Climate chaos, policy dilemmas

Immaculate Maina, Michael Okoti and Andrew Newsham

OutlineSection I: Introduction• What is climate change • Potential direct impacts on agricultural sector• Climate change and policy• Global challenges to addressing climate change

Section II: Climate change and agriculture in Kenya• Rationale of the study• Theoretical and analytical framework• Actor and actor networks• Narratives• Politics• Important policy spaces• Conclusions and recommendations

WHAT IS CLIMATE CHANGE

UNFCC - “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural variability observed over comparable time periods.”

Manifestations • Changes in temperature regimes• Changing rainfall patterns• Changing wind patterns• Floods • Droughts • Cyclones

Climate change and agriculture

Why agriculture..

“…. is part of the climate change problem, contributing about 13.5 percent of annual GHGs (with forestry contributing an additional 19

percent), compared with 13.1 percent from transportation. Agriculture is, however, also part of the solution, offering promising

opportunities for mitigating emissions through carbon sequestration, soil and land use management, and biomass

production”.

Global agriculture - under significant pressure to meet the demands of rising populations using limited resources - further stressed by the impact of climate change.

POTENTIAL DIRECT EFFECTS ON AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMSa) Seasonal changes in rainfall and temperature - impact agro-

climatic conditions – alter growing seasons, planting and harvesting calendars, water availability, pest, weed and disease populations, etc.

b) Alterations – evapotranspiration, photosynthesis and biomass production – reduced forage

c) Alterations in land suitabilityd) Probability of increased CO2 levels - positive growth response for

a number of staples under controlled conditions (“carbon fertilization effect”).

e) Increased occurrences of extreme events like droughts and floods – crop loss - some countries of as much as 50% by 2020 (IPCC)

Kenya - floods cost about 5.5 of GDP (Ksh 37 billion) every 7 years, and droughts costs about 8 % of GDP (Ksh 53 billion) every 5 years - direct long term fiscal liability - 2.4 % GDP (Ksh 16 billion) per year

Responses to global climate change

Climate change and its impacts on ecosystems and socio-economic systems - prompted two types of policy responses:

a) Aimed at reducing net emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) in order to slow or stop climate change - “mitigation” of climate change

b) Addresses the social systems, economic sectors and communities affected by climate change (rather than those contributing to it) - “adaptation”

A. MitigationMeasures reduce the amount of emissions (abatement) enhance the absorption capacity of greenhouse gases

(sequestration)

Emission sources - fertilizer application, livestock and manure management, rice cultivation, and savanna burning

Sequestration - “best” management practices in agriculture that raise Soil Organic Carbon - restoring degraded soils, improving pastures and grazing land, crop and forage rotation, and no-tillage practices

The economic potential for mitigation in agriculture depends on the price of carbon, policy and institutional support, and transaction cost constraints – feasibility for Kenya?.

Example: Conservation agriculture as a mitigation measure

3 components minimal mechanical soil disturbance (i.e. no tillage, direct seeding); maintenance of soils mulch (crop residues, cover crops); rotations or sequences and associations of crops including trees (nitrogen-fixing legumes).

a) Increase in soil organic matter - reduces vulnerability to both excessive rainfall and drought

b) Soil under zero-tillage - increase the soil organic matter content by approx 0.1 to 0.2% per year - formation of 1 cm of new soil over a ten-year period.

c) Facilitate soil structuring - filtration and storage of water in the soild) Directly absorbs up to 150m3 of water per hectare for each

percent of soil organic mattere) No soil moisture is lost through tillage and seedbed preparation.

B. Adaptation

IPCC - “adjustment in natural or human systems in response to experienced or future climatic conditions or their effects or impacts – which may be beneficial or adverse”

Huq et al. (2003): “Adaptation to climate change includes all adjustments in behavior and economic structure that reduce the vulnerability of society to changes in the climate system.”

“Mitigation alone will not avoid serious impacts of climate change on development. The demands on adaptation will be very large. Future vulnerability will depend more on development pathways than on climate change. Sustainable development is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for confronting climate change”. IPCC

Categories of adaptation

Autonomous Action undertaken by individuals, households and businesses

without direct intervention of public agencies Takes the form of a response to already obvious climate impacts Initiatives by private actors - triggered by market or welfare

changes - induced by actual or anticipated climate change

Planned (or policy-driven) Measures that result from deliberate policy-decisions - minimize

losses or benefit from opportunities Associated with public actors or government

Reactive - in response to actual climate impacts e.g. relief food distribution, livestock off-take??

Anticipatory - undertaken before climate impacts are felt e.g. development of dams to check on floods

Examples of autonomous and planned adaptation Autonomous adaptation Planned adaptation Short run adjustments e.g. changing planting dates

Developing greater understanding of climate risks – carrying out climatic risks and vulnerability assessments

Spreading the loss e.g. commodity insurance

Improve emergency response – implementing early warning systems

Localized irrigation on farms Investing in infrastructure – large reservoir storage, increased drainage capacity

Migration Research – breeding crops and livestock

Avoiding the impacts – land use planning – restrict development in areas of increased aridity or floodplains

CLIMATE CHANGE AND POLICY Policy - constitutes the decisions taken by those with responsibility for a given policy area, and these decisions usually take the form of statements or formal positions on an issue, which are then executed by the systems of government”

“The need for policy intervention (planned adaptation) is defined by the extent to which private actors (autonomous adaptation) are able to reduce negative impacts from climate change and the related costs” “Policy-makers have a crucial role to play in creating the institutional, policy, legal and regulatory frameworks necessary to enable and incentivize significant mitigation options” “The right mix of well-designed policies including regulations and economic instruments can overcome economic, technological, informational and behavioural barriers in the marketplace”“Adaptation is not a stand-alone activity, and its integration into development projects, plans, policies, and strategies will be crucial ”

Adaptation option Policy support Crop/livestock diversification to increase productivity and protect against diseases

Availability of extension services, financial support

Modernization of farm operations

Promote adoption of technologies

Permanent migration to diversify income opportunities

Education and training

Efficient water use Water pricing reforms, defined property rights

Develop market efficiency Invest in rural infrastructure, remove market barriers, property rights

Examples of adaptation options and possible policy support

GLOBAL CHALLENGES IN ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE a. Limited planning data e.g. literature on costs and benefit of

adaptation or mitigation - limited and fragmented (sectoral and regional coverage)

b. Limited/lack of financesc. Incoherent policy structures d. Weak institutionse. Poverty f. Compartmentalization within government structures – ‘silos’g. Sectoral segmentation within development cooperation

agencies – limited manpower, limited funding for anticipatory adaptation

SECTION II

Climate change issues in Kenya• Droughts, floods, increased temperatures,

highly variable rainfall amounts and distribution– the vulnerable in rural areas that are most affected– the predominant livelihood strategies for most of

these people are derived from forests or mixed fishing; pastoral and agro-pastoral; marginal mixed farming; high-potential mixed farming; cash cropping or irrigated cropping and wage labour

• Thus, agriculture and climate change are intrinsically intertwined phenomena in Kenya

On-going efforts to deal with impacts of CC

• The overaching National Climate Change Response Strategy (NCCRS)

– Different complex policy and decision-making processes at different layers from the local to the global level with a large number of actors with specific differing interests involved

CC and agriculture• What is the unfolding climate change policy

process as it relates to the agriculture sector?• What policies are in place to deal with CC

consequences for the more than 80% of Kenya’s population that live in the rural areas and who derive their livelihoods from agriculture?

– The Agriculture Sector Ministries (ASMs) are yet to develop a comprehensive policy document to deal with climate change issues, however their activities and interventions are aligned to the NCCRS

Activities and interventions in agricultural sector (I)

• Increasing agricultural productivity and incomes• Encouraging value addition • Promoting indigenous and more drought tolerant food

crops like cassava, millet, sorghum and sweet potatoes• Encouraging private-sector-led development of the

sector • Ensuring environmental sustainability• Rain-fed agriculture with growing experimentation

and expansion of the irrigated systems • Enhancing early warning systems and methods of

communicating to downscale climate information to rural populations

Activities and interventions in agricultural sector (II)

• Research and Development efforts (R&D) in integrated pest management systems

• Crop and livestock insurance• Enhancing agricultural extension services• Developing proper food storage facilities• Regular vaccination campaigns as well as cross border

disease surveillance • Research and Development efforts (R&D) in integrated

pest management systems• Crop and livestock insurance• Enhancing agricultural extension services• Regular vaccination campaigns as well as cross border

disease surveillance

Activities and interventions in agricultural sector (III)

• Early Warning Systems on droughts, floods and disease outbreaks

• Identification and establishment of fodder banks • Development of water resources, especially in the arid

lands• Creating awareness among the pastoralist communities on

stocking rates• Application of agricultural technologies limiting green

house gas (GHG) emissions• Proper management of agricultural waste• Improved crop production practices including promotion of

inter-cropping, promotion of organic farming and also implementation of the national domestic biogas project

Rationale of the study• To analyse the ongoing policy debates on climate

change and agriculture – taking into account the alternative adaptation and

mitigation pathways for the agricultural sector and how these are reflected in government plans (at different scales).

• To re-examine the on-going, planned and projected actions in the agricultural sector in light of the goings on, namely; – the proposed actions and views emanating from the

recently concluded COP 17 – the development of the action plan for implementation

of the National Climate Change Response Strategy

Research questions• What are the key narratives on climate change among

agricultural sector actors in Kenya, and what are the associated actors and political processes?

• What are the key policy spaces in which important decisions relating to climate policy on agriculture are made and how are they likely to unfold in future?

• What are the implications of the narratives for action on the ground in the agricultural sector?

– Expected output: To contribute to the ongoing policy engagement (to reframe and broaden the debate) by examining the dominant narrative(s) and the driver(s) for that dominance

Theoretical and analytical framework

• Knowledge and discourse. What is the ‘policy narrative’?

• Actors and networks. Who is involved and how they are connected?

• Politics and interests. What are the underlying power dynamics?

Source: Adapted from Keeley and Scoones (2003) and Gaventa (2006)

ACTORS AND ACTOR NETWORKS

Results

Actors and actor networks: Schematic representation

Actors and actor networks• There is a wide range of actors, actor

networks and institutions in Kenya all dealing with impacts of climate variability and climate change

How do the various actors and actor networks delineate their roles and responsibilities, determine their agenda and plans, and position themselves in the regulatory and implementation frameworks of climate change policy process?

Major climate change and agriculture actions

• Development of appropriate policy and legal environment

• Building resilience of communities to climate shocks

• Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs)• Sensitization, awareness creation and capacity

buildingClimate change issues present a two-pronged

approach – adaptation and mitigation. Which of these two is most urgent, and/or most beneficial and therefore worth focusing limited resources on?

OVERARCHING NARRATIVES

Adaptation mechanisms to improve the food security situation (I)

Main adaptation strategies proposed:• Promotion of drought tolerant and disease

and pest resistance crops- cassava, millets, cowpeas or green grams

• Livestock: small ruminants and dairy farming• Soil and Water management• Conservation agriculture (CA) • Production of bio-fuels or food production

Awareness creation and sensitization (II)

• Enhanced capacities and knowledge of the dynamics of climate change will increase peoples’ adaptive capacities and reduce their exposure to risks, making them less vulnerable

• Many workshops in this regard have been held and continue to be planned.

• Many these workshops target technocrats in key government sectors Will this top-down approach of dissemination yield the intended

results? What information is informing the discussions around climate

change adaptation and mitigation? What are the mechanisms for the transfer of the knowledge and

information acquired in these workshops downstream to the farming communities who need it most?

Capacity building (III)

• Implementing the NCCRS requires new capabilitiesNeed for relevant technical knowledge in

computational skills for modelling and downscaling large scale datasets to fit into small regions

Climate change being a new disciplinary area means that Kenya does not have a critical mass of persons with the necessary skills of knowledge in this area

The capacity of climate change desk officers need to be strengthened

Energy as a key factor for agricultural development (IV)

• To increase the national electricity grid and to drive the economy on a low-carbon trajectory, focus on other forms of power such as geothermal power, solar or wind power - enable the country to adapt to climate change and mitigate emissionsHowever, access to electricity does not necessarily

translate into connectivity of households to the national grid

Connectivity seems a socio-economic issuePerhaps in developing new energy sources, the focus

could be towards community power plants that communities can own and earn from

Financing climate change (I)Climate change support - new money, additional and adequate

• UNFCCC special loans for CDM projects - Least Developed Countries (LDCs) vs. countries most vulnerable to climate change impacts

• The Adaptation fund• The Green fund • GEF funds on biodiversity, climate change and agriculture• Donors: UNDP, FAO, Rockefeller Foundation, DANIDA, the

European Union, IDRC, UNEP, World Bank , the Danish Government and other donors fund various civil society groups in Kenya

Financing climate change (II)• Funds allocation to climate change - Accessibility to funds

and funds allocation within government ministries is guided by the planning processes in the various ministries. However, it was conceived that when it comes to

allocation of the funds to the various sectors, politics and interests play a critical role

• Donor interests verses national priorities - International pressure, policies and politics were viewed as influencing government allocation of funds on issues surrounding climate change

POLITICS

Influential actors for climate change and agriculture

• All Ministries, especially the Agricultural Sector Ministries• The Ministry is represented in all District Agricultural

Committees (DACs). The District Agricultural Officer (DAO) who chairs the DAC is influential in reaching decisions that affect the grassroots levels.

• Ministry of Environment as the driver of the implementation of the NCCRSDirector of Bilateral Arrangements at the Ministry of

Environment • The office of the Prime Minister (OPM)• NGOs especially those lobbying at the national level• The donor community

Important policy spaces• Climate Change Desk and related Climate Coordination Units within

government line ministries • The ministerial stakeholder forums of line sector• The District Agricultural Committees • Farmers’ forums that feed into the DACs - they capture grassroots voices

in the policy making processes• The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) - Climate Coordination Unit (CCU)

advises the government on climate change issues• The Inter-ministerial Consultative Forum on Climate Change coordinated

from the OPM• NGO forums, such as the Kenya Climate Change Working Group (KCCWG)• The Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA)• The Donor Coordination Unit international politics also play a great role in

determining

Conclusions and recommendations

• More awareness creation Knowledge creation – knowledge that is Kenyan and

agriculture-based Development of mechanisms for sharing knowledge – less reliant on “technical fixes” and more embracing of

experiential local knowledge• More coordination between the many actors – allow

for a stronger local voice and not international interests

• Embrace the complexity and uncertainty that surrounds policy making – effective management of bottom-up and top-down feedback loops

MITIGATION

• “The REDD process poses the danger of restricting small scale farmers because these farmers are considered the main agents of degradation. This is not withstanding the activities undertaken by big concessions in mining and logging for example Tiomin in the Coast Province.”

COORDINATION“Climate change is not a few organizations’/individuals’ responsibility, everybody should be involved and hence it’s not easy to pin point and give the responsibility to few entities. It is very important though that stakeholders focus on what they are strong in – adaptation or mitigation or science or policy. But on the other hand the government should put in place sound policies and implementation framework that must be adhered to. Information should be shared correctly. Currently many players in climate change have their own agenda and they share part of the information that plays to their objectives. Some of the so-called awareness creation is borne out of self-interest - some of it aligning to specific funding. More efforts should be given in correlating cause and effect when it comes to climate change and agriculture. There is need for sound scientific data or evidence to guide our activities nationally. Most of the responses are based on perceptions and not on what the real issues are. The climate change desk officers need to be strengthened to address CC issues in their various sectors. This should apply also to agriculture being a main sector that is more vulnerable to CC and also key to the economic development of the nation.”

FINANCES

“Generally I think that funds allocation is guided by the planning process at the various ministries. The work plans submitted are then moderated at the treasury before the funds are allocated; this is at the national level. But on the other hand, when it comes to allocation of the funds at the various sector levels (e.g. agriculture, energy, and water e.t.c), politics and selfishness plays a critical role. Hence though at the national level plans everything may look rosy, during implementation the picture is different.”

FINANCES“What is really challenging is that most of these programmes are project oriented, when a project is being designed a lot of actors are considered because the donor has what they want as outcomes and the implementing organization, has the needs of the people. I believe projects funded have to some extent a compromise of the issues involved, that’s why it would really be important for organizations to be either self sufficient or get funding from the government for sustainability. Because different donors have different interests, different technologies, different ideas and agendas that they are going to push. So you cannot implement something based on what you really think or on the reality on the ground. It is based on what they can fund; most of the money out there is limited to the donor interest. That is why we have been operating in these vicious cycles of projects; even farmers are used to projects.”

POLITICS

“Efforts on the ground on climate change seem to be ad-hoc and opportunistic – many are not aware exactly what climate change is, the impacts, linkages e.tc.”

“It seems the government of Kenya walks a tight rope between attracting foreign investments and the impacts that such investments may have on the environment including aggravating degradation and deforestation.”

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