologies,
farming systems, production conditions and even particular plant
species.
During recent years, CGIAR scientists have progressed
significantly - with the aid of geographical information systems
(GIS) and simulation models - in determining what specific
consequences rural people, especially the poor, can expect to face
at specific locations as a result of climate change during the
coming decades. In pioneering studies, for example, they have
predicted negative effects on key staples, such as maize and wheat,
in major production environments and across entire continents.
The information resulting from such analysis will be essential
for targeting strategies and measures aimed at helping rural people
cope with climate change and for adjusting these interventions to
variable circumstances in diverse landscapes.
Adapting Agriculture and Natural Resource Management to
Climate Change
The performance of crops, wild plants, livestock and aquatic
resources under stress depends both on their inherent genetic
capacity and on the whole agroecosystems in which they are managed.
Any serious effort to increase the resilience of developing country
agriculture in the face of climate change must involve the adoption
of climate-resilient crop varieties and animal breeds as well as
more prudent management of crops, animals and the natural resources
that sustain their production while providing other vital services
for people and the environment.
In recent years, CGIAR researchers have been able to achieve
dramatic progress in boosting the resilience of major staples -
principally maize, rice and wheat. They are also building on the
"evolutionary advantage" of naturally hardy food crops,
such as barley, cassava, pearl millet, sorghum, and groundnut,
which are widely grown in dry climates. In this work, the CGIAR
Centers are actively employing new tools from biotechnology to
accelerate the improvement of crops for resistance to diseases and
insects and tolerance to various abiotic stresses, such as drought
and flooding.
The CGIAR Centers engaged in crop improvement also devote
significant effort to research on crop and soil management. A key
insight from this research is that holistic and dynamic approaches
are required to achieve lasting solutions to declining productivity
and natural resource degradation in farming systems across the
developing world. The Centers and their partners have developed and
are actively promoting a wide variety of such approaches,
involving, for example, crop diversification through the
incorporation of multipurpose grain, tree and forage legumes into
traditional farming systems as well as better management of crop
residues and integration of crops and livestock.
Increasingly, our work on cropping systems and soils is linked
with research on water management. Climate change will put greater
pressure on water resources, as increasingly volatile rainfall
patterns force farmers to rely more heavily on irrigation. Since
the early 1990s, the CGIAR has been engaged in a major effort to
improve the productivity of water in agriculture. This research
points to a wide range of technologies and policy measures that
could increase water productivity in both irrigated and rainfed
agricultural systems, including those that incorporate livestock
and fisheries.
Mitigating Climate Change through Better Land
Management
In collaboration with many developing country partners, CGIAR
researchers are investigating a number of promising options for
reducing emissions through innovative approaches to the management
of tropical lands. Among these are initiatives to help reduce
deforestation and promote agroforestry systems as well as pro-poor
approaches to biofuels production. Such options could permit the
removal of significant amounts of greenhouse gases from the
atmosphere, thus mitigating future climate change. CGIAR
researchers are also seeking ways to reduce emissions of methane
from irrigated rice production and livestock and of nitrous oxide
from the application of nitrogen fertilizer.
Developing Appropriate Policies
Farming communities in parts of the developing are beginning to
adapt to consequences of climate change that are already evident.
What remains to be seen, of course, is whether both adaptation and
mitigation will proceed quickly enough to forestall major
dislocations and greater human suffering in rural areas. A key
prerequisite for speeding the pace of progress on both fronts
consists of policies that are conducive to sustainable improvement
in agricultural production and natural resource management. CGIAR
researchers are exploring a number of avenues with other
international institutions and with partners in developing
countries to support the development of such policies.
Among the products that will come from CGIAR policy research are
simulation models that permit comprehensive assessments of the many
factors affecting food security, poverty and the environment, as
influenced by climate change. Such information is critical for
constructing plausible development scenarios that better enable
policy makers to define a vision of the way forward to sustainable
development and design measures that will help realize that
vision.
Without such measures, the Millenium Development Goals will most
likely remain an empty promise for many of the world's rural
poor, particularly as they struggle to get the better of global
climate change.
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