- System Resilience and Adaptive Capacity – Australia
- Institutional Responses to Climate Adaptation in Nepal
- Health Effects of Climate Change in the UK 2012
- Climate Vulnerability Monitor – 2012
- Transformational Capacity and the Influence of Place and Identity
- Second Australian Earth System Outlook Conference
System Resilience and Adaptive Capacity – Australia
The report seeks to understand how community-scale energy and water systems influence community adaptive capacity and resilience to climate change. It considers the alternative energy and water systems of two selected communities as case studies to identify key issues, challenges and opportunities for improving the resilience and adaptive capacity of Victorian infrastructure. The report examines different designs for energy and water systems and adaptive capacity of Victorian urban communities.
Resilient Urban Systems: A Socio-technical Study of Community Scale Climate Change Adaptation Initiatives (Final Report), Paula Arcari et al., Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research (VCCCAR), 2012 [717 KB, PDF]
Institutional Responses to Climate Adaptation in Nepal
This research brief is one of the outputs of a pilot exercise related to resilience building of mountain people and local governments in Ramechhap (a vulnerable mid-hill district in central Nepal). It addresses the institutional mechanisms that need to be strengthened for effective implementation of local-level climate change adaptation measures. The brief argues that developing a two-way knowledge sharing mechanism between national and local-level agencies is required to build adaptive capacity.
Institutional Responses to Local-Level Climate Change Adaptation in Nepal, Hiromi Inagaki and Manraj Grewal (editors), Policy Research Brief No. 4, Adaptation Knowledge Platform, Bangkok, Thailand, July 2012 [851 KB, PDF]
Health Effects of Climate Change in the UK 2012
The report provides scientific evidence of the wider risks to public health from climate change in the UK. It draws on climate projections for the UK published in 2009 (UKCP09), the UK’s first climate change risk assessment, published in January 2012, and recent evidence published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other organizations. The report provides information to make informed decisions about the pressures of climate change on public health.
Health Effects of Climate Change in the UK 2012 – Current Evidence, Recommendations and Research Gaps, Sotiris Vardoulakis and Clare Heaviside (editors), Health Protection Agency (HPA), UK, September 2012 [5.55 MB, PDF]
Climate Vulnerability Monitor – 2012
The second edition of the ‘climate vulnerability monitor’, commissioned by 20 governments, suggests that climate change is already costing the global economy $1.2 trillion annually and is responsible for 400,000 deaths each year. The authors suggest that these figures are very likely to rise, with the impacts falling disproportionately on the world’s poorest regions.
Climate Vulnerability Monitor, DARA International Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012
Transformational Capacity and the Influence of Place and Identity
The paper proposes four foundations for measuring transformational capacity at the individual scale that are based on extending established measures of adaptive capacity, including: (1) how risks and uncertainty are managed; (2) the extent of skills in planning, learning and reorganizing; (3) the level of financial and psychological flexibility to undertake change; and (4) the willingness to undertake change.
Transformational Capacity and the Influence of Place and Identity, N A Marshall et al., Environmental Research Letters, vol. 7, pp. 1-9, September 2012 [441 KB, PDF]
Second Australian Earth System Outlook Conference
This conference will take place in Canberra, Australia on 26-27 November 2012. It will explore a small selection of globally significant ‘ticking time bombs’ which pose risks of undesirable change unless anticipatory actions are taken that fall well outside the corrective capacity of the invisible hand of economic market forces. Registration can be made by 16 November 2012.
Second Australian Earth System Outlook Conference: Ticking Time Bombs in the Human-earth System: Information, Status, Timing, Significance, Research Needs, Australian Academy of Science, Canberra, Australia, 26-27 November 2012
For further information, please contact the editor, Saleem Janjua: daptnet@rmit.edu.au
Professor Darryn McEvoy, Program Leader, RMIT University Climate Change Adaptation Programme
Professor Peter Hayes, Co-founder and Executive Director of Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability
Dr. Saleem Janjua, Editor AdaptNet
AdaptNet is a free fortnightly report produced by RMIT University Global Cities Research Institute’s Climate Change Adaptation Programme, Melbourne, Australia. It is published in partnership with the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability.