This Statement summarizes the results of the third in a series of consultations between agricultural scientists (in particular those interested in the conservation and use of crop diversity in plant improvement) and climate scientists on how to adapt agriculture to climate change. The first meeting, also held at Bellagio (3-7 September 2007), looked at the Conservation and Use of Global Crop Genetic Resources in the Face of Climate Change. It identified three major challenges facing the adaptation process: collecting crop diversity before it disappears, using it to breed better adapted crops, and informing key players of the increased need for the conservation and effective use of crop genetic resources in the face of climate change.

The second meeting, held at Stanford University on 16-18 June 2009, looked more specifically at breeding, and in particular at Climate Extremes and Crop Adaptation. Among other things, it recommended that efforts to develop heat tolerant cultivars of the major cereals be intensified, and that greater investments be made in genotyping and phenotyping the variation already held in genebanks, and in collecting remaining diversity.

This third meeting in the series, and second at Bellagio, focused on a specific area of intersection between the ground covered by the previous consultations: the role of plants that are closely related to crops but are not themselves cultivated (crop wild relatives, or CWRs for short) in breeding cultivars better adapted to future climates. We structured the discussion into three sections, and summarize the results in the same way below. We also note that the tight focus of this short meeting on CWR is not meant to indicate that other strategies for adaptation are less worthwhile. For example, changes in agronomic practices, such as the adoption of conservation agriculture, may well be an effective adaptation strategy, and one that complements crop genetic improvement. It was also often noted that the use of CWRs is but one of many tools in the breeder's toolbox.

As the world's fifth largest coal exporter and a key swing supplier between the Atlantic and Pacific coal markets, South Africa is a crucial player in global markets.  While the country has long been Europe's major supplier of coal, South African exports have begun to shift east and are steadily becoming a major source of coal supply for the Asian coal boom.  This strategic positioning sets the stage for South Africa to become an even more important player in determining how the world trades and prices coal. 

In the coming decade South Africa will face a number of difficult decisions around how to meet increasing domestic coal demand while dealing with climate concerns, increasing exports, and building the infrastructure that would enable the country to significantly expand market share in the global coal trade.  In many ways, the fate of South Africa's coal sector now hangs in the balance.

This paper explores the interplay between South Africa's domestic and export thermal coal markets and what might shape their development in the future. The paper first examines the industrial organisation and political-economy of the coal sector in South Africa.  An overview is provided of coal mining companies, how the current market structure emerged historically, the development of rail and port facilities, and coal costs and prices. Policy and legislative developments are also described. Finally scenarios are developed for local and export coal markets.

This paper examines climate adaptation strategies of farmers in the Limpopo Basin of South Africa. Survey results show that while many farmers noticed long-term changes in temperature and precipitation, most could not take remedial action. Lack of access to credit and water were cited as the main factors inhibiting adaptation. Common adaptation responses reported included diversifying crops, changing varieties and planting dates, using irrigation, and supplementing livestock feed. A multinomial logit analysis of climate adaptation responses suggests that access to water, credit, extension services and off-farm income and employment opportunities, tenure security, farmers' asset base and farming experience are key to enhancing farmers' adaptive capacity. This implies that appropriate government interventions to improve farmers' access to and the status of these factors are needed for reducing vulnerability of farmers to climate adversities in such arid areas.

Prevailing opinion assigns the Tibetan Plateau a crucial role in shaping Asian climate, primarily by heating of the atmosphere over Tibet during spring and summer. Accordingly, the growth of the plateau in geologic time should have written a signature on Asian paleoclimate. Recent work on Asian climate, however, challenges some of these views. The high Tibetan Plateau may affect the South Asian monsoon less by heating the overlying atmosphere than by simply acting as an obstacle to southward flow of cool, dry air. The East Asian "monsoon" seems to share little in common with most monsoons, and its dynamics may be affected most by Tibet's lying in the path of the subtropical jet stream. Although the growing plateau surely altered Asian climate during Cenozoic time, the emerging view of its role in present-day climate opens new challenges for interpreting observations of both paleoclimate and modern climate.

This paper aims to demonstrate the relationships between ENSO and rice production of Jiangxi province in order to identify the reason that ENSO might have little effect on Chinese rice production. Using a data set with measures of Jiangxi's climate and rice production, we find the reason that during 1985 and 2004 ENSO's well correlated with rainfall did not promote Chinese rice production. First, the largest effects of ENSO mostly occur in the months when there is no rice in the field. Second, there is almost no temperature effect. Finally, the monthly distribution of rainfall is almost the same in ENSO and neutral years because the largest effects are during months when there is the least rain. In addition, due to the high irrigation share and reliable and effective irrigation facilities of cultivated land, China's rice production is less climate-sensitive.

Introduction

This essay examines the two biggest environmental polluters, the oil and coal industries, and the possibilities of renewable energy that could replace them. I see the masters of these organisations, CEOs and top officials in the case of corporations, and state leaders in the case of command economies such as China or Saudi Arabia, as responding to nearterm demands and interests at the expense of long-term ones, thus endangering the planet. In the case of democratic nations, the firms seek to manipulate public opinion to ignore warnings about their emissions, and government representatives and officials to forestall changes that would threaten their interests. Meanwhile, because of their success in the areas of public opinion and legislation, there is insufficient funding for promising energy alternatives that are carbon-free.

Deforestation is a main driver of climate change and biodiversity loss. An incentive mechanism to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) is being negotiated under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Here we use the best available global datasets on terrestrial biodiversity and carbon storage to map and investigate potential synergies between carbon and biodiversity-oriented conservation. A strong association (rS= 0.82) between carbon stocks and species richness suggests such synergies would be high, but unevenly distributed. Many areas of high value for biodiversity could be protected by carbon-based conservation, while others could benefit from complementary funding arising from their carbon content. Some high-biodiversity regions, however, would not benefit from carbon-focused conservation, and could become under increased pressure if REDD is implemented. Our results suggest that additional gains for biodiversity conservation are possible, without compromising the effectiveness for climate change mitigation, if REDD takes biodiversity distribution into account.