Role of Local Communities in Adaptation to Climate Change Impacts in Ukraine

In Ukraine local communities are directly affected by climate change impacts. These impacts include warmer temperatures, storms, floods, droughts, heat waves, windstorms and forest fires. These extremes have a direct negative impact on local, especially rural, population (losing homes, harvest, etc). Local authorities have enormous potential to address climate change impacts through their functions as transport and planning authorities, through other service delivery such as building control, community care providers, waste, housing, environmental health and trading standards, and as providers of green space (cited from Be aware, be prepared, take action: How to integrate climate change adaptation strategies into local government, printed by LGA, UK). However, local authorities rely mostly on central government to take adaptation steps. In the absence of national climate adaptation policy and other national level initiatives, climate change risks remain unaddressed and leave local communities with no local response.

The Resource and Analysis Center “Society and Environment” developed a project to stimulate local authorities to take climate change adaptation measures by assessing their performance on adaptation to climate change, making this information publicly available and putting public and media pressure on local authorities to improve their performance (target region – Lviv oblast). The Resource & Analysis Center “Society and Environment” is a non-profit organization focusing on environmental policy research, capacity building and implementation of innovative initiatives in Ukraine and regionally (Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia). The Center is based in Lviv, Ukraine.

The strategy is based on Center’s experience in rating environmental performance of enterprises. Rating environmental performance of enterprises and disclosing publicly the rating results has proved to be a promising complement to conventional regulation. This scheme in Lviv region– called PRIDE - is an initiative that rates firms’ environmental performance, according to specially designed criteria, from best to worst using colour labels (green, blue, yellow, red and black). After verification with enterprises the ratings are disseminated to the public through the mass media. The rating is periodically reviewed and updated which allows enterprises to be re-categorized.

Resource & Analysis Center “Society and Environment” intends to develop and apply a Climate Change Adaptation Rating Scheme to rate at least 50 local authorities in Lviv oblast, ranging from village to rayon councils/administrations, and reaching about 10,000 population. The outcomes of the rating are to be widely disseminated via mass media. Easy-to-understand comparative information brought to local population by mass-media will not merely educate them about climate change impacts, the need to adapt, but also intends to divert this into action – to put public pressure on local authorities. When developed, the scheme is easily replicable in other countries, especially in Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia.

This week, Nov 10-13, 2009, Resource & Analysis Center “Society and Environment” is presenting its project proposal - Rating Local Communities Performance in Adaptation to Climate Change - at the World Bank’s project contest Development Marketplace in Washington, DC (USA). The event brings together 100 top projects selected from almost 1,800 proposals submitted from all countries worldwide. Rating Local Communities Performance in Adaptation to Climate Change is the only project from Ukraine at the event.