United
Nations Climate Change Conference ( COP27)
The
Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC from 06th to 18th November 2022
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
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