9.5 Interactions with adaptation and vulnerability
Some of the mitigation potential as given in this chapter might be counteracted by adverse effects of climate change on forest ecosystems (Fischlin et al., 2007). Further, mitigation-driven actions in forestry could have positive adaptive consequences (e.g., erosion protection) or negative adaptation consequences (e.g., increase in pest and fires). Similarly, adaptation actions could have positive or negative consequences on mitigation. To avoid trade-offs, it is important to explore options to adapt to new climate circumstances at an early stage through anticipatory adaptation (Robledo et al., 2005). The limits to adaptation stem in part from the way that societies exacerbate rather than ameliorate vulnerability to climate fluctuations (Orlove, 2005) that can also affect mitigation potentials. There are significant opportunities for mitigation and for adapting to climate change, while enhancing the conservation of biodiversity, and achieving other environmental as well as socio-economic benefits. However, mitigation and adaptation have been considered separately in the global negotiations as well as in the literature until very recently. Now, the two concepts are seen to be linked, however to achieve synergies may be a challenge (Tol, 2006). In the IPCC Third Assessment Report, potential synergy and trade-off issues were not addressed. This section explores the synergy between mitigation and adaptation in the forest sector (Ravindranath and Sathaye, 2002). The potential and need for incorporating adaptation strategies and practices in mitigation projects is illustrated with a few examples.
9.5.1 Climate impacts on carbon sink and adaptation
In addition to natural factors, forest ecosystems have long been subjected to many human-induced pressures such as land-use change, over-harvesting, overgrazing by livestock, fire, and introduction of new species. Climate change constitutes an additional pressure that could change or endanger these ecosystems. The IPCC Fourth Assessment report (Fischlin et al., 2007 and Easterling et al., 2007) has highlighted the potential impacts of climate change on forest ecosystems. New findings indicate that negative climate change impacts may be stronger than previously projected and positive impacts are being over-estimated as well as the uncertainty on predictions.
Recent literature indicates that the projected potential positive effect of climate change as well as the estimated carbon sink in mature forests may be substantially threatened by enhancing or changing the regime of disturbances in forests such as fire, pests, drought, and heat waves, affecting forestry production including timber (Fuhrer et al., 2007; Sohngen et al., 2005; Ciais et al., 2005).
Most model limitations persist; models do not include key ecological processes, and feedbacks. There are still inconsistencies between the models used by ecologists to estimate the effects of climate change on forest production and composition, and the models used by foresters to predict forest yield (Easterling et al., 2007). Despite the achievements and individual strengths of the selected modelling approaches, core problems of global land-use modelling have not yet been resolved. For a new generation of integrated large-scale land-use models, a transparent structure would be desirable (Heistermann et al., 2006).
Global change, including the impacts of climate change, can affect the mitigation potential of the forestry sector by either increasing (nitrogen deposition and CO2 fertilization), or decreasing (negative impacts of air pollution,) the carbon sequestration. But, recent studies suggest that the beneficial impacts of climate change are being overestimated by ignoring some of the feedbacks (Körner, 2004) and assumption of linear responses. Also, the negative impacts may be larger than expected (Schroter et al., 2005), with either some effects remaining incompletely understood (Betts et al., 2004) or impossible to separate one from the other.