Welcome to the Toolkit for Youth on Adaptation & Leadership!

Climate change is reshaping the world young people have inherited and they will bear the costs in the coming decades. However, young people are often excluded from taking on leadership roles and engaging in decision-making activities related to climate change adaptation.  This Toolkit for Youth on Adaptation & Leadership equips young people with the knowledge and skills to engage in climate adaptation policy, advocacy and action.

The “Toolkit for Youth on Adaptation & Leadership” is a project under the Global Center on Adaptation Youth Leadership Program, developed by the CARE Climate Justice Center with the financial support of Norad.

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Accredited Entities

Accredited Entities partner with GCF to implement projects. Accredited Entities can be private or public, non-governmental, sub-national, national, regional or international, as long as they meet the standards of the Fund. Accredited Entities carry out a range of activities that usually include the development of funding proposals and the management and monitoring of projects and programmes. Countries may access GCF resources through multiple entities simultaneously.

Source: Green Climate Fund

Adaptation finance gap

Adaptation finance gap refers to difference between the estimated costs of adaptation and the actual number of financial resources needed to support adaptation efforts. The estimated adaptation costs in developing countries are five to ten times greater than current public adaptation finance flows, and the adaptation finance gap is widening.

Source: UN

Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP)

ASAP was launched by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in 2012 to make climate and environmental finance work for smallholder farmers. A multi-year and multi-donor financing window, ASAP provides a new source of co-financing to scale up and integrate climate change adaptation across IFAD’s new investments.

Source: IFAD

Adaptation Fund

The Adaptation Fund is a global fund established to finance concrete adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that are parties to the Kyoto Protocol and are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. It pioneered Direct Access, empowering countries to access funding and develop projects directly through accredited national implementing entities.

Source: The Adaptation Fund

Advocacy

Advocacy is the deliberate process of influencing those who make decisions about developing, changing and implementing policies.

Source: CARE international Advocacy Handbook

Cancun Adaptation Framework (CAF)

The Cancun Adaptation Framework is a set of guidelines and measures that were established during the UNCCC held in Cancun in 2010. The CAF aims to strengthen action on adaptation in developing countries through international cooperation. It will support better planning and implementation of adaptation measures through increased financial and technical support, and through strengthening and/or establishing regional centres and networks. The framework will also boost research, assessments and technology cooperation on adaptation, as well as strengthen education and public awareness.

Source: UNFCCC

Climate

Climate refers to how the atmosphere "behaves" over relatively long periods of time (e.g. an average of the past 30 years).

Source: CARE (2022)

Climate Change

Climate change refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g. using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties that persist for an extended period, typically decades or longer. The term "climate change" often refers specifically to anthropogenic climate change (also known as global warming). Anthropogenic climate change is caused by human activity, as opposed to changes in climate that may have resulted as part of Earth's natural processes.

Source: CARE Climate Justice Center

Climate Change Adaptation

In human systems, climate change adaptation refers to the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects, in order to moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, it refers to the process of adjustment to actual climate and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate and its effects. In practical terms, adaptation refers to the changes people and institutions make to adjust to observed or projected changes in climate. It is an ongoing process that aims to reduce vulnerability to climate change. Retrieved from: CARE (2019). Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Analysis Handbook: careclimatechange.org/cvca/

Source: IPCC Glossary

Climate Change Mitigation

Climate change mitigation refers to human interventions to reduce emissions or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases (such as forests or wetlands).

Source: IPCC Glossary

Climate Crisis

Climate crisis is a term increasingly being used by UN agencies, scientists, media and civil society organizations to better reflect the urgency and the severity of the emergency we are facing. It reflects the fact that the climate is changing as a result of human behavior, and that it has and will have dramatic effects on women, men, girls and boys and their environment.

Source: CARE (2022)

Climate Finance

Climate Finance refers to local, national or transnational financing—drawn from public, private and alternative sources of financing—that seeks to support mitigation and adaptation actions that will address climate change.

Source: UNFCCC

Climate Funds Update

Climate Funds Update is an independent website that provides information and data on the growing number of multilateral climate finance initiatives designed to help developing countries address the challenges of climate change.

Source: Climate fund update

Climate Information

Climate information refers to the collection and interpretation of observations of the actual weather and climate as well as simulations of climate in both past and future periods. Climate information is the collection and interpretation of weather and climate data that is credible, relevant and usable.

Source: CARE (2022) (based on World Meteorological Organization & IPCC)

Climate Information Services (CIS)

CIS involve the provision of climate information in a way that assists decision making by individuals and organizations. They are tools and processes that enable decision makers and user communities to assess, and prevent or prepare for, potential impactful weather and climate events.

Source: CARE (2022) (based on World Meteorological Organization & IPCC)

Climate Justice

Climate Justice is about a future in which the poorest and most marginalized people have significantly improved their wellbeing and can enjoy their human rights due to increased resilience to climate change, increased equality and a global temperature rise that is limited to 1.5°C.

Source: CARE (2020)

Climate vulnerability analyses

Evidence-based analysis conducted to identify 1) the extent to which a human, social and/or ecological system has been or will likely be affected by climate variability and change, and 2) strategies to address these impacts.

Source: USAID (2014)

Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA)

Climate-Smart agriculture (CSA) is an integrated approach to managing landscapes—cropland, livestock, forests and fisheries — that address the interlinked challenges of food security and climate change.

Source: The World Bank (2021)

Community based adaptation (CBA)

Community-based adaptation is a set of climate change adaptation activities developed in partnership with at-risk communities to promote local awareness of, and appropriate and sustainable solutions to, current and future climatic conditions.

Source: CARE (2019)

COP (Conference of Parties)

The COP is the supreme decision-making body of the Convention. All States that are Parties to the Convention are represented at the COP, at which they review the implementation of the Convention and any other legal instruments that the COP adopts and take decisions necessary to promote the effective implementation of the Convention, including institutional and administrative arrangements.

Source: UNFCCC

Copenhagen Accord

The Copenhagen Accord recognizes the scientific view that an increase in global temperature below 2 degrees is required to stave off the worst effects of climate change.

Source: UNFCCC

EAC Climate Change Policy

The Heads of State of the East African Community (EAC) directed the EAC Secretariat to develop a Climate Change Policy and strategies to address the adverse impacts of Climate Change in the region and harness any potential opportunities posed by Climate Change in the context of the principle of sustainable development. The overall objective of the EAC Climate Change Policy is to guide Partner States and other stakeholders on the preparation and implementation of collective measures to address Climate Change in the region while assuring sustainable social and economic development.

Source: EAC

EAC Climate Change Strategy

This Framework is prepared to provide the effective delivery of adaptation services to the most climate vulnerable areas and people of Nepal. It supports the design of new and implementation of existing Local Adaptation Plans for Action (LAPAs) that have already been designed and piloted. It is expected to help integrate climate adaptation and resilience aspects in local and national plans.

Source: EAC

Ecosystem based adaptation

Ecosystem-based adaptation is a nature-based solution that harnesses biodiversity and ecosystem services to reduce vulnerability and build resilience to climate change.

Source: IUCN (2022)

Effects of Climate Change

The direct effects of climate change that can be observed by rising maximum and/or minimum temperatures, rising sea levels, ocean temperature, changing rainfall patterns, increase in (heavy) precipitation, glacier melting, heatwaves, cyclones, drought, etc. and that in return lead to more climate related hazards. The effects of these changes on humans and natural environment can be seen in e.g. increased hunger and poverty as a result from failed harvest due to droughts/extreme rain; Health risks as a result from heatwaves; Increased pests from change in temperature; Loss of biodiversity, as flora and fauna cannot adapt to a new climate reality; Reduction in fish from coral bleaching as a result from ocean acidification.

Source: CARE (2022)

Exposure

Exposure is “the presence of people, livelihoods, species or ecosystems, environmental functions, services, and resources, infrastructure, or economic, social, or cultural assets in places and settings that could be adversely affected”.

Source: IPCC

Gender

Gender refers to socially constructed characteristics of women and men – such as norms, roles and relations of and between groups of women and men.

Source: World Health Organization

Gender equality

Gender equality refers to the equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities of women and men and girls and boys. Equality does not mean that women and men will become the same but that women’s and men’s rights, responsibilities and opportunities will not depend on whether they are born male or female.

Source: UN / UN Women

Gender equity

Gender equity is the process of being fair to women and men. To ensure fairness, strategies and measures must often be available to compensate for women’s historical and social disadvantages that prevent women and men from otherwise operating on a level playing field. Equity leads to equality.

Source: UNFPA

Gender inequality

Gender inequality is discrimination on the basis of sex or gender causing one sex or gender to be routinely privileged or prioritized over another.

Source: Save the children

Gender integration

Strategies applied in program planning, assessment, design, implementation and M&E to consider gender norms and to compensate for gender-based inequalities. For example, when a project conducts a gender analysis and incorporates the results into its objectives, work plan and M&E plan, it is undertaking a gender integration process.

Source: CARE (2019)

Gender transformative adaptation

Adaptation can be incremental (making step-changes in the way people act but maintaining the system) or transformative (serving to fundamentally change system attributes). Gender-transformative approaches create opportunities for individuals to actively challenge existing gender norms, promote positions of social and political influence for women, and address power inequalities between persons of different genders.

Source: CARE & FAO (2019)

Goals

Goals are the specification of what an advocacy initiative should accomplish. Goals need to be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. They should clearly state what will change, who will make that change, by how much, and when. When goals are poorly articulated or ambiguous, it can be difficult to understand what the advocacy initiative is trying to achieve, to maintain focus and to evaluate efforts.

Source: CARE international Advocacy Handbook

Green Climate Fund (GCF)

GCF is a unique global platform to respond to climate change by investing in low-emission and climate-resilient development. GCF was established by 194 governments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in developing countries, and to help vulnerable societies adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change. Given the urgency and seriousness of this challenge, GCF is mandated to make an ambitious contribution to the united global response to climate change.

Source: Greenclimatefund

Greenhouse gases (GHGs)

The atmospheric gases responsible for causing global warming and climate change. The major GHGs are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N20). Less prevalent --but very powerful -- greenhouse gases are hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6).

Source: UNFCCC Glossary

Hazard

Hazard is a potentially damaging physical event, phenomenon and/or human activity, which may cause the loss of life or injury, property damage, social and economic disruption or environmental degradation.

Source: Asian Disaster Risk Reduction Centre

Hydroponics

Hydroponics is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions in water without soil.

Source: University of Illinois

Integrated risk management law and policy (IRM) checklist

This checklist can be used as a basis for advocacy strategies aiming to integrate Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Change Adaptation and Ecosystem Management and Restoration into laws, policies and their implementation on the ground.

Source: CARE Integrated Risk Management

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. The IPCC was created to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on climate change, its implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation options

Source: IPCC

Joint Principles for Adaptation (JPA)

The Joint Principles for Adaptation (JPA) is a statement by civil society organizations from across the world on what they consider to be a benchmark for good adaptation planning and implementation. It is a tool for ensuring that national policies and plans meet the needs and fulfil the rights of the most vulnerable people to adapt to climate change.

Source: CARE Jointed Principles for Adaptation

Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty that was adopted on 11 December 1997. Owing to a complex ratification process, it entered into force on 16 February 2005. Currently, there are 192 Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. In short, the Kyoto Protocol operationalizes the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by committing industrialized countries and economies in transition to limit and reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in accordance with agreed individual targets.

Source: UNFCCC

Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF)

The LDCF is enabling Least Developed Countries to prepare for a more resilient future. LDCF funding helps recipient countries address their short-, medium- and long-term resilience needs and reduce climate change vulnerability in priority sectors and ecosystems. LDCF backing helps countries implement National Adaptation Programs of Action (NAPAs) – country-driven strategies for addressing their most urgent adaptation needs. It also supports the implementation of the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) process, and the Least Developed Country work program under the UNFCCC.

Source: The Global Environment Facility

Local Adaptation Plans (LAPs)

Source: LAPs

Locally Led Adaptation (LLA)

LLA allows an approach of empowerment of the different local stakeholders through the implementation of different tools for participatory planning, consensual decision making, accountability and integration of local and scientific knowledge, as well as capacity building by prioritizing local stakeholders. Thus, it is important to understand that local stakeholders better understand their problems and the actions to prioritize in order to solve them. In this sense, locally-led adaptation allows power to be shifted to local stakeholders while they are accompanied by external actors to alleviate the burden of responsibility for adaptation, in order to catalyze effective, equitable and transparent adaptation. Locally-led adaptation, unlike other more common participatory approaches, goes beyond the involvement of local stakeholders and only occurs when they have control over the development and adaptation processes. For CARE, this approach is equivalent to the CBA.

Source: GCA (2021)

Loss and damage

Loss and damage is a general term used in UN climate negotiations to refer to the consequences of climate change that go beyond what people can adapt to, or when options exist but a community doesn’t have the resources to access or make use of them.

Source: World Resources Institute

Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL)

Monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) practices have the purpose of applying knowledge gained from evidence and analysis to improve the effectiveness, efficiency and, ultimately, the outcomes and impact of their projects/initiatives and ensure accountability for the resources used to achieve them.

Source: CARE

National Adaptation Plans (NAPs)

The National Adaptation Plan (NAP) is a process that was established under the Cancun Adaptation Framework (CAF). It enables Parties to formulate and implement national adaptation plans (NAPs) as a means of identifying medium- and long-term adaptation needs and developing and implementing strategies and programmes to address those needs. It is a continuous, progressive and iterative process that follows a country-driven, gender-sensitive, participatory and fully transparent approach.

Source: UNFCCC

National adaptation programs of action (NAPAs)

NAPAs provide a process for the least-developed countries (LDCs) to identify priority activities that respond to their urgent and immediate needs with regard to adaptation to climate change - those needs for which further delay could increase vulnerability or lead to increased costs at a later stage. The rationale for NAPAs rests on the limited ability of the LDCs to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change. In the NAPA process, prominence is given to community-level input as an important source of information, recognizing that grassroots communities are the main stakeholders.

Source: UNFCCC

National Communication (NC)

National Communication is a report that each country that is a Party to the UNFCCC must submit. These reports highlight development priorities, objectives and national circumstances, including ongoing action and needs for meeting adaptation and mitigation goals and the objectives of the Convention. Parties are required to submit their first NC within three years of entering the Convention, and every four years thereafter.

Source: UNFCCC

Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)

Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are climate action plans to cut emissions and adapt to climate impacts. Each Party to the Paris Agreement is required to establish an NDC and update it every five years.

Source: UN

Nature-based Solutions (NbS)

Nature-based solutions are actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural and modified ecosystems in ways that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, to provide both human well-being and biodiversity benefits

Source: IUCN (2016)

Net zero

Net zero means cutting greenhouse gas emissions to as close to zero as possible, with any remaining emissions re-absorbed from the atmosphere, by oceans and forests for instance.

Source: United Nations Net-Zero Coalition

Objectives

Objectives are specific and measurable targets that must be achieved in order to realize the broader goals. These objectives are concrete and medium-term and provide a clear direction for the organization and individuals in achieving the goal.

Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 196 Parties at COP 21 in Paris, on 12 December 2015 and entered into force on 4 November 2016. Its goal is to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels. To achieve this long-term temperature goal, countries aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to achieve a climate neutral world by mid-century. The Paris Agreement is a landmark in the multilateral climate change process because, for the first time, a binding agreement brings all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects.

Source: UNFCCC

PESTLE analysis

PESTLE stands for: Political, Economic, Social Technological, Legal and Environmental factors or trends. It is helpful to break down the process of undertaking a context analysis into manageable chunks using a PESTLE analysis. This tool promotes a systematic understanding of the wider environment. It can also help to identify new issues and opportunities on the horizon; to create scenarios; and to develop a coherent vision.

Source: CARE international Advocacy Handbook

Pilot Program for Climate Resilience

Pilot Program for Climate Resilience is a program that supports developing countries and regions in building their adaptation and resilience to the impacts of climate change. First, the PPCR assists governments in integrating climate resilience into strategic development planning across sectors and stakeholder groups. Second, it provides concessional and grant funding to put the plans into action and pilot innovative public and private sector solutions.

Source: Climate Investment Fund

Primary targets

Primary targets are the people who have the power to make the changes needed to achieve the advocacy objectives. They are often known as decision-makers. It is vital to know who makes the decisions so as not to waste time or resources targeting the wrong people.

Source: CARE international Advocacy Handbook

Problem tree

Problem Trees are graphic tools that helps find solutions by mapping out the anatomy of cause and effect around an issue in a similar way to a Mind Map, but with more structure. The policy-related problem or issue is written in the centre of the flip chart and becomes the trunk of the tree. The causes and consequences of the focal problem become the roots. The question of ‘why’ an issue is a problem needs to be repeatedly asked to find the root cause.

Source: CARE international Advocacy Handbook

Residual waste

Non-hazardous waste material that cannot be re-used or recycled and needs to be sent to energy recovery (incineration/biogas) or disposal (landfill)

Resilience

Resilience is the ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions through risk management. Resilience is the capacity to deal with shocks and stresses, manage risks and transform lives and systems in response to new hazards.

Source: United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction

Results chain

Results chains are a visual tool for showing what a project is doing and why. They explain all the links in the chain from project actions to market actor changes, through to impacts on target groups, in detail, for a particular intervention. They can be used to monitor change and adapt strategy on an ongoing basis.

Source: Practical Action

Risk

Risk is “the potential for adverse consequences where something of value is at stake and where the occurrence and degree of an outcome is uncertain.” Risk is a function of vulnerability, exposure and the likelihood of a hazard occurring.

Source: CARE (2019)

Secondary targets

Secondary targets are individuals or groups who have the potential to influence or persuade the primary target, who may be difficult to reach or persuade directly. Secondary targets could be people to whom the primary target is accountable, advisors, local government officials, media, public opinion, personal contacts, celebrities, or academics. By persuading these secondary targets, the hope is that they can then influence the primary target to change their stance or take a desired action.

Source: CARE international Advocacy Handbook

Sex

Sex refers to the different biological and physiological characteristics of females, males and intersex persons, such as chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs.

Source: World Health Organization

Shocks

Shocks are short-term events or disruptions that have negative effects on people’s well-being, assets, livelihoods, safety or their ability to withstand future shocks.

Source: CARE (2019)

SMART

SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. These indicators can be used for monitoring and evaluation.

Source: CARE international Advocacy Handbook

Special Climate Change Fund

The Special Climate Change Fund is a fund that is established under the Convention in 2001 to finance projects relating to: adaptation; technology transfer and capacity building; energy, transport, industry, agriculture, forestry and waste management; and economic diversification. It is managed by the GEF.

Source: The special Climate Change Fund

Stress

Stresses are continuous, long-term trends or pressures that negatively impact people’s lives and the systems they live in.

Source: CARE (2019)

Sustainability

Sustainability is the practice of using natural resources responsibly, that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Source: United Nations Brundtland Commission (1987)

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDGs are seventeen global goals, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The SDGs provide a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future and are an urgent call for action by all countries - developed and developing - in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.

Source: SDG

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

The UNFCCC is an international treaty that entered into force on 21 March 1994. Today, it has near-universal membership. The 198 countries that have ratified the Convention are called Parties to the Convention. Preventing “dangerous” human interference with the climate system is the ultimate aim of the UNFCCC.

Source: UNFCCC

Vulnerability

In the context of climate change, vulnerability refers to the potential for negative effects resulting from the impacts of climate change. Vulnerability to the same risks may differ based on gender, wealth, mobility and other factors. It is influenced by adaptive capacity; the higher the adaptive capacity, the lower the vulnerability.

Source: CARE (2019)

Weather

Weather describes short term natural events - such as fog, rain, snow, blizzards, wind and thunder storms, tropical cyclones, etc. - in a specific place and time.

Source: World Meteorological Organization (WMO)