Scientific, technical and socio-economic aspects of impacts of, and vulnerability and adaptation to, climate change Government of Argentina SBSTA 22 Bonn, 21 May 2005

Mitigationadaptation Mitigation and adaptation are the main instruments of the UNFCCC to achieve the objectives of its Article 2. mitigation The Berlin Mandate (CoP 1), and the Kyoto Protocol (CoP 3) refer to mitigation. mitigation The efforts that lead to CoP 7 in Marrakech were mainly directed to the international implementation of mitigation activities.

adaptation The global scope of adaptation was progressively acknowledged since the IPCC’s TAR was published. The Ministerial Declaration adopted by CoP 8 in Delhi states: adaptation “…adaptation to the adverse effects of climate change deserves urgent attention and action on the part of the international community…”, and vulnerabilityadaptation “…effective and result-based measures should be supported for the development of approaches at all levels on vulnerability and adaptation…”.

adaptation The CoP 10 adopted the “Buenos Aires programme of work on adaptation and response measures” (Decision 1/CP.10) vulnerability adaptation It requested the SBSTA to develop a five-year program of work on the scientific, technical and socio-economic aspects of impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change, along the following main lines of enquiry: Methodologies, data and modeling Vulnerability assessments Planning, measures, and actions for adaptation Integration into sustainable development

SBSTA’s actions The SBSTA could develop the five-year programme along the following steps: Contracting experts for preparing basic proposals on actions addressing the scientific, technical and socio-economic aspects of impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change at multilateral, regional, sub-regional, and national ranges. Submission of those documents to virtual (i.e. Internet) debates — moderated by relevant experts — with the aim of producing conclusions and recommendations. The various recommendations and conclusions (if any) would be taken up by the SBSTA, and discussed within its domain to produce recommendations for the Cop/Mop.

The ways forward. Ways to create clusters of adaptation and response measures strategies. This clusters could be: The problems of flooding. The problems of drought. The search of new plant and animal species, and genetic improvement of the extant ones. The displacement of disease vectors. &c. (Imagine it!) Ways to obtaining relevant information, and filling the gaps in it, and thereby propose action programmes for the clusters. Ways to the efficient implementation of those agreed action programmes.

In summary handbook for good practices The SBSTA should embark on the elaboration of a handbook for good practices to comply with the mandate set in decision 1/CP.10 Thank you!