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  Ben Murphy, Policy and Advocacy Research Assistant, Practical Action said:

  dgibbs said:

  People need to adapt to climate change, but how can they develop adaptation technologies to respond to the uncertainty of climate change?

  on 7/12/11
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  Tinka said:

  said:

  @Ben said you uncertain climate change!!! Then will it be wise to always adapt new technologies to every uncertain climate changes that occur?. Soon we might end up creating more polluted environment because of the uncertainty that also comes with the technologies for uncertain climate change

  on 7/12/11
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  Gemma said:

  said:

  Here are some examples of Practical Action's adaptation technologies: http://practicalaction.org/climate-change I'd be interested to hear what people think.

  on 7/12/11
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  Ben said:

  said:

  That's a very good point, Tinka. It is established that climate change will have widespread repercussions and particularly for the poorest and most vulnerable. However, climate models can not predict precisely how climate change will manifest in a particular location in 20-30 years time. In some areas, a level of certainty can be reached based on existing conditions and historical data, but implementing a one-off solution now could lead to maladaptation - leaving people with a technology that is innappropriate to the climatic changes that occur. Trying to manufacture seeds that grow with the levels of rainfall expected in 20 years could put people in a worst position, as you say. However, there are ways to develop technologies that bring development gains even if climate change manifests differently to expectations. These build on people's existing expertise of their locality and impart the skills and capacities alter technologies by those that will be using them. Does anyone have examples of these?

  on 7/12/11
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  Ewan said:

  said:

  I guess climate change researchers have a fairly good idea of what the more likely future climate scenarios will be from their models (day to day uncertainty is always likely but general trends can be determined with more certainty), so I think much of the work needs to be on helping people become more resilent to the potential changes, so they are not reliant on only one type of crop and they have a number of different ways of earning an income.

  on 7/12/11
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  Simon Trace said:

  said:

  To add to what Ben just said, I think one important approach to technology in relation to climate change adaptation is to think in terms of developing people's capacity to innovate technically rather than just specific technologies themselves. It is this adaptive capacity that will allow people not just to adapt once to one change scenario, but to have the capability to innovate again and again as circumstances change.

  on 7/12/11
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    Neil said:

    said:

    So how do you strengthen peoples adaptive capacity when the very nature of being poor means that you have very little adaptive capacity to anything?

    on 7/12/11
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  Ben said:

  said:

  Thanks, Simon and Ewan, One of the most interesting techniques that is being discussed in side events here in Durban is the recovery of traditional seeds and indigenous knowledge as a way to diversify agricultural livelihoods and build resilience to climatic-related impacts. Farmers on the panels in these discussions have expressed that these have been lost or sidelined over the last decades with the pressure to commercialize. This is an area where there is as much to learn from working closely with the people that will be affected by climate change. I'm following the 'Tech-Transfer' discussions here. This underlying assumption is that technologies and expertise will move from North-to-South. However, there is a proposal that a network be set up to promote the development of climate techs, and one of its roles may be to: "Promote research and further independent innovation by developing countries, including the potential to recover and promote traditional and indigenous knowledge'. It's in brackets at moment, meaning not all parties agree on it, but we'll be stressing that it needs to stay in.

  on 7/12/11
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  Rachel said:

  said:

  In Durban I have been hearing a lot about how many of the, technologies, that small holder farmers are, already using can help with adaptation, but it is women who are the farmers in Africa and they have much less, access to knowledge and technologies than men. They also need access to modern energy services and clean water, to release them from the labour of collecting fuel and water, if they are to develop the capacity to adapt to climate change.

  on 7/12/11

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