Global natural resources and biodiversity face severe threats from climate change in the form of rising temperatures, floods, droughts, severe weather incidents, deforestation and desertification. The impacts of climate change are particularly devastating for poor and vulnerable people whose livelihoods are especially dependent on their natural infrastructure and environmental services. As it is already too late to rely entirely on mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions to safeguard humans and their natural resources from climate impacts, adaptation to the unavoidable impacts of climate change will be essential to ensure the resilience of humans and their natural resources and their continued sustainable development.
Law plays a minimal role in most adaptation efforts to date, but the unpredictable, cross-sectoral nature of climate impacts will require well-coordinated, flexible, and yet durable legal frameworks and institutions to help governments plan for and respond to rapidly changing climatic conditions. This need is most acute in least-developed countries (LDCs), where climate impacts are expected to be most severe and governments tend to have less capacity to anticipate and address problems. Adaptive governance depends largely on legal and regulatory mechanisms for biodiversity and natural resources governance, which will be critical to ensuring the resilience of humans and natural resources.
The IUCN Environmental Law Centre (ELC), in combination with the IUCN Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO), is addressing this challenge by building national adaptive governance capacity in LDC governments and institutions addressing biodiversity and natural resources. Aditionally, the ELC is working to identify possibilities for enhancing integration in international biodiversity and natural resource law and policy.
Project Summary (PDF, 142KB)
Project Summary Presentation (PDF, 246KB)