Accredited qualifications for capacity development in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation

Increasingly practitioners and policy makers working across the globe are recognising the importance of bringing together disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. From studies across 15 Pacific island nations, a key barrier to improving national resilience to disaster risks and climate change impacts has been identified as a lack of capacity and expertise resulting from the absence of sustainable accredited and quality assured formal training programmes in the disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation sectors. In the 2016 UNISDR Science and Technology Conference on the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, it was raised that most of the training material available are not reviewed either through a peer-to-peer mechanism or by the scientific community and are, thus, not following quality assurance standards. In response to these identified barriers, this paper focuses on a call for accredited formal qualifications for capacity development identified in the 2015 United Nations landmark agreements in DRR and CCA and uses the Pacific Islands Region of where this is now being implemented with the launch of the Pacific Regional Federation of Resilience Professionals, for DRR and CCA. A key issue is providing an accreditation and quality assurance mechanism that is shared across boundaries. This paper argues that by using the United Nations landmark agreements of 2015, support for a regionally accredited capacity development that ensures all countries can produce, access and effectively use scientific information for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. The newly launched Pacific Regional Federation of Resilience Professionals who work in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation may offer a model that can be used more widely

Capacity development and TVET: accredited qualifications for improving resilience of coastal communities: a Vanuatu case study

For countries like Vanuatu, climate change is the most significant single threat to sustainable development, in particular due to the large proportion of the population living in coastal communities. Additionally Vanuatu is the world’s most at-risk country for natural hazards mainly affecting coastal communities (Birkmann and Welle in The world risk index, 2015). One of the key barriers to improving Pacific Island Countries’ resilience to climate change impacts is the lack of local and regional capacity and expertise resulting from the absence of sustainable accredited and quality assured formal training programs in climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk management (DRM) (Jordon et al. in Climate change policy in the European Union: confronting the dilemmas of adaptation and mitigation. Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom, 2010; Martin et al. in Training needs and gap analysis. Suva, Fiji, 2015). The European Union funded PacTVET project has partnered with The Pacific Community (SPC) and the German aid agency (GIZ) Coping with Climate Change in the Pacific Region (CCCPIR) programme to support the delivery of the first accredited TVET certificate in Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction (CCDRR) in the Pacific Islands region. This TVET qualification provides outcomes based learning specifically focused on coastal communities through practical activities and field work involving vulnerable coastal areas throughout the provinces of Vanuatu. The delivery of the CCDRR course is being led by the Vanuatu government through the Vanuatu Institute of Technology and is leading regional and global developments in formal accredited TVET training for Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction

“God and Tonga Are My Inheritance!”: climate change impact on perceived spirituality, adaptation and lessons learnt from Kanokupolu, ‘Ahau, Tukutonga, Popua and Manuka in Tongatapu, Tonga

Climate change is a significant threat to health and well-being, in particular to people’s spiritual well-being, in coastal areas and communities. This paper describes the findings of a 2013 study on impacts of climate change on people’s spiritual well-being in 5 coastal communities in Tongatapu, Tonga: Kanokupolu, ‘Ahau, Tukutonga, Popua and Manuka, using a concurrent convergence parallel triangulation design. Information was collected from a group of 460 participants aged 15–75 via self-administered questionnaire, in-depth interview (IDI), focus group discussions (FGD) and key information interviews (KII). There was a statistically significant difference between people whose spirituality was affected and those unaffected (p < 0.005). People who were worried and whose physical well-being were affected, emerged as the most strongly affected (χ2(4) = 15.780, p < 0.005). The same factor was explored qualitatively using thematic analytical strategy, and concluded that climate change had affected people’s spiritual well-being, negatively. Lessons learnt from this paper will be useful for people invested in policy practice, and pastorate serving the cause of holistic Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) in Tonga: preaching, fasting and praying to God to reverse climate change and its impacts, help State and Church to adapt more effectively and comprehensively

Assessing the impacts of climate change on domestic crop production: Experience and perception of local farmers in North Malaita, Solomon Islands.

The aim of this research was to: 1) gather farmers' experiences and observations of climate change impacts on domestic crop yields during the last thirty years (1988-2018); 2) study climatic projections (2050) and their potential impacts on Sikwafata and Malu'u's crops; and 3) understand the knowledge engaged with, and adaptations taken, to avoid susceptibility to climate change. The data was collected using the snowball approach, in which the researcher contacts informants using information provided by previous informants. A thematic analysis was performed using NVIVO 10 software. For both sites, soil samples were taken to determine moisture content. Farmers reported changes in rainfall patterns (73.5%) and temperature (44.9%), while 26.5% indicated no change in rainfall or temperature (55.1%). About 83.7% of farmers anticipate increasing temperatures and rainfall to occur by 2050, with extreme impacts on crop productivity. The majority of the gardens (87.5%) were on hillsides, while 8.5% were on the lowland, with an average of three garden per farmer. The gardens (57.0%) were on rotational sites that had been abandoned for two to five years, while 43.0% had never been rotated. In comparison to Malu'u moisture content (47.4%), Sikwafata moisture content is 66.4% higher. Furthermore, farmers are aware of adaptation measures to reduce the risk of crop failure. However, the absence of scientific information on climate change and agricultural resilience has increased the vulnerability to extreme climate-related events harming food security and nutrition. Climate change will undoubtedly intensify, resulting in a global and local drop in crop production, thus compromising livelihoods in the future

Using vocational education to support development solutions in the Pacific: An emphasis on climate change and health

In this article, author(s) reported on the results of the EU PacTVET project, which explored the use of TVET to support resilience in the region with an emphasis on climate change and health. An exploratory design was used to investigate how vocational education supports solutions for climate change and health. The results showed that vocational education plays a significant role in building safety and resilience of people in the region. Most significantly, getting an accredited qualification on health resilience and/or job in the health sector may help them to respond to climate change effectively and efficiently

Interpretation and application of carbon isotope ratios in freshwater diatom silica

Carbon incorporated into diatom frustule walls is protected from degradation enabling analysis for carbon isotope composition (δ13Cdiatom). This presents potential for tracing carbon cycles via a single photosynthetic host with well-constrained ecophysiology. Improved understanding of environmental processes controlling carbon delivery and assimilation is essential to interpret changes in freshwater δ13Cdiatom. Here relationships between water chemistry and δ13Cdiatom from contemporary regional data sets are investigated. Modern diatom and water samples were collected from river catchments within England and lake sediments from across Europe. The data suggest dissolved, biogenically produced carbon supplied proportionately to catchment productivity was critical in the rivers and soft water lakes. However, dissolved carbon from calcareous geology overwhelmed the carbon signature in hard water catchments. Both results demonstrate carbon source characteristics were the most important control on δ13Cdiatom, with a greater impact than productivity. Application of these principles was made to a sediment record from Lake Tanganyika. δ13Cdiatom co-varied with δ13Cbulk through the last glacial and Holocene. This suggests carbon supply was again dominant and exceeded authigenic demand. This first systematic evaluation of contemporary δ13Cdiatom controls demonstrates that diatoms have the potential to supply a record of carbon cycling through lake catchments from sediment records over millennial timescales