Northumbria Scientists Lead International Climate Change Research
Scientists from Northumbria University - who have spent six years analysing levels of understanding, risk and response to the effects of climate change in fourteen developing countries - have begun to publish the findings of their €7.2m project. Their research identifies possible causes and potential solutions to environmental change in some of the world’s most beautiful but fragile places, such as declining snowfall on the slopes of Kilimanjaro.The work - with rapidly developing countries including Vietnam, Mongolia, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Yemen, Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania, Columbia and Bolivia - was commissioned by the Dutch government, and forms part of the Netherlands’ obligation to support developing nations in addressing climate change, agreed under the Kyoto protocol.
Professor Phil O’Keefe and Dr Geoff O’Brien, from Northumbria University’s School of Applied Sciences, are now collating their findings online, using a web based system hosted by the Stockholm Environment Institute.
In Tanzania, more than 1,000 households on the slopes of Kilimanjaro were interviewed to understand how climate change affected subsistence agriculture. The analysis indicated that, along with decreasing rainfall and shorter rainy seasons, the decline of coffee production as a cash crop, and a change in the traditional carbohydrate diet from bananas to maize, was leading the local Chagga people to cut down the taller trees in the agro-forestry system. This deforestation could well be a contributing factor to the decline in the snows of Kilimanjaro.
Each country designed a series of studies to address issues faced today and in the future. They were devised to examine the vulnerability of people and communities based in areas near rivers, mountains and coastline.
A range of economic sectors were covered, with particular emphasis on agriculture, fishing and health. The findings, which will help to shape national poverty alleviation planning, are to be published in a book for December’s Copenhagen Summit, where a new global climate deal is to be brokered.
Professor Phil O’Keefe said, “I expect these publications to continue for a number of years at a global and national level. I also expect that a range of new climate change adaptation projects will be generated once the funding streams are agreed at the Copenhagen meeting.”
Date posted: September 10, 2009
