Working Definitions [ Web View ]
Adaptation
A process by which strategies and actions to avoid, moderate, cope with and/or take advantage of the consequences of climate events are developed, enhanced and implemented.
Vulnerability
The degree to which a system is likely to be affected by climate change or climate variability; this degree is expressed as diminishing values for specified indicators linked to a probability.
Adaptation strategy
A broad plan of action that is implemented through policies and measures and whose objective is to reduce the vulnerability of society. Strategies can be comprehensive (i.e. focusing on national, cross-sectorial scales) or targeted (i.e. focusing on specific sectors, regions or measures).
Adaptation action
A planned activity developed and implemented on the ground with the objective of moderating, coping or taking advantage of a specific climate change impact. Adaptation actions include those designed to cope with an impact, share or compensate any loss, modify the circumstances of the system to prevent an impact, search for alternatives, change the location of a given system/activity, or research, educate and create awareness.
Adaptation policy
The explicit intention of a government to enhance the capacity of society to respond to climate change by, interalia, setting national objectives, identifying and delegating responsibilities, enabling the building of capacity and identifying and distributing resources for the assessment of vulnerability and the design and implementation of adaptation actions. Policies typically refer to instruments that government can use to change economic and other behaviors. Policies are usually composed of taxes, command-and-control regulations (e.g. performance specifications for technologies), market mechanisms such as trading schemes, incentives such as subsidies for new management techniques, and information gathering (e.g. on the likely impacts of climate change) or dissemination (e.g. on the merits of new technologies or behavior changes).
TroFCCAs approach to an adaptation policy follows the adaptation policy framework, by which adaptation is incorporated into the existing institutional setup of a country, rather than having a separate institutional adaptation arrangement.
Policy oriented strategies:
A broad plan for adaptation which focuses primarily on institutional development. Policy oriented strategies include elements of capacity building, finance, technical assistance, dissemination of information, cooperation and others.
Adaptive capacity
The potential or capability of a system to adjust, via changes in its characteristics or behavior, in order to cope better with existing climate variability and change. It is possible to differentiate between adaptive potential, which is a theoretical upper boundary of responses based on global expertise and anticipated developments within the planning horizon of the assessment, and adaptive capacity, which is constrained by the existing information, technology and resources of the system under consideration
Climate change
Any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or because of human activity.
Climate variability
Variations in the mean state and other statistics (such as standard deviations, the occurrence of extremes, etc.) of the climate on all temporal and spatial scales beyond that of individual weather events. Variability may result from natural internal processes within the climate system (internal variability) or from variations in natural or anthropogenic external forcing (external variability).
Climate risk
The result of the interaction of physically defined hazards with the properties of the exposed systems – i.e. the systems’ sensitivity or (social) vulnerability. Risk can also be considered as the combination of an event, its likelihood and its consequences – i.e. risk equals the probability of climate hazard multiplied by a given system’s vulnerability.
Impacts
Changes induced in a system (physical ecological or social) resulting from climate change or climate variability which have significant deleterious effects for its composition, resilience and/or productivity (based on UNFCCC)
Development topics
In the context of TroFCCA, development topics are sectorial development goals for which forests play a substantial role by providing goods and services, including alternatives for enhanced adaptive capacity, and for which climate change and climate variability increased the vulnerability of these goals specifically by affecting the provision of goods and services from forests.
Adaptive management
The act, manner, or practice of managing, handling, or controlling a specific system in a way in which its adaptive capacity is increased. Adaptive management is achieved by the implementation of adaptation actions.