United
Nations Climate Change Conference ( COP27)
The
Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC from 06th to 18th November 2022
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The
United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 27 takes place in Sharm
el-Sheikh, Egypt from 6 to 18 November 2022. The Climate Conference of the
Parties is held every year since 1995. It provides a platform for stakeholders
to discuss the climate crisis on a global level. Annually, the conference
brings actions on issues to addressing the climate emergency from reducing
Greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), helping communities build resilience and adapt
to the impacts of climate change, financing climate actions and addressing loss
and damage all over the world. This year, the climate conference supposes to
assess the progress of the nation toward enhancing resilience and
helping the most vulnerable communities.
Sri Lanka, a member county of the United Nations intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is experiencing climate-related natural disasters that resulted in major economic impacts. The damages caused by natural disasters such as floods, droughts, cyclones and landslides are reducing the economic value of the country. The agriculture sector of the country plays a major role in the economy and most of the farmers in the agriculture sector are smallholders, largely depending on rainwater. This has increased the risk of adverse climate change impacts on smallholder farmers.
In this context, it is appropriate to brief on the Climate Smart Irrigated Agriculture Project (CSIAP) in Sri Lanka which has been designed to improve the productivity and climate resilience of smallholder agriculture in climatically vulnerable hotspot areas. This project is implementing strategies for climate change adaptation and mitigation in the smallholder agriculture sector through the introduction of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) technologies and practices to boost agriculture production and marketing. CSIAP educate the farmers and develop their skills with scientific knowledge on CSA. The newly established Farm Field School (FFS) will launch its operation in a few weeks to provide scientific training to promote CSA practices to mitigate the climate change impact. The concept of Farm Business School promotes CSA practices in hotspot areas to increase resilience and adapt to climate change. Demonstration Villages have been established to multiply CSA technology transfer to uplift the farmer's cultivation practices.
Cultivation programs including Maha Season, Yala Season, Inter-Seasons, Climate Smart Nutrition Sensitive Home Gardens and Cluster Villages are being implemented to promote CSA practices and increase the resilience of farmers. The beneficiaries are able to achieve maximum production from their farmlands using CSA practices and it helped their socioeconomic resilience. The project introduced new institutional arrangements including Producer Society and Producer Associations to strengthen the farmers against climate change. These institutions are the foundation of a community organization to take collective decisions to promote CSA practices and develop their plan for mitigating climate vulnerability and enhancing climate resilience.
The water for agriculture program is building climate resilience and supporting the rehabilitation of irrigation systems targeting possible future climate changes. It aimed to collect more rainwater and surface runoff to mitigate floods and drought by buffering against climate change. Hydrological assessments and water balance studies have been conducted in 14 river basins to assess effective water availability for the future in river basins, watersheds and cascades of tanks.
Socio-economic well-being is the paramount requirement to strengthen climate resilience in society. Social vulnerability is higher among the elders, women-headed families, differently able people, and economically marginalized people. CSIAP provided safety nets for over 70,000 vulnerable community families in eleven hotspot areas. The community has been strengthened by social and economic capital to mitigate climate change impact and increase resilience.
Climate
resilience in biodiversity plays a major role in balancing the production
system. As land becomes increasingly scarce and impacts climate change, an
effective management system needs to balance conflicting demand or land use in
a large landscape. Sustainable management of natural resources will ensure
ecosystem resilience. CSIAP is implementing Agro-ecological Landscape
Resilience Studies in selected hotspot areas to conduct auditing the landscapes
to understand their ecological character both in production and non-production
habitat, current issues and challenges and seek opportunities to bring in
greater environmental and social resilience through appropriate integration of
sustainable agroecological practices to face future climate change risk.
The above study will provide hotspot area development guiding principles that will address a number of key points including land degradation neutrality and nutritional security; the welfare of the watershed community and economic gains to the farmers; adaptation to climate change; emphasis on secondary agriculture; promoting land use and production systems in sync with climate and soil site-suitability of land resources; scientific planning based on technology inputs, spatial and non-spatial data, hydro-geologic and aquifer characteristics; institutional sustainability; and convergence of programs and resources.
The
CSIAP wishes the COP 27 a success!
By
Dr. Janaka Jayawardana,
Environmental
& Social Safeguard Specialist, PMU, CSIAP
