Adapting to Climate Change in Eastern Europe and Central Asia presents an overview of what adaptation to climate change might mean for the countries of the region of Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA). The next decade offers a window of opportunity for ECA countries to make their development more resilient to climate change.

The Economic Benefits of Climate Action shows how well-designed policies can reduce the ECA region s carbon footprint while promoting growth opportunities and protecting the living standards of lower income households.

Ending poverty and stabilizing climate change will be two unprecedented global achievements and two major steps toward sustainable development. But the two objectives cannot be considered in isolation: they need to be jointly tackled through an integrated strategy. This report brings together those two objectives and explores how they can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction. It also provides guidance on how to create a “win-win†? situation so that climate change policies contribute to poverty reduction and poverty-reduction policies contribute to climate change mitigation and resilience building. The key finding of the report is that climate change represents a significant obstacle to the sustained eradication of poverty, but future impacts on poverty are determined by policy choices: rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development can prevent most short-term impacts whereas immediate pro-poor, emissions-reduction policies can drastically limit long-term ones.

Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 1998.

This book illustrates the World Bank’s commitment to assist countries to respond to the opportunities and challenges posed by climate change. Undertaken in collaborative partnership with policy makers, farmers, civil society, and other stakeholders in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, it provides a much needed response to the call for action by quantifying the impact and identifying key priorities for policies, programs, and investments to reduce the vulnerability of agricultural systems to climate change in the South Caucasus. The study responds to the urgent need for climate adaptation, as highlighted in the World Bank’s “Turn Down the Heat” report. Notably, the South Caucasus is already contending with increasing aridity and more frequent extreme weather events (e.g. severe droughts, floods and hailstorms). It presents practical solutions for a more climate smart agriculture, at the regional, national and agro-ecological zone level in each country. The recommendations offered in this book are a compilation of the results of the three national studies, and highlight the need and potential for regional collaborative action to increase benefits, while also continuing to emphasize the need for an effective response at the national level. The national level results are supported by country reports, which provide more details. This work is but an important beginning. To achieve the goals of climate resilience in the agriculture sector, more work is needed to translate the proposals into reality. The analysis demonstrates that investments in irrigation infrastructure and on-farm technologies have great potential to raise agricultural productivity and improve the climate resilience of the sector. Demand-side agricultural water management will have high short-term payoffs, and these short-term payoffs are complementary to the success of long- term irrigation, drainage and other infrastructure investments. Strengthening the disaster risk management strategies (beyond agricultural measures) are also needed to help mitigate household risks from extreme events, especially for the poorest, who are the most vulnerable.

"While the energy sector is a primary target of efforts to arrest and reverse the growth of greenhouse gas emissions and lower the carbon footprint of development, it is also expected to be increasingly affected by unavoidable climate consequences from the damage already induced in the biosphere. Energy services and resources, as well as seasonal demand, will be increasingly affected by changing trends, increasing variability, greater extremes and large inter-annual variations in climate parameters in some regions. All evidence suggests that adaptation is not an optional add-on but an essential reckoning on par with other business risks. Existing energy infrastructure, new infrastructure and future planning need to consider emerging climate conditions and impacts on design, construction, operation, and maintenance. Integrated risk-based planning processes will be critical to address the climate change impacts and harmonize actions within and across sectors. Also, awareness, knowledge, and capacity impede mainstreaming of climate adaptation into the energy sector. However, the formal knowledge base is still nascent?information needs are complex and to a certain extent regionally and sector specific. This report provides an up-to-date compendium of what is known about weather variability and projected climate trends and their impacts on energy service provision and demand. It discusses emerging practices and tools for managing these impacts and integrating climate considerations into planning processes and operational practices in an environment of uncertainty. It focuses on energy sector adaptation, rather than mitigation which is not discussed in this report. This report draws largely on available scientific and peer-reviewed literature in the public domain and takes the perspective of the developing world to the extent possible."

This book focuses on managing risks and building resilience to climate change, showcasing experiences from research, field projects and best practices to foster climate change adaptation in Eastern Europe that can be implemented elsewhere. Climate change affects countries in Eastern Europe, i.e. the Western Balkans and Southeast Europe in a variety of ways. Apart from severe floods, there are reports of decreasing water reserves in the southern regions, and of gradual changes in biodiversity and agricultural production. In the South Caucasus area, for instance, climate change models project a decline in precipitation and suggest that it will continue to become drier this century. Many Eastern European countries, especially the non-EU ones, have weak national climate policies, and transboundary collaborations, as well as limited public engagement in matters related to climate change. As a result, climate change poses a serious threat to their economic stability and development and to the sustainable development of the region. The above state of affairs illustrates the need for a better understanding of how climate change influences Eastern Europe, and for the identification of processes, methods and tools that may help the countries and the communities in the region to adapt. There is also a perceived need to showcase successful examples of how to cope with the social, economic and political problems posed by floods/droughts in the region, especially ways of increasing the resilience of agriculture systems and of communities. Addressing this need, the book presents papers written by scholars, social practitioners and members of government agencies involved in research and/or climate change projects in Eastern Europe.

Compared to other regions, Europe and Central Asia are by far the oldest. Moreover, population aging is set to accelerate further over the coming decades as large segments turn old. Additionally, some countries such as Russia and certain Eastern European countries are facing a shrinkage of their population. Against this backdrop, this report investigates what stands in the way of societies reaping the full benefits of increased longevity--that is, longer lives and potentially prolonged payoffs from human capital--and what can help to mitigate the possible negative impacts of a smaller and older workforce. Beginning with a focus on demographic trends, the report puts the rapid decline in fertility and contrasting migration trends in the region in a historical perspective and looks forward to the varying paths that population change may follow in the region. Next, it examines the evidence on the likely impact of demographic change on growth and savings, the labor force, firm and economy-wide innovation, poverty and inequality, and intergenerational solidarity. Finally, the report goes beyond diagnostics and puts an emphasis on what we know regarding successful policy interventions, presenting evidence on what has and has not worked in the past.--Publisher description.

This volume provides an overview of the climate change adaptation objectives set, actions taken, and challenges faced by several countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The majority of the populations in this region struggle to make a living from subsistence agriculture, and livelihoods are highly dependent on natural ecosystem services which are likely to be severely affected by climate change. Cases discussed in this book highlight successes made by governments towards achieving adaptation objectives, and efforts required to overcome challenges. While significant economic advances have been made, the pace of growth has been slow to impact the lives of a majority of the people who live below the poverty line. The chapters highlight adaptation actions for protecting people and their livelihoods in priority sectors, maintaining food and water security, supporting socio-economic stability including poverty reduction, and climate risk management. This book also maximizes readers' insights into the knowledge gaps and limitations of stated adaptation goals, and the bottlenecks that hinder implementation in different regions.

Adaptation is a process by which individuals, communities and countries seek to cope with the consequences of climate change. The process of adaptation is not new; the idea of incorporating future climate risk into policy-making is. While our understanding of climate change and its potential impacts has become clearer, the availability of practical guidance on adaptation has not kept pace. The development of the Adaptation Policy Framework (APF) is intended to help provide the rapidly evolving process of adaptation policy-making with a much-needed roadmap. Ultimately, the purpose of the APF is to support adaptation processes to protect - and enhance - human well-being in the face of climate change. This volume will be invaluable for everyone working on climate change adaptation and policy-making.