On my trip to Botswana last week, I picked up a local magazine called Wena - Industry and the Environment. In Vol. 18 No. 28 (2008), editor Florah Mmereki notes that Botswana was to be represented at last December's UNFCCC climate change meeting in Poznan (COP 14), but sounds despairing:
During the preparatory meeting where stakeholders were putting together the Botswana country position on climate change, many important stakeholders, mainly directors of environmental departments, never showed up even once; but there were very technical issues being discussed. And I am afraid Botswana's position on climate change will not be articulated well. Already there are misunderstandings between experts and directors of some government departments on who is supposed to go and present the Botswana country position at the climate change meeting in Poland.
I have spent enough time on working visits to Botswana to know that government suffers from a shortage of skilled staff in sectors like transport planning that are critical to the effective management of the country. So it comes as no surprise that climate change would be low on the agenda in allocating staff resources. Which is a tragedy, because Botswana, like many African countries, is on the receiving end of climate change, and is feeling the effects already.
One article in Wena magazine points out that water shortages are the order of the day, warmer temperatures are resulting in the spread of malaria to new areas, species are going extinct from the shrinking of the Okavango delta, and the timing of seasonal changes in rainfall is changing, with serious consequences for farmers of certain crops. Particularly in poor countries, the most vulnerable farming communities are on marginal land, and even a slight change in climate forces them to either change crops or migrate to towns and cities. Agriculture needs to be a focus of adaptation strategies.
There is an excellent web site called weADAPT - run by a network of climate scientists, researchers and NGOs - that presents a number of fascinating case studies on changes that communities are experiencing, and strategies to help them adapt. This is not something that might happen in the future - it is affecting social cohesion, local economies, health and food security right now.
Botswana held a workshop last year to put together the country's position for the Poland meeting. Wena magazine reports that
stakeholders who attended... expressed a concern that in most cases in Botswana people are never made aware of technology that they are given. They said usually government just installs whatever technology in a village and in the end people do not use it or it gets vandalized. Stakeholders said this alone is going to be a barrier to technology transfer.
There is a fear, and it may well be justified, that the upcoming UN climate change meeting this December in Copenhagen will finally get agreement on the long-standing issue of technology transfer to developing countries, but that this may end up being a case of "technology dumping" and be of no real benefit. I have written more about this in an article for an upcoming issue of Farafina magazine, but one of the key points is that technology must be accompanied by community participation and appropriate support structures. Otherwise technology may be introduced that is inappropriate for local needs for adapting to climate change, or that cannot be properly maintained. (But, as I wrote yesterday, technology is more often for mitigation than for adaptation.) Based on what I have seen in Botswana, this support may be lacking.
The other challenge - and this brings me back to the editorial comments in Wena - is that many poor countries do not have the resources or clout to negotiate a good deal at UN negotiations. These countries need to band together for lobbying and negotiating, as noted by Dr Saleemul Huq of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). (The IIED also has some useful articles and publications on adaptation.) Dr Huq announced in February the launch of an international coalition of donor agencies, international NGOs and research institutes from over 50 countries to help the world’s poorest communities adapt to climate change.
A coalition such as this may also be important for preventing middle income countries like South Africa from dominating negotiations on behalf of poorer developing countries. Whether it achieves this, or attains success in negotiations, remains to be seen. Interestingly, in the runup to South Africa's own climate change conference to set this country's strategy, the idea of a grouping of countries to represent Southern African interests was mentioned in Monday's Cape Times, but it was not clear from the article whether the group's mandate would include climate change negotiations.
Update on 7 March 2009: Here's a new article on the importance of adapting to climate change from the perspective of international companies - this is not just a concern in developing countries.
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