Climate Change Adaptation

Climate Change and Climate Stabilization

Government leaders in developed countries are tasked with a task of improving the quality of the environment. Climate change is one of the global problem that has been considered to challenge thee development all countries across the globe. The effects of climate change are dangerous to both plants and animal life n earth. Nations across the global have agreed to come together to combat this life-threatening problem. These have been possible by countries ratifying treaties that are geared towards reducing of cause of climate change. The research paper will assess the implementation of adaptation of climate change and climate stabilization by developed countries. The paper will consider the case of countries that are member states of OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), these are the parties that are listed in Annex 1 of UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change). Government leaders of Development nations that are members of OECD are expected to emphasis on the process of national communications to the UNFCCC. National Communications (NC) is a framework of communication process that follows a standardized format of reporting policies and projects that are undertaken to implement climate change adaptation by the members' states. This whole process is particularly important in that help to facilitate the cross-national comparison of what different countries are doing to address the whole problem.

Studies at EssaysProfessors.com have shown that the impacts and adaptation of climate change do not receive adequate attention within the National Communications in matters relating to the emission of greenhouse gases and the mitigation measure that should be adopted (Leary 112). There are some developed countries that are able to recognize the policies that are geared towards reversing natural hazards that can provide an adaptation to the problem of climate change. However, there are only a few countries that are able to provide a report indicating the anticipatory measures that can be put in place to address the problem of climate change in future. There is few policies measure that can be considered as anticipatory in context of addressing climate change. Some of the measures that are currently in place are for instance, the measures taken in a 'one-off' manner by project managers and engineers in order to facilitate the design of a ling-lived infrastructural project. In addition, there are some developed nations that have developed concerted efforts to provide comprehensive national and regional measures and frameworks to address climate change.

In the recent years, adaptations to the impacts of climate change have received less attention in response to mitigating the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG). However, adaptation of greenhouse gases impacts is more required by the developing nations because of two major reasons (Stephenson 45). Firstly, developing nations are more dependent on the resources that exist on the environment naturally; these resources are very sensitive to climate change. Secondly, developing nations are described as being typically less adaptive to the impacts of climate change thereby making them more venerable to its impacts. On the contrary, developed nations are not much affected by this problem even though they are also very much venerable to the impacts. Developed nations have taken few anticipatory measures to address the problem. Leaders of these developed nations are supposed to take the adaptation measures more serious because of two major reasons. Firstly, observations and forecasts made have indicated that many climate changes are expected along the high latitude areas and these are the locations of many developed nations. Secondly, developed nations are endowed with technical and financial resources and strong institutional framework to enable to process of adaptation planning (Stephenson 34).

Scope and Framework

This paper has considered the developed countries to be the thirty member states of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development which fall under the Annex 1 of UNFCCC. However, countries like South Korea and Mexico will also be considered in the analysis even though they are not listed in the Annex 1 of the UNFCCC. Adaptation measures for climate change include the various decisions that are taken by private and public stakeholders in the context of mitigating the impacts of climate change. There have been several attempts of developing a framework that would assist in measuring the outcomes of the adaptation measures that are taken. However, the relationship between the measures and the outcomes has been difficult to generate because the overall efficiency of a certain measure like reducing the dangers of climate change is hard to measure. The Nation Communication process in the paper is referred to NC1, NC3 and NC3. The analysis of the policies and measures that are adapted by the developed nations in a content analysis report indicate that there have been a low pace in the adaptation of these policies (Parry 79).

Impacts of Adaptation in Reference to the National Communication

All nations that are signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change committed themselves to submit their implementation plans concerning the convention. The process of National communications ensures that the countries submit their implementation plans to the UNFCCC secretariat on regular basis. The guidelines for submitting the implementation plan differs depending on the classification of the countries; the Annex 1 members and the non-Annex 1 members.  The guidelines for the Annex 1 countries were first published in 1994. The guidelines were revised twice; the first was during the Second Convention of Parties (COP) and it was used for the; preparation of National Communication 2 (NC 2) in 1996 while the second one was during the Fifth Convention of Parties (COP 5) for the preparation of NC 3 in 1999 (Parry 19).

The first guideline was one sentence that encouraged countries to report all forms of impacts that are expected from climate change.  The parties were also required to suggest what measures they would suggest to implement article 4.1 (b) and (e) regarding the adaptation process. The guidelines that were revised in 1996 retained this sentence and added a phrase to encourage the developed nations to follow an indicative guideline (Parry, 98). This additional phrase contained two chapters; one that dealt with 'expected outcomes of climate change and vulnerability assessment while the other one dealt with adaptation measures. There were mandatory elements that the National Communication required as stipulated in the revised in the revised guidelines of 1996.

Level of attention given to the impacts and adaptations in the National Communication

When examining the level at which countries are devoted to the chapter relating impacts and adaptations, it can be found out that countries have based their activities under UNFCCC on issues that are related to the mitigation of climate change (Leary 33). Many developing countries have devoted few activities of their NC 2 and NC 3 of the chapters that deal with impacts and adaptation. Most of the developed countries have devoted one fifth of their latest NCs on impacts and adaptation; eight countries including France, Netherlands and England have devoted less than five percent to the issues mention in NC2 and NC3 (Stephenson 56). However, there were few exemptions like Mexico that devoted close to half of its NC1 to impacts and adaptation.

The adoption of the Kyoto Protocol made a huge impact on the emphasis required on the mitigation measures as provided in the National Communication 3. Austria is a typical example of the impact that the Kyoto Protocol had on the National Communication process. Austria increased the level of coverage of projected emissions, financial resources, research, and transfer of technology, education, training, and public awareness. Austria's National Communication 3 therefore increased considerably while the covering of the adaptations and impacts reduced rate higher rate. However, many developed countries in Europe did not feel the effect of the Kyoto Protocol and therefore they did not implement the NC 3 as for the case of Austria. Leaders in these nations are expected to ensure that a lot of resources, both financial and technical should be directed towards the communication process in order to ensure that the possible impacts of climate change are determined. This whole process would ensure that there are mitigation measures that are put in place so as to reduce the impacts that are associated with it (Leary 72).

Advantages of the Adaptation of the Impacts of Climate Change

Developed countries are located at the high altitudes, which are areas that are very much venerable to the impacts of climate change. By adapting and reporting the possible impacts to the UNFCCC secretariat, these countries will have saved their land from the adverse impacts of climate change. This would be possible by the countries participating in activities that are geared towards mitigating the impacts of climate change, for instance, by reducing the levels of greenhouse gases that is emitted into the atmosphere.

The national communication process improves the multinational cooperation among countries. This is an important process that would help nations to come together and jointly develop a comprehensive report on what should be done to stop climate change. When nations come together to address a common problem, resources are brought together and this makes the planned task to be accomplished easily and within a short time frame. Nation leaders should therefore implement the provisions stipulated in the UNFCCC so as to ensure that each member state of the OECD participates in the development of comprehensive plan to address climate change. The leaders should implement this initiative within the shortest possible time since the dangers of climate change are continually increasing (Parry 25).

The communication of the problems of climate change would also help improve the mutual cooperation among countries. When the developed countries decide to address a problem jointly, they are likely to share most of the expected tasks in order to develop a comprehensive outcome. The process would help to improve the mutual understanding between the participating states. Countries would thus feel as being part of the proposed plan. This would ensure that each country would take a role to play in order to have a good relationship with the rest. This relationship would help the countries to understand each other and thus an opportunity for such countries to participate in other activities like trade is created.