Climate Assesment

Introduction

You work for an NGO that consults with developing nations on a variety of development issues. Your new client is the East African nation of Kenzania. Kenzania is slowly getting on its feet after a destructive civil war. The economy is doing better, fueled by significant growth in the agriculture and tourism sectors. The government is back to providing basic services. In fact, almost no week passes without news of a school or hospital opening. For the first time in many years, the government seems to be functioning productively. Nevertheless, Kenzania still qualifies as a Least Developed Country.

In addition to fixing and improving basic services, the Kenzania government is also turning its attention to matters that the pre-war government ignored. One of these areas is adaptation to the impacts of climate change felt in several parts of the country. To address this problem, the government created the Climate Change Adaptation Task Force (CATF), an inter-agency working group comprised of staff with environmental backgrounds, but limited climate adaptation experience.

The CATF identified the following priority areas for adaptation in Kenzania:

A low-lying island off the coast of the mainland. The island is slowly but surely being swallowed up by the ocean. It is home to 35,000 residents an ethnic group closely related to the tribe that resides on the coast, just across the channel that separates the mainland and island.
Kenzania’s largest city and its capital. The capital suffers from a lack of potable water, which is often rationed, experiences floods in the slums and other unmanaged settlement areas, and has high unemployment.
A area of highly fertile agricultural land that borders the city on three sides. Because most of the freshwater is diverted to the city, the fields have not been productive, raising serious food security concerns.
Vast grasslands several hundred miles northwest of the city. This area is rapidly shrinking due to the encroaching desert. Sparse vegetation that had been holding off the dunes was virtually all cleared for fuel during the civil war. The area is heavily used for grazing cattle. Beef exports are vital for the recovering Kenzanian economy.
After conducting a vulnerability assessment of Kenzanias priority areas, the CATF came up with the following proposals to address the issues above:

Relocate the ethnic group to the city. Though a relocation of this scale has not been conducted before, it is believed the relocated community of 35,000 islanders will be immediately plugged into life of a capital city and supported by a social safety net.
Build a large desalination plant to provide potable water to the capital and the surrounding agricultural fields. To run the desalination plant, build a coal- or natural gas-fired generation facility. This, according to CATF, will be a “killing two birds with one stone” type of solution.
Distribute inexpensive natural gas-fired cooking and heating stoves to the cattle farmers so they are no longer forced to cut brush and trees for fuel.

The head of CATF is eager to start working on these projects. As with virtually anything in Kenzania, funding is an issue. He has heard of international programs for funding climate change adaptation projects, particularly the new Green Climate Fund (GCF). He is wondering if any of the programs can aid Kenzania with the proposed projects. He calls your office and asks you to prepare a short briefing memo on this subject.

Instructions
Your memo should meet the following requirements:

The paper should be between 800-1,000 words including footnotes.
You must provide a brief assessment of the various pre-GCF UNFCCC climate change adaptation funds as they apply to your client.
You must contrast the pre-GCF adaptation funds with the GCF, discussing the extent to which the GCF can reasonably be hoped to overcome persistent problems with the previous financial schemes. This will obviously require you first to identify the problems.
You must elaborate on the likelihood of each proposed CATF initiative receiving funding through the UNFCCC framework. Where appropriate, you may suggest a better solution (using private financing, drawing on adaptation funding concepts from the U.S. or African Development Bank funds) in terms of reaching the overarching goal of financing the projects.

This assignment will test both your knowledge of international climate change adaptation funding mechanisms and your creativity in applying this knowledge to a given scenario. You might find that additional research is helpful in writing the memo. If you choose to use outside materials, please make sure to use credible sources.

Must have 6 scholarly sources

 

You can place an order similar to this with us. You are assured of an authentic custom paper delivered within the given deadline besides our 24/7 customer support all through.

 

[order_calculator]