1.4 Panel Sessions

Organiser: Saleemul Huq, International Institute for Environment and Development, UK, and Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies, Bangladesh

The two instruments to address climate change are adaptation and mitigation. Alone, neither is sufficient. Mitigation is essential to reduce emissions, but will take time to have an effect. Adaptation is essential to deal with the impacts of climate change that are already inevitable, and those that will occur along the pathway to stabilise emissions through mitigation. But for developing countries, many questions arise. Should we expect developing countries with currently low levels of emissions to pay for adaptation measures? If not, who will pay? And how will payment be effected? This session will engage panellists representing the aid agencies, developing countries, and the research community to explore some of the key questions around financing adaptation.

Biography
Dr Saleemul Huq joined the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED, UK and BNAS Bangladesh) in London as Director of the Climate Change Programme in 2001. His interests are in the inter-linkages between climate change (both mitigation as well as adaptation) and sustainable development, from the perspective of the developing countries (with special emphasis on the least developed countries). He was the lead author of the chapter on Adaptation and Sustainable Development in the third assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and is a co-anchor of the cross cutting theme on Adaptation and Mitigation for the fourth assessment report.

Panel Members

• Robin Davies (AusAid, Australia) – Presentation (PDF)
• Ian Noble (The World Bank, USA) – Presentation (PDF)
• Emma Tompkins (University of Leeds, UK) – Presentation (PDF)
• Saleemul Huq (IIED) – Presentation (PDF)

Organiser: Terry Hughes, James Cook University and ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, Australia

Resilience provides a powerful interdisciplinary concept for understanding complex systems and disturbance events such as climate change, characterised by high uncertainty, but there are no panaceas to achieving the “right” kind of resilient system. Following an introduction to the ideas, a range of empirical work from agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture, and coastal and marine social-ecological systems will demonstrate the potential and limitations of resilience thinking as an analytical and governance approach to climate change adaptation. Chris Cocklin discusses vulnerable agri-environmental landscapes and the challenge of reconciling the need to build resilience and reduce emissions at the same time as maintaining productivity in a changing climate. Eddie Allison develops a typology to facilitate policy coherence in adaptive responses in aquatic ecosystems affected by climate change. Nick Graham raises the prospect of eroding resilience to navigate away from undesirable system states that may result from climate change impacts and Joshua Cinner presents a framework that ties together resilience thinking and vulnerability to critically assess options for conservation management. Terry Hughes will conclude the session by inviting audience discussion.

Biography
Professor Terry Hughes is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow (2002-2007, 2007-2012) and Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (since 2005). Professor Hughes was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2001, and was a member of the Expert Advisory Committee for Australian National Research Priorities in 2002. He is a Fellow and Board Member of the Beijer International Institute for Ecological Economics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, Stockholm, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Resilience Alliance. He has been awarded numerous prizes awards, including the Centenary Medal of Australia, the Silver Jubilee Award for Excellence of the Australian Marine Science Association in 2004, the 2007 Sherman Eureka Prize for Environmental Research, and the 2008 quadrennial Darwin Medal of the International Society for Coral Reef Studies.

Panel Members

• Edward Allison (WorldFish Centre) – Presentation (PDF)
• Joshua Cinner (James Cook University, Australia) – Presentation (PDF)
• Chris Cocklin (James Cook University, Australia) – Presentation (PDF)
• Louisa Evans (WorldFish Centre) – Presentation (PDF)
• Nick Graham (James Cook University, Australia) – Presentation (PDF)

Organiser: Rob Kay, Coastal Zone Management, Australia

The panel session “how effective can adaptation be?” aims to explore two key questions:
1. What are our measures of success in climate change adaptation?
2. How can we think about the design of adaptation activities to consider adaptation effectiveness?
The session will approach adaptation effectiveness from experts in different sectors, namely:
• Urban centres;
• Ecosystems;
• Human health; and
• Coastal zones.
The session is extremely timely given the extensive debate within the adaptation community on focussing resources on ‘optimal’ adaptation outcomes. This debate is occurring both at an international level and within Australia where regarding the optimal allocation of adaptation funding between levels of Government, the community and private sector.

Biography
Robert is a Principal Consultant in the Perth-based consulting company Coastal Zone Management (CZM). He has 22 years in climate change impact assessment focussing on coastal zones. He founded CZM in 2004 to provide specialist technical and management consultancy services to enhance the sustainable development of coastal zones in Australia and beyond. Robert has worked in government, academia and private sector. His consulting experience includes projects ranging from local-scale strategy development for local governments, State and National projects in Australia and a number of UN agencies including the UNFCCC, UNDP and UNEP.

Panel Members

• Sir Andrew Haines (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK)
• Cynthia Rosenzweig (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University, USA)
• Will Steffen (Australian National University, Australia)
• Bruce Thom (University of Sydney, Australia)