A PisaSPEAK Interview with Bui Duc Kinh

PISA was delighted this week to welcome Mr. Bui Duc Kinh for a visit at our Washington, DC office. Mr. Kinh is an alumnus of the 2008 LIGCC in Vietnam and works at the Southern Institute of Sustainable Development at the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences. He is currently a Humphrey fellow at Cornell University. We are pleased to excerpt some of his thoughts on climate change, adaptation and the role of the social sciences.

A multidisciplinary approach to climate change research in Vietnam is new – PISA’s LIGCC made such an approach seem practical and realistic:

PS: How did your participation in the LIGCC affect your current work and areas of study?

BK: I was inspired by their training course.  Very few Vietnamese people are studying climate change in Vietnam and a very small number of people are aware of it. There are a very small number of people who can work together on the issue. Until 2008, Vietnam had no interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary research projects on climate change adaptation. People had thought that social science had no empathy for climate change.

When PISA organized the training course, it was very nice because it brought people from different disciplines together – we could understand, “OK, we can work together.”

On the importance of social scientists working together with natural scientists on climate change:

PS: You mentioned the role of the social sciences in climate change. What do you see as their value in the field?

BK: People ask, “Why are you studying about climate change? Doesn’t that belong to the natural sciences?” People think that the only focus from a very technical approach is in natural science. We need adaptation to climate change, we need to have people and local governments be aware of climate change, to prepare for adaptation to climate change.

We need natural science people to hear the viewpoint of the social scientists. It is very important that we have the network that gives an opportunity to have wider view of climate change. We don’t limit ourselves to a certain view.

On the role that social scientists have to play in informing the climate change dialogue and communication:

PS: In what ways can social scientists contribute to adaptation in Vietnam?

BK: I think that the social scientists can contribute to community adaptation more than the natural science and technical people can. We can’t use a top-down approach; we have to use a bottom-up approach that uses local knowledge. We have to make sure it is participatory. Social scientists raise awareness of the local people and governments and businesses and prepare them. In the Mekong Delta, for instance, many people are being affected by climate change. The people there say there’s nowhere to go, no money to move. In their culture they don’t plan for the future, they rely on resource at hand, so they don’t have capital to move. Social scientists can help them prepare for the future, for adaptation.

I think that the natural scientists can plan planting mangroves in to help mitigate climate change, prevention. But adaptation is the realm of the social scientists primarily. Sociology, anthropology and history are also important in adaptation. The scientific view usually uses a “western” perspective, but action needs to be local. Why don’t we use the local knowledge? They already know it, and practice it, and social scientists can help explain how local knowledge can be used in adaptation and preparing for the future.

PS: What does your current work at Cornell involve?

BK: At Cornell I am studying indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing, ways of preparing communities to climate change. I am also studying using statistical / spatial analytics. GIS is very important to understand these issues. In the past we weren’t aware of these tools, but like they say,  “A picture is worth a thousand words.” So is being able to spatially map concepts.

PS: When you return to Vietnam next year, will you continue in this line of work?

BK: Back in Vietnam we are already preparing research proposals on climate change, on community adaptation, climate change and food security, climate change and migration and resettlement.

Research proposals:

“Knowledge, attitude and behaviour of people in south Vietnam towards climate change.”

“Vulnerability assessment of climate change’s impact from community-based approaches in southern Vietnam”.

We have three proposals out for the government to get funded.

PS: How is the situation in Vietnam unique?

BK: You know, people are already getting affected by climate change, losing their property. They can’t do any business because banks aren’t lending them money. We hope to work with local governments and businesses to have a dialog on how to deal with resettlement. When we resettle people, we don’t think about their culture, we don’t think about their rights. We have to think also about these things, and people don’t. People owe their loyalty to the place. We should study this, we should ask the people what they are thinking, where they would like to go, how they would react to these changes. We are experiencing a lot of natural disasters like floods and storms, but this experience is not well documented, so people are losing the knowledge of how to adapt.

The Payoffs of Disaster Preparedness

Last week’s cluster of disasters – typhoons Ketsana, Parma and Ondoy and the 7.6 temblor that rocked Padang, Indonesia – reinforced the need for robust disaster preparedness and mitigation programs for the world’s densest locations. The focus of disaster preparedness has largely been on Asia.

74% of natural disaster deaths in 2006 occurred in Asia

While this region may be at the forefront of the issue, a boost to funding and bolstering of readiness – starting in Copenhagen – will have positive effects from Sydney to Mexico City.

As with urban resilience, most plans for disaster preparedness follow the model of the UN’s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction and the 2005 Hyogo Framework: identify risks, design appropriate measures, and implement.

The Asian Development Bank, among other groups, has a sophisticated model (at right) that pairs a risk assessment specialist, a geoscientist and a GIS expert. Importantly, the UN, ADB and other groups in this field acknowledge the importance of continuing education and addressing ongoing environmental degradation.

A Child is Rescued from Flooding in Central Vietnam

Governments should recognize that the importance of emergency readiness lies in its cost-to-reward ratio. Convincing evidence shows that comparatively simple measures, affordable by developing nations, can have a huge payoff. The UNISDR notes that Gulf Coast residents who collectively spent $2.5 million on hurricane protection avoided nearly $500 million in damages. It further found that a comparatively inexpensive cyclone warning system in Bangladesh that utilizes volunteers with megaphones has reduced storm deaths by a hundredfold since 1970.

As Copenhagen approaches, countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines should go in prepared to argue for the proven effectiveness and financial viability of disaster preparedness analysis and implementation.

Urban Resilience

Flooding in Quezon City

This week’s horrifying news of the flooding that has inundated the Quezon City area of Manila brings to the fore the increasingly relevant discussion of how best to prepare urban areas for changing climates. By the year 2050, 70% of the Earth’s inhabitants will live in cities, up from 50% today. Much of this growth will occur in Asian cities that already struggle with overpopulation, poor sanitation and access to clean water. If the unique hazards of climate change are to be successfully mitigated, a frank conversation is needed about how to make urban areas adaptable and resilient.

A constellation of studies has shown that urban centers in low and middle income nations are particularly vulnerable to the sort of periodic, high-intensity disasters commonly associated with climate change. The effects of flooding, sea level rise, cyclonic storms, landslide and heat waves are concentrated: “a large and growing proportion of these deaths are in these nations’ urban areas,” a UN Secretariat report notes. Indeed, a 2009 primer from the World Bank’s Climate Resilient Cities program highlighted the specific danger of “widespread flooding” to Makati City, another low-lying area of Manila.

GIS maps, such as this one of the Mekong Delta, can facilitate urban disaster preparedness

That climate change will potentiate the growing health, economic and social crises of urbanization is well established. Less so is how to tackle the problem of resilience; as the UN report notes, local governments are often ill-equipped to prepare for events such as cataclysmic flooding. One promising approach, introduced by The Rockefeller Foundation’s Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network, involves a multi-phased approach. Utilizing partner groups at the city, regional and national level, ACCCRN calls first for city selection based on risk and capacity, followed by urban-level vulnerability assessments and a resilience action plan. The final step – implementation – is monitored and adapted on an ongoing basis and successes tagged for replication.

Building on the knowledge that each city faces unique challenges and has unique capabilities, the goal, in the World Bank’s words, of building, “compact, efficient, and walkable cities” that minimize risk must be a top priority for climate change policymakers and planners alike.

Beyond the Hotspot – What Vietnam Can Teach Us About Biodiversity

Central Annamites Mountains, courtesy of Indochina Legend

Biodiversity hotspots, according to Conservation International, are, “the richest and most threatened reservoirs of plant and animal life on earth.” These islands of natural abundance cover less than 3% of the Earth’s surface yet host a stunning array of plant and animal life. Imperiled by the twin threats of habitat loss and climate change, hotspots may be ground zero for the jump in extinctions that is widely believed to be looming.  Amid the busy schedule of upcoming summits such as COP-15, the best hope for prioritizing the preservation of biodiversity may hinge upon adoption of a more pragmatic approach to negotiation.  Stressing the favorable impact of forested land on reducing temperatures and providing food and economic security to the broader community, may prove a more persuasive argument than preservation for the sake of exotic plant and animal life.

Vietnam provides an excellent example of how biodiversity preservation may be tied to the larger climate change and economic policy debates. A WWF Vietnam study has found that the Central Annamites forests in Vietnam have been steadily losing biodiversity as they are degraded by climate change and human encroachment. As forests recede, loss of biodiversity creates a cascade effect that ultimately harms local rice, soybean, fish and fruit harvests thereby reducing the food security of the surrounding communities. It is these considerations, and not the plight of comparatively obscure hotspot species that will be in negotiators’ minds as they sit down at Copenhagen. Combined with the assertion, made by scientists such as Nguyen Ninh in this study, that biodiversity may be a powerful mitigation tool, policymakers and environmentalists need to confront the reality that hotspots, which capture the imagination, may be less useful for climate progress than the forests and fields that drive the global economy.

Kyoto to Copenhagen: The UN Climate Meetings

Twelve years ago the Conferences of the Parties (COP-3) met in December 1997 to hash out the details of the Kyoto Protocol. A watershed moment in the global recognition of and fight against climate change, the Kyoto Protocol introduced many of the tools in use today for emissions reductions: emissions trading markets, Clean Development Mechanisms (CDMS) for developing countries and joint implementation provisions. However, as much promise as the Protocol showed, it is widely viewed as a failed effort. No doubt, the United States’ refusal to ratify the treaty did, to a great extent seal its fate, with both Clinton and G.W. Bush administrations and congressional counterparts opting out of the treaty, citing harm to business interests and dismay over lack of emissions goals for developing countries. Since 1992 global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have risen by 38%, U.S. emissions by 20% and Chinese by 150%; the EU’s have fallen by only 0.8%. (See shared folder for an in-depth analysis of GHG trends.)

Flooding in Vietnam

With the Kyoto treaty expiring in 2012, exciting times are ahead as representatives from 192 nations will convene in Copenhagen, Denmark this December to discuss the future of climate change mitigation. The meeting will take place against a background of increasingly dire warnings from climate change experts on the severity of the threat. This week’s Climate Change Congress, also in Copenhagen, drives home the pressing need for a more robust treaty in the upcoming COP-15 meetings, with the headliner speech announcing that sea level rise will be greater and more dramatic than previously thought. Dr. David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey stated, “It is now clear that there are going to be massive flooding disasters around the globe.” Obviously, the consequences for low-lying countries such as Vietnam and Bangladesh are potentially devastating. The time for action is now.

International focus is heavily centered on the United States and its ability to be a spoiler or a catalyst for change. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged U.S. politicians to take the lead at Copenhagen to reach a “historic agreement.” Janusz Reiter, Poland’s climate ambassador, voiced hope that America would do so: “Unlike in last year, no one will have the suspicion that the U.S. administration has a hidden agenda and is trying to undermine the UNFCC process.” UNFCCC executive secretary Yvo de Boer echoed that “adopting an ambitious national target” could greatly aid progress at Copenhagen.

Still unresolved, however, is the role developing countries will play and how much they must reduce emissions. South African Environmental Affairs Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk voiced a common complaint among developing nations that major industrialized countries such as the U.S., Canada and Russia are doing a poor job as global leaders and without international assistance South Africa could not hope to reduce emissions more than 10%. Pessimistically, the Wall Street Journal pointed out that the global recession will mean less money for environmental projects, carbon markets and emissions reduction regimes.

What hope is there for a binding and effective treaty emerging from Copenhagen? How will tensions between industrial and developing nations be resolved, if they are resolvable? A copy of the EU’s proposal for Copenhagen is in the shared folder. What of the targets for developed and developing nations and will the financial stipulations be enough?