Climate Change in Latin America - European Commission

Spain
Actions financed by Spain
(Information updated November 2009)
1. Spanish activities in LAC region in the field of
climate change
• Background
The Iberoamerican Climate Change Bureau Network
(RIOCC in its Spanish initials) was created, in 2004
with the support of the Iberoamerican Conference of
Nations (through its Ministers of Environment Forum),
with the aim to deal with, in a widespread approach,
climate change matters.
Climate Change Offices of 21 countries belong
to the RIOCC: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic,
Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico,
Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Spain,
Uruguay and Venezuela.
The RIOCC objective is to guaranty a permanent
dialogue which will allow knowing better the
priorities, difficulties and experiences in the region.
The working program establishes, among other,
activities, in the following sections: research and
systematic observation, impacts and adaptation,
clean development mechanism, capacity building,
institutional reinforce, education and awareness,
climate change and developing aid, and cooperation
between public and private sectors. The RIOCC
gets together regularly once a year, with its agenda
structured according to the most important issue in
the international negotiations and depending on the
priorities identified in the region.
• Recent Adaptation and Mitigation projects
and activities identified in the region being
developed
Relevant projects and activities in the field of climate
change, both in mitigation and adaptation areas, are
being developed in the Iberoamerican region with the
support of the Government of Spain.
Concerning Adaptation, the "Iberoamerican Programme
on Adaptation to Climate Change" (PIACC in
its Spanish acronym) is one of the more relevant
initiatives that are being developed on the framework
of the RIOCC.
The PIACC was conceived more than three years ago,
during the debates in the workshop on Adaptation that
took place in the framework of the II Annual meeting
of the RIOCC (Antigua, Guatemala, October 2005).
Some of the main conclusions of a first analysis show
that there is unanimity in the region in considering
hydro resources a priority sector in the needs to
adapt to climate change. Following it there are the
human health and agricultural sectors.
RIOCC is one of the organizations that have been
identified by the UNFCCC as a potential contributor
to the objectives of its Nairobi Work Programme
on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate
change.
Some of the most relevant activities in progress in the
framework of the PIACC are:
→ Support for systematic observation and research
on climate change.
The regional plans of the Global Climate Observation
System (GCOS), which cover Iberoamerica
are a framework to develop this specific objective
of the PIACC. Given the important activity in this
field that is being developed by the Iberoamerican
Conference of Meteorological and Hydrological
Directors, the RIOCC keeps a close cooperation
with this network with the view to strengthen
the implementation of the Regional Plans of the
GCOS.
In addition, Spain regularly contributes to the socalled
GCOS Cooperation Mechanism, whose
objective is to give an answer to the most urgent
and immediate needs in the field of systematic
climate observation, being Latin America its most
prioritised region.
→ Promotion of exchange and dissemination of
knowledge, experience, tools, and methods.
Currently there have been planned and/or developed
various projects and activities with regional
interest with common methodologies and tools,
among them the following:
- Project for the vulnerability assessment of
Iberoamerican coastal areas facing climate
change.
- Cooperative Project for Mitigation and Adaptation
to Climate Change in the Sustainable
Forest Management in Iberoamerica (MIA
project, involving the network of Iberoamerican
National Institutes for Agricultural Researches).
- Training activities for the use of regional
climatic scenarios, leaded by Brazil and with
the aim to promote the use of the Eta/CPTEC
regional climate model in Iberoamerica.
- Workshop to analyse and assess adaptation
projects in progress or already carried out
in the region, and the effectiveness of the
adaptation measures implemented.
In addition, to the regional activities, another
basic pillar of PIACC and RIOCC is to support
the composition of a portfolio of climate change
projects in both mitigation and adaptation areas.
The results and outcomes of these projects feed
the base of knowledge and practises in the region.
Spain provides funds to different UN Agencies
and Development Banks Initiatives for financing
concrete adaptation and mitigation projects:
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