Pakistan revamps climate change research centre

Saleem Shaikh and Sughra Tunio in AlertNet: Pakistan’s government has boosted the funding of a state institution that researches the impacts of climate change, and granted it autonomy, in an effort to increase the quality of its recommendations on climate resilience for government policy and programmes.

The Global Change Impact Studies Centre (GCISC) will focus on research aimed at helping sectors such as water, agriculture, forestry and health become more resilient to climate change. The centre will collaborate with countries in South Asia, the Asia Pacific region and other developed nations to exchange scientific know-how, research and technology, said Syed Muhammad Ali Gardezi, secretary of the federal Ministry of Climate Change.

Founded in 2002, GCISC has been administered by the federal Ministry of Science and Technology and more recently the Ministry of Climate Change. But inadequate financing caused administrative difficulties.

Now the centre is likely to receive an increase of 20 to 30 percent in its budget, which is currently 55 million Pakistani rupees ($560,000), said Arshad M. Khan, GCISC’s executive director. Abdul Waheed Jamali, head of SEARCH, a Pakistani nongovernmental organisation, said the reorganisation of GCISC was long overdue, and that a yawning gap remained to be plugged in climate change research in Pakistan...

Focus cash on research infrastructure

David Dickson in SciDev.net: Few would name Ireland as one of the world's largest computer software exporters. Yet it has been this since the late 1990s, partly as a result of investing a significant slice of the development assistance it receives from the EC (European Commission) in the infrastructure required to become a knowledge economy.

This assistance has come through the 'structural funds' provided to the poorer parts of the EU (European Union). Countries such as Greece have invested most of the money received this way in more conventional construction projects, for example roads and airports. In contrast, Ireland has used much of it to build such things as research facilities and high-speed data networks.

There is no reason why developing nations, particularly in Africa, should not replicate Ireland's experience. Appropriate investment in research and innovation infrastructure can help them jump from a pre-industrial to a post-industrial society.

But to achieve this, two things must happen. National governments must genuinely prioritise innovation support. And development agencies must accept that investment in research and innovation infrastructure is as important as funding more traditional infrastructure projects, such as energy and transport systems….

Rock climbing in Cologne, shot by Elke Wetzig (Elya), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Who will speak up for climate change adaptation?

Leigh Glover in the Conversation (Australia): ...Climate change and its associated global changes (prominently sea level rise and ocean acidification) will produce profound social, economic, and environmental changes in Australia. Some of these changes will be gradual. Others will be abrupt and irreversible. There will be great costs (and also some benefits) for households, businesses, governments, and other institutions.

It is now widely agreed that adaptation will become a major focus for public and corporate policy around the world in coming decades. Preparing for climate change isn’t an alternative to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions; rather, mitigation is needed to curb the extent of future global warming.

But the momentum of ongoing global warming will continue regardless because of the gases released since the Industrial Revolution. Perhaps the global community will limit this warming to an average of 2°C or perhaps it will be higher; in any event, we need to prepare for the associated climate change impacts as best we can.

...Climate change will exert a daily influence on the lives of urban Australians. Australian urban lifestyles will not somehow be immune from climate change impacts; consider how many people and enterprises have been affected by severe natural events in this year alone.

Our problem, nationally, is that we are currently very poorly prepared. Research is essential in understanding these risks, in knowing our response options, for understanding how to pay for adaptation, and considering what roles can be played by households, businesses, governments, and NGOs. Conventional markets produce only weak signals for adaptation research, for a variety of reasons. In short, this is an area of policy that necessitates government initiative...

Smoke from a bushfire reaches Sydney in 1994, shot by Daduschu, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license