Enhancing Resilience Through Climate Change Policies

Introduction

Climatic change affects people’s livelihoods globally. For the marginalized societies, climatic change is another stressor to make a decent living and their survival struggle. The purpose of this policy brief is to emphasize the need for climatic change policies resilience and outline recommendation policies that aim at incorporating community-based resilience-based into local, regional and national level climate change, development and natural resource management policies. Climatic change is a significant factor that triggers a lack of resilience. Therefore, this policy brief offers fieldwork demonstrations that provide practical tools for using this theoretical concept in the integration of climatic change adaptations for national and international strategies. The idea of resilience is made more concrete through reducing greenhouse gas emissions, low carbon policies, renewable energy and coral destruction in the Great Barrier Reef, as discussed below in this paper.

Justification

Strengthening the marginalized society’s group’s resilience should be at the heart of climatic change action and policy. The need is to provide better climatic change planning and policy in an integrated, participatory and transparent manner at diverse levels to improve climatic change governance for a well-functioning and healthy society. A necessary element in a well capable and targeted climate adaptation planning is the participation of all relevant stakeholders across scales and sectors throughout the entire process of strategies set up and implementation.

chart below indicates the triggers of climate change and the consequences.

The emission of crucial greenhouse gases resulting from human activity has escalated substantially due to industrialization. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emanating from fossil fuel combustion is a characteristic of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission. The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, regulated by diverse processes naturally, a part of the global carbon cycle. The Carbon flux between the atmosphere and the earth's ocean and land is dominated by the natural process, for instance, plant photosynthesis. These natural processes absorb some anthropogenic CO2 emissions produced annually. However, the CO2 emissions are exceeding the natural processes capacity to absorb carbon. This imbalance between greenhouse gas emissions and the natural process ability to absorb those emissions has impacted in a continuous increment in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. In essence, the CO2 atmospheric concentrations have escalated by about 40% since the mid-1800s. Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere causes global warming. Thu because the rising levels of greenhouse gas produces an increment in the average surface temperature of the earth over time. To this end, the increasing temperatures may trigger precipitation patterns, sea level and storm severity dynamics, collectively deemed as climate change.

The decomposing plants and other organisms buried beneath rock and sediment layers took millennia to convert to fossil fuels which are carbon-rich deposits. These non- renewable fossils that incorporate oil, coal and natural gas, supply approximately 80% of global energy. They provide heat; electricity and transportation while feeding the process that makes a diverse products range from steel to plastics. Upon burning the fossil fuel, CO2 and other greenhouse gases are released, raping heat in the atmosphere, thus making them the primary contributor of climate change and global warming.

A significant driver of low carbon innovation policy is the price of energy. Innovation efforts in low carbon technologies are proportionate with the oil price, strongly correlated with gas and coal price. The inventors react to escalated energy prices by developing energy-saving technologies, thus engaging in carbon saving. Therefore, the decline in low carbon innovation, linked with collapse trends in oil prices, making future energy savings minimal.

Additionally, low carbon innovation reacts to the price paid by carbon emitters. Emission of carbon without costs that causes climate change damages denies the consumers and company's incentives to invest in emissions-reducing technologies. The inadequate interventions policy limits markets for technologies that reduce emissions. In essence, emitting carbons discourages the development of low-carbon technologies.

Diverse coral reefs are under enormous pressure from various human activities globally that incorporates urban development, agricultural run-off and overfishing. These local threats, the escalated ocean temperatures have triggered the death of corals globally in the recent past. To this end, the increased atmospheric carbon dioxide triggered by human activity is the primary threat to coral reefs on a global scale, primarily due to ocean warming and ensuing ocean acidification.

Evidence for Action

Some of the practical examples of how to strengthen community resilience are to enact policy measures that sustainably prevent climate change even after climate change organizations leaves the community. Therefore, climate change adaptations at local levels would help in reducing the harmful effects triggered by climate change more quickly. Climate change higher-level initiatives can focus on dissemination of information. Modest efforts are taking place globally, for instance, implementing low carbon technologies policies, use of renewable energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enacting Policies that prevent coral destruction. Accelerating data and information access and knowledge helps in raising awareness on climate change at all levels to all stakeholders. Sharing knowledge on Climate change on a global scale contributes to the diversification of culture, improved environmental education, and enhances research on climate change.

Designing and implementing sustainable adaptation plans

Community participation in decision making and planning processes is instrumental in making an ideal change in the lives of people. In essence, community participation is imperative in climate change implementation initiatives. Encouraging both the civil society and private sector provides support for innovative ideas to adapt the climate change. Encouraging both the civil society and private sector would lead to resource mobilization to address climate change and the expansion of the use and implementation of low-cost technologies. However, there is a fundamental need to foster stability, peace, justice, democracy, human rights protection and sustainable development.

Facilitation to support climate change actions

Raising awareness about vulnerability conditions and community's best interest is critical to resilience. Capacity gaps need identification and addressing early on, and a capacity-building strategy should is necessary. A community outreach focused to spread climate change awareness will facilitate immediate action while diverse bodies that regulate climate change initiates form. The negative impacts of climate change and no time is lost, thus no further disruption to the environment. However, the legislative bodies are crucial in combating climate change and will promote the community based projects sustainability. Additionally, the involvement of leaders to communicate and support the process is vital. A real platform for joint learning between stakeholders around project coordinators is efficient in conducting internal and field operations, including meetings and workshops facilitation with local communities and diverse stakeholders at different sub-national levels.

Integrating and innovating across scales and sectors

Combining immediate community-based interventions that set up climate change sustainable adaptation plan at local levels supplemented by higher-level educational and regulatory institutions is an ideal approach to ensure the climate change impacts are minimal. This policy functions to curb short term problem with the community-based work while ensuring local adaptation plans with regulatory bodies. Thu enables countries to control the negative impacts of climate change rapidly while creating a strong foundation for protection against future climate change. National adaptation coalitions play a significant role in catalyzing innovation. This coalition can create innovation and development opportunities into an active network of innovators working for climate change adaptation. Entrepreneurial, innovative behavior could be significant tasks for these coalitions.

Recommendations

Reducing greenhouse gases to net zero in the 21st century would impact a reasonable opportunity of minimizing global warming to 1.5C. This would minimize the mounting damage from the rising sea level, droughts and floods that severely limit efforts to curb poverty, improve prosperity and raise the standards of living. Limiting global warming to 1.5C relative to 2C will reduce the population exposed to both risks linked with climate change and the number of people susceptible to poverty by up to hundreds of millions by the year 2050.

Ideal policy framework, for instance, NAPA or NAMA (Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions) is likely to help countries to secure both private and public funding for mitigation and adaptation. Identification of future low carbon growth trajectories and mitigation opportunities is instrumental even for Countries that have achieved a flat growth rate to date. Thu enable such countries to secure the maximum advantage of new opportunities that may arise. To this end, slow carbon and climate, resilient growth strategies would maximize growth potentials arising from international mitigation efforts sustainably.

Commitments to use renewable energy, for instance, biomass, geothermal, wind, solar, and hydroelectric substitutes harmful fossil fuel combustion. Mitigates problems such as water and air pollution, public health damage, excessive water loss, wildlife and habitat loss, land use issues, and global warming.

Policies that prevent coral destruction in the Great Barrier Reef help in preventing climate change. Coral reefs are under enormous pressure from diverse human activity globally, for instance, urban development, agricultural run-off, and overfishing. High ocean temperatures have triggered the death of corals globally in the recent past. To this end, the greatest threat to coral reefs globally is the rising atmospheric carbon dioxide triggered by human activity, primarily due to ocean warming and oceanic acidification that ensues.

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