Pankaj Dhingra
Postcard from Davos: Friday and Saturday January 26, 2008 at 1:27 PM
Adaptation to Climate Change
On Friday, we had some Technology Pioneer specific sessions that I am not going to bore you with. However, I did attend one session on an extremely important subject that has not gotten the share of mind that it deserves. That subject is ‘adaptation to climate change’. Regardless of how aggressively we implement strategies aimed at mitigating climate change, the impact of these is not going to be felt for at least 30-50 years. On the other hand, violent environmental events are already here with us and are likely to grow in frequency and severity over the coming decades. However, there is usually very little discussion around the strategies and infrastructure demands to:
- Risk-proof our infrastructure – whether it is building dikes around cities vulnerable to the rise in sea levels or finding sources of water for draught prone areas, etc.
- Emergency preparedness and response plan for such events.
Even at Davos, this meeting was a small meeting (maybe 20 participants) and held off-site. I believe that we need a lot more focus and energy to go into adaptation strategies.The meeting was attended primarily by non-profit organizations with representation by a few corporations (Swiss RE, Vodafone and TNT). It was a good discussion that informed on the facts and I came away with the impression that NGOs definitely understand the problem and its magnitude, however, they are also struggling to raise the awareness of this subject and get more industry and governmental involvement in finding and implementing solutions. The capability to adapt to climate change is, of course, directly proportional to a community’s economic status. Therefore, to some extent, climate change mitigation efforts need to be congruent with economic development actions. Also, the effects of climate change are going to be different for different parts of the world – rise in sea water for coastal cities will mean solutions have to include building dikes and weather-proofing water/power infrastructure, etc. In sub-Saharan Africa and some other parts of the world, the effects are likely to be water shortage. Similarly, in areas fed by melting ice and glaciers, the lack of snow fall and disappearance of glaciers will result in surface water sources drying up and we will need to drill deeper and deeper for potable water.
The discussion around the table was very rational and well-informed – the need to look for global financing solutions but local adaptation solutions. Moreover, since adaptation solutions are likely to be closely coupled with economic development solutions (e.g., finding new water sources for farmers in Northern Africa is both a response to a lack of rains from climate change as well as a poverty reduction measure), we need to learn from the experience gained during implementation of economic development – in other words, local communities have to be intimately involved in selection of adaptation measures and have to have an economic stake in their implementation (i.e., these can’t just be a give-away). The ideas for financing solutions was to use carbon taxes (that the world is moving towards anyway) to set up an adaptation fund that can be leveraged with loans and other financial instruments to provide funding for local adaptation measures. Another innovative solution was for the insurance industry to insure communities against extreme environmental events (i.e., if the rainfall were to be less than a pre-agreed amount then the insurance pays out pre-agreed funds to that community, etc.). In this regard, Swiss Re reported on their experimental programs to insure 150,000 farmers in Africa against such a shortage of rainfall, etc.
With respect to adaptation measures, the technologies either largely exist or are under development as part of climate-change mitigation measures. For example, solar panels coupled with deep well drilling and water pumping can provide a lasting source of water to desert communities. Similarly, efficient irrigation techniques (e.g., drip irrigation) are already well known. The key is to enable local communities to identify appropriate required technologies (this part requires education campaign that NGOs are skilled in managing), financing for these technologies (combination of local savings, adaptation fund grants and bank loans) and project management for implementation of the solutions (this is what private companies can manage well). Overall, my impression is that for the adaptation projects to take off at the required scale needs an engagement by the wider community (NGOs, private firms, funding sources, governments, etc.) so that appropriate business models may be developed and implemented.
Genetics and clean energy
I participated in a discussion with Craig Venter on genetics and its potential uses in energy production. This was an interesting discussion in an area that is brand new to me. According to Craig, the evolution of his thinking has followed the following three steps: (1) digitization of biology (sequencing activities); (2) design of a genome, i.e., brand new design of an operating system for cells; and (3) booting up a chromosome. During 1995, Craig’s research activities resulted in sequencing the first genome. By now, the time required to sequence a genome has come down from decades to a single day – this is the power of digitizing the sequencing process. In fact, in their latest project, they are sequencing the genomes of all the organisms in the world’s seas – expected to be greater than 10m genes.
Next, Craig wanted to understand what is (if there is one) a core operating system of a cell. In other words, if you take some genes out of a DNA, the cell still lives. So, is there a base set of DNA sequence that keeps the cell alive? They tried to find this base operating system and have discovered that there is not such a single sequence. This activity launched Craig on the path to constructing a genome for specific objectives. In this regard, they are working on developing an organism that can absorb carbon dioxide and spit out octane (biofuels) in a very efficient process.
Craig spoke about the ethical aspects of his work. They have completed a 1.5 year bio-ethics review, coordinated by MIT where they invited all religions and lay persons to advise them about ethical directions for their research. Craig believes that the biggest risk of genetics could be bio-hacking ….. people modifying bio-organisms for pranks. This is, of course, how hackers got started in the world’s networks. Bottom line, Craig feels that synthetic biology can be the fundamental technology that can provide the answer to our energy problems by accelerating photo-synthesis processes.
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Excellent series, Pankaj On this comment: “The capability to adapt to climate change is, of course, directly proportional to a community’s economic status.”, I recently heard of an example that turns this notion on its ear.
The Inuits of the Arctic for centuries hunted seals and other prey by pursuing them in sled dogs. A few decades ago, with the introduction of the snowmobile, they gave up using sled dogs almost entirely and switched to the faster and more personally agile snowmobile.
Then, around 8 years ago, observers started seeing more Inuits hunting with sled dogs again. Today, many have given up on snowmobiles entirely. Why? Not just because gasoline has gotten so expensive, but more importantly, because the ice has gotten so thin over their hunting territories, that it has become exceedingly dangerous to take snowmobiles on it. Sled dogs have an ability to quickly sense where ice is thin and can quickly steer the sled to safety.
So, here is one of the poorest communities in the adapting to the effects of climate change rapidly and effectively, and without a new technology, but with a trusted old one.