Climate Change and Development

Climate change has profound implications for developing countries, and increasingly development professionals and agency staff working in or for developing countries are being asked to integrate climate change management issues into planning, projects and policy. National governments also are increasingly engaged in official communications to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and other initiatives, which require assessment of vulnerability and adaptive capacity.

The purpose of this interactive short course is to equip participants with a comprehensive understanding of what climate change may mean for low-income populations and what the scope and prospects are for adapting to change in a development context. Drawing on staff from some of the world’s leading research institutes on climate change and development (including the School of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia and UK’s The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research), participants will gain a state-of-the-art knowledge and have the opportunity to develop their analytical skills in this field through project work focussing on their own country context or professional sector.

To ensure participants have a thorough grounding in all aspects of climate change the course incorporates expert sessions on climate science and climate change mitigation. Key emphasis is then placed on vulnerability and adaptation – exploring what climate change implies in terms of impacts/vulnerability, what adaptation means for different sectors, how best to go about building resilience, international mechanisms relating to adaptation, and linkage with other development imperatives such as poverty reduction and disaster risk reduction.