AdaptNet for 30 June 2009

1. Aid and Adaptive Capacity – Island Country of Niue

2. Resilience of Naturally Ventilated Buildings to Climate Change

3. Insurance as a Risk Management Tool for Climate Change

4. Climate Change, Hydropolitics and Transboundary Resources

5. Human Migration and Displacement – Climate Change

6. Sussex Energy Group Conference – February 2010

Aid and Adaptive Capacity – Island Country of Niue               

The paper explains the way aid affects the financial resources and governance institutions needed to implement adaptation in Niue. It argues that aid has both positive and negative effects on adaptive capacity in Niue, and that unless aid is delivered with care and purpose it may do little to reduce vulnerability to climate change.   

The Effect of Aid on Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change: Insights from Niue, Jon Barnett, Political Science, vol. 60, no. 1, pp. 31-45, 2008 [135 KB, PDF]

Resilience of Naturally Ventilated Buildings to Climate Change       

The study evaluates the likely current and future temperatures in hospital wards in England. It considers the effects of alternative ventilation strategies, passive temperature control techniques and internal thermal gain scenarios. The study finds that spaces conditioned using the ANV (advanced natural ventilation strategy) are resilient to increases in internal heat gains and climatic warming.                

Resilience of Naturally Ventilated Buildings to Climate Change: Advances Natural Ventilation and Hospital Wards, Kevin John Lomas and Yingchun Ji, Energy and Buildings, vol. 41, pp. 629–653, 2009 [subscription required]

Insurance as a Risk Management Tool for Climate Change        

The paper examines the role of insurance in climate change adaptation. It suggests that if implemented well, insurance could offer a real opportunity to help the poor and vulnerable become resilient to the impacts of climate change by allowing markets to bear some of the costs of adapting to climate-related hazards.                   

Paying the Premium: Insurance as a Risk Management Tool for Climate Change, Aarjan Dixit and Heather McGray, Working Paper, The World Resources Institute, Washington, DC, June 2009 [289 KB, PDF]

Climate Change, Hydropolitics and Transboundary Resources

This collaborative volume of papers examines the multiple challenges that global climate change raises for the management of shared freshwater resources.  It assesses the prospective risks to human security, and explores how policies and institutions can evolve to ensure sustainable water supplies in a warming world.                         

Troubled Waters: Climate Change, Hydropolitics, and Transboundary Resources, David Michel and Amit Pandya (editors), Stimson’s Regional Voices, The Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, DC, 2009 [1.77 MB, PDF]     

Human Migration and Displacement – Climate Change               

The report, drawing on empirical evidence from a survey of every continent, explores how climate change is already causing people to leave their homes. It details some of the specific ways displacement may occur over the next decades. The report calls for seeing climate-related migration and displacement as global in nature, not simply isolated local crises.  

In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement, Koko Warner et al., Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), May 2009 [2.54 MB, PDF]

Sussex Energy Group Conference – February 2010

This conference will take place at the University of Sussex, near Brighton, on the 25th and 26th February 2010. It will discuss emerging research agendas in the field of energy including: low carbon energy innovation; secure and resilient energy systems; and the politics of sustainable energy transitions. Abstracts may be submitted before 15^th August 2009.   

Sussex Energy Group Conference, Science & Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, 25-26 February 2010