Editing IPCC:AR6/SRCCL/Chapter-6 (section)

==== 6.3.2.3 Integrated response options based on risk management ====

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In this section, the impacts on climate change adaptation of integrated response options based on risk management are assessed.

Reducing urban sprawl is likely to provide adaptation co-benefits via improved human health (Frumkin 2002 <sup>[[#fn:r466|466]]</sup> ; Anderson 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r467|467]]</sup> ), as sprawl contributes to reduced physical activity, worse air pollution, and exacerbation of urban heat island effects and extreme heat waves (Stone et al. 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r468|468]]</sup> ). The most sprawling cities in the US have experienced extreme heat waves, more than double those of denser cities, and ‘urban albedo and vegetation enhancement strategies have significant potential to reduce heat-related health impacts’ (Stone et al. 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r1258|1258]]</sup> ). Other adaption co-benefits are less well understood. There are likely to be cost savings from managing planning growth (one study found 2% savings in metropolitan budgets, which can then be spent on adaptation planning) (Deal and Schunk 2004 <sup>[[#fn:r469|469]]</sup> ).

Diversification is a major adaptation strategy and form of risk management, as it can help households smooth out income fluctuations and provide a broader range of options for the future (Osbahr et al. 2008 <sup>[[#fn:r470|470]]</sup> ; Adger et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r471|471]]</sup> ; Thornton and Herrero 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r472|472]]</sup> ). Surveys of farmers in climate variable areas find that livelihood diversification is increasingly favoured as an adaptation option (Bryan et al. 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r473|473]]</sup> ), although it is not always successful, since it can increase exposure to climate variability (Adger et al. 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r474|474]]</sup> ). There are more than 570 million small farms in the world (Lowder et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r475|475]]</sup> ), and many millions of smallholder agriculturalists already practice livelihood diversification by engaging in multiple forms of off-farm income (Rigg 2006 <sup>[[#fn:r476|476]]</sup> ). It is not clear, however, how many farmers have not yet practiced diversification and thus how many would be helped by supporting this response option.

Currently, millions of farmers still rely to some degree on local seeds. Use of local seeds can facilitate adaptation for many smallholders, as moving to use of commercial seeds can increase costs for farmers (Howard 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r477|477]]</sup> ). Seed networks and banks protect local agrobiodiversity and landraces, which are important to facilitate adaptation, as local landraces may be resilient to some forms of climate change (Coomes et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r478|478]]</sup> ; Van Niekerk and Wynberg 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r479|479]]</sup> ; Vasconcelos et al. 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r480|480]]</sup> ).

Disaster risk management is an essential part of adaptation strategies. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has operated across three continents since the 1980s, and many millions of people across 34 countries have access to early information on drought. Such information can assist communities and households in adapting to onset conditions (Hillbruner and Moloney 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r481|481]]</sup> ). However, concerns have been raised as to how many people are actually reached by disaster risk management and early warning systems; for example, less than 50% of respondents in Bangladesh had heard a cyclone warning before it hit, even though an early warning system existed (Mahmud and Prowse 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r482|482]]</sup> ). Further, there are concerns that current early warning systems ‘tend to focus on response and recovery rather than on addressing livelihood issues as part of the process of reducing underlying risk factors,’ (Birkmann et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r483|483]]</sup> ), leading to less adaptation potential being realised.

Local risk-sharing instruments like rotating credit or loan groups can help buffer farmers against climate impacts and help facilitate adaptation. Both index and commercial crop insurance offers some potential for adaptation, as it provides a means of buffering and transferring weather risk, saving farmers the cost of crop losses (Meze-Hausken et al. 2009 <sup>[[#fn:r484|484]]</sup> ; Patt et al. 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r485|485]]</sup> ). However, overly subsidised insurance can undermine the market’s role in pricing risks and thus depress more rapid adaptation strategies (Skees and Collier 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r486|486]]</sup> ; Jaworski 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r487|487]]</sup> ) and increase the riskiness of decision-making (McLeman and Smit 2006 <sup>[[#fn:r488|488]]</sup> ). For example, availability of crop insurance was observed to reduce farm-level diversification in the US, a factor cited as increasing adaptive capacity (Sanderson et al. 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r489|489]]</sup> ) and crop insurance-holding soybean farmers in the USA have been less likely to adapt to extreme weather events than those not holding insurance (Annan and Schlenker 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r490|490]]</sup> ). It is unclear how many people worldwide use insurance as an adaptation strategy; Platteau et al. (2017) <sup>[[#fn:r491|491]]</sup> suggest that less than 30% of smallholders take out any form of insurance, but it is likely in the millions.

Table 6.28 summarises the impacts on adaptation of risk management options, with confidence estimates based on the thresholds outlined in Table 6.53 in Section 6.3.6, and indicative (not exhaustive) references upon which the evidence in based.

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