Climate Change and Local Level Disaster Risk Reduction Planning ...

identification of what is called ‘coupling points’ is necessary. The Figure 7 depicts various stages
involved in disaster risk management and ‘coupling points’ where climate change may have
influence. It can be seen that almost all stages of disaster risk management cycle could be targeted
to mainstream the climate change concerns.
The discussants could ask certain questions in order to identify the above coupling points. The
Table 2 presents various questions one could ask while identifying the coupling points. These
questions enable various functionaries to identify climate change as a factor while planning for
interventions. Once local impacts are identified and all the stakeholders agree upon them, it is
time to classify them according to short-term and long-term impacts and identify appropriate risk
reduction measures. Consultation process could also include identification of resources required
such as capacity building needed to handle the new interventions, finances required and its source
and threats due to the decisions made under uncertainty. It is important for the so drafted
strategy to explicitly acknowledge the uncertainty with which the decisions were made.
3. Factors to be considered for mainstreaming
In this section, we discussed various factors to be considered for achieving satisfactory realization
of the above presented scheme. We divided the factors into uncertainty in climate change risk,
capacity limitations, perception and awareness limitations, and economic limitations.
3.1. Uncertainty in climate change risk
One of the important limitations in implementing the above suggested scheme is uncertainty in
projected climate impacts itself. Global Circulation Models (GCMs) are considered to be too
course resolution and hence are not sufficient for decision making for adaptation (Prudhomme et
al, 2003). Hence, employment of techniques such as regional circulation models has come into
vogue. However, there are limitations with downscaling too (Wilby, 2002). One of the major
bottlenecks limiting decision making based on these techniques is the unaddressed uncertainty of
climate change (Tol, 2003; Webster et al, 2003; Forest et al, 2004; Lempert et al, 2004; Trenberth,
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Table 2