Themes
ICID Themes
Organized around four themes, ICID 2010 will generate, consolidate and synthesize the knowledge of climate change, vulnerability, impacts, adaptive responses of society and sustainable development in arid and semi-arid lands, translating this knowledge into effective public policy recommendations and agendas for research directed in support of improved policy making and implementation. The analytic work to accomplish these goals includes: 1) to identify measures to reduce vulnerability and enhance adaptation, and 2) to map these measures to appropriate policies and institutions for intervention at various scales of ecological, social, economic and political organization. That work is to be divided into the following four thematic areas. Theme 1: Climate Information The Climate Information theme provides scientific background to the policy discussions at ICID 2010. To gain popular support for attention to the climate related problems faced in arid and semi-arid zones, to understand potential problems and identify solutions, social scientists, economists and policy makers need a clear understanding of expected future climate changes and of our ability to make accurate climate predictions and forecasts. Scientists, including social scientists also need to better understand how climate information—long-term predictions and seasonal or short-term forecasts—are used by different segments of society including: citizens of the world’s polities, global, national and local policy makers, social scientists analyzing implications and outcomes of global change, populations exposed to extreme climatic events, and those populations, such as farmers, fishers and pastoralists, who may benefit from direct use of predictions and forecasts to plan their productive activities. Learning on climate-information use can help to focus climate information production where needed and to enable policy makers, development practitioners and local populations to make better use of the information already available. Theme 2: Climate and Sustainable Development ICID 2010 is motivated by the clear need to improve the livelihoods of the over two-billion people living in arid and semi-arid lands. These populations are already acutely affected by periodic droughts and floods and climate change promises to expose them to more-intense and more-frequent events. According to the fourth assessment report of the IPCC, the semi-arid regions will be hit severely by global warming. Theme 2 aims to identify opportunities for enhancing productivity and resiliance in the face of climate variability and change, and means for reducing climate-related vulnerabilities to food insecurity, hunger, famine, dislocation, and economic loss. This theme covers research and experience on vulnerability and adaptation theory, research methods, and indicator development. Theme 2 will produce new knowledge on the causes of climate-related vulnerabilities and adaptive social and policy responses. Theme 3: Climate and Governance: Representation, Rights, Equity and Justice Sustainable development, vulnerability reduction and adaptation require integration of the voices of affected populations in policy and decision making and in policy and program implementation. When and how does local reapresentation contribute to wellbeing and development? What vertical division of power and authority (principles of subsidiarity) among local, national and global institutions has been most effective? How does local government contribute to local-scale climate action? How have national governments responded to past and future climate threats? What are the roles of global political economy and international relations and institutions in supporting multi-scale mitigation, coping and adaptation? What roles do human rights and access to justice play in climate action? What laws and practices shape gender, age, ethnic and other forms of discrimination in vulnerability reduction or asset building efforts? The studies in this theme should explore the positive roles of representation, rights, equity and justice in supporting reducing vulnerability and increasing the life options of people in arid and semi-arid lands. Theme 4: Climate Policy Processes Insufficient analytic attention is given to policy processes. Policy making and implementation are complex processes that link the multiple scales at which problems are generated and solved with the scales at which knowledge and intervention are most appropriate and efficient. These processes must match social, political, ecological scales of organization to the means and institutions of intervention. Technical solutions to many problems exist but remain unused by policy makers. Policies often well crafted and laws promulgated, but are not implemented in practice. Policies are often implemented but produce results different from expected or generate new problems that may or may not have been predictable with systematic policy analysis. Policy makers and policy-making institutions are also often isolated from learning processes—the gaining and use of feedback from policy making and implementation experience. Theme 4 will explore what we know about policy processes and the institutions they rely on for information, political and social input, legitimization, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. Theme 4 also explores the policy approaches and tools we bring to these policy processes. ICID 2010 will make a special effort to bring a broad range of social scientists into a discussion aimed at improving policy processes so that policy recommendations can become effective policy solutions.