Search

Empowering Communities: Climate Resilience Through Locally Led Adaptation

We are an online community created around a smart and easy to access information hub which is focused on providing proven global and local insights about sustainability

28 Jul, 2024

This post was originally published on Climate Links

Empowering Communities: Climate Resilience Through Locally Led Adaptation
jschoshinski
Thu, 07/25/2024 – 14:29

Climate change disproportionately threatens the lives and livelihoods of people living in vulnerable conditions worldwide. In the face of this crisis, local people and communities emerge as frontline responders, both experiencing and addressing climate impacts. They have valuable knowledge, skills, and lived experience to lead climate adaptation and build resilience in their countries and communities. And yet, they often aren’t able to access the resources they need to effectively implement the adaptations they need. An often-quoted statistic is that less than 10 percent of climate finance reaches local levels.

The Principles for Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) are a set of best practices that seek to help change this dynamic. LLA is an approach that supports local people, institutions, and networks to lead decisions on how, when, and where to adapt to the impacts of climate variability and change. LLA is a powerful set of tools and approaches that enables and strengthens equitable access to power and resources, supplementing local knowledge and expertise. The USAID Climate Adaptation Support Activity (CASA) has developed two new resources to help USAID and its partners further LLA in practice: a primer and guidance note.

Accounting for the Needs of the Most Vulnerable 

Marginalized populations, such as women, children, youth, Indigenous Peoples, and people living with disabilities, are already experiencing acute climate impacts at disproportionate rates. For example, 160 million children were exposed to prolonged or severe drought in 2022 and 370 million Indigenous Peoples grapple with livelihood disruptions driven by extreme weather events. In addition, climate hazards drive insecurity for women and girls, increasing risks of gender-based violence and poor maternal and child health.  

Local people, organizations, governments, and those living in the most vulnerable conditions often lack access to the climate risk information, decision-making power, and finance necessary to lead and scale adaptation action and address risks in their communities. Traditional approaches to adaptation project implementation often sideline local actors, inadvertently reinforcing power imbalances and overlooking critical populations’ needs and priorities. 

Leveraging LLA to Address Gaps in Finance and Implementation

The United Nations Environment Programme estimates the necessary costs to adapt in low- to middle-income countries to be over $300 billion annually by 2030, yet only $28.6 billion was released in 2020. Meanwhile, only 20 percent of verified adaptation finance efforts before 2021 included women in decision-making roles, with significantly lower numbers for disabled populations, youth, and Indigenous Peoples. Accessing adaptation finance is complicated for local entities due to an international system with complex accreditation and lengthy disbursement processes. 

Despite existing challenges, local communities already lead many innovative adaptation efforts, leveraging deep local knowledge of ecosystems and grassroots initiatives. Their actions, such as deploying resilient agricultural practices and using local knowledge to warn communities of incoming threats, demonstrate the importance of supporting locally led approaches, particularly for climate adaptation actions. Centering the LLA Principles—such as simplifying access to and ensuring predictable funding—fosters longer-term, cost-effective solutions. This, in turn, strengthens local governance and capacity and enables independent management of adaptation initiatives. 

Advancing LLA in Practice

USAID and its partners are working to advance an equitable and inclusive approach to LLA in line with the foundational principles of the 2022-2030 USAID Climate Strategy and the Agency’s commitments to localization. In 2021, USAID endorsed the Principles for Locally Led Adaptation, a global set of approaches to practically fund and support local actors in leading adaptation design, processes, and outcomes. Development organizations can bolster resilience and foster inclusive development by embracing and integrating LLA principles into all aspects of programming. 

To support these efforts, CASA has developed the primer and guidance note for USAID, its implementing partners, and stakeholders to better understand and operationalize LLA. These resources and other USAID and industry guidance will support furthering LLA in practice at the Agency and beyond.

Teaser Text

The USAID Climate Adaptation Support Activity (CASA) has developed two new resources to help USAID and its partners further LLA in practice.

Publish Date

Thu, 07/25/2024 – 12:00

Blog Type

Strategic Objective

Region

Sectors

Pass over the stars to rate this post. Your opinion is always welcome.
[Total: 0 Average: 0]

You may also like…

Bee Hotels Can Help Native Pollinators Recover in the Wake of Climate-Fueled Wildfires: Study

Bee Hotels Can Help Native Pollinators Recover in the Wake of Climate-Fueled Wildfires: Study

Wild pollinator populations are declining all over the world, with increasingly severe climate change-fueled wildfires threatening their survival. These intense wildfires are also putting long-term ecosystem health and biodiversity at risk. Bee hotels are artificial nesting structures that have been specially designed to house cavity-nesting species. Often placed in backyards or gardens, they provide safe […]
The post Bee Hotels Can Help Native Pollinators Recover in the Wake of Climate-Fueled Wildfires: Study appeared first on EcoWatch.

ABB receives EPD status for gearless mill drive ring motor

ABB receives EPD status for gearless mill drive ring motor

ABB has gained Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) status for its Gearless Mill Drive (GMD) ring motor — technology used to drive large grinding mills in the mining industry.

An EPD is a standardised document that provides detailed information about the environmental impact of a product throughout its life cycle. Based on a comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study, the EPD highlights ABB’s commitment to transparency, environmental responsibility and supporting customers in making informed decisions on sustainability in their supply chains.

ABB analysed the environmental impact of a ring motor across its entire life cycle from supply chain and production to usage and end-of-life disposal. The study was conducted for a ring motor of a semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) mill with an installed power of 24 MW and was based on a reference service life of 25 years.

“Sustainability is at the core of our purpose at ABB, influencing how we operate and innovate for customers,” said Andrea Quinta, Sustainability Specialist at ABB. “By earning the Environmental Product Declaration for our ring motor, we emphasise our environmental stewardship and industry leadership for this technology. We adhered to the highest standards throughout this process, as we do in the ABB Ring Motor factory every day. This recognition highlights to the mining industry what they are bringing into their own operations when they work with ABB.”

The comprehensive LCA was conducted at ABB’s factory in Bilbao, Spain, and was externally verified and published in accordance with international standards ISO 14025 and ISO 14040/14044. It will remain valid for five years.

The ring motor, a key component of the GMD, is a drive system without any gears where the transmission of the torque between the motor and the mill is done through the magnetic field in the air gap between the motor stator and the motor rotor. It optimises grinding applications in the minerals and mining industries by enabling variable-speed operation, leading to energy and cost savings.

The full EPD for the ABB GMD Ring Motor can be viewed on EPD International.

0 Comments