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MSV status and visibility among the climate change com-
munity was elevated in 2011. In May MSV was granted Ob-
server status to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) at the 33rd Plenary Session of the IPCC, a sta-
tus that entitles GRID-Arendal to nominate authors for IPCC
reports, provide review comments, and attend sessions of
the IPCC and its Working Groups. Subsequent to this, MSV
was invited to join the CICERO booth at UNFCCC COP 17
in Durban, South Africa. The Portraits of Resilience exhibit
of children’s photos and stories on climate change opened
simultaneously at the Durban Natural History Museum.47
Throughout 2011, the Polar and Cryosphere Programme
worked with Himalayan Climate Change Adaptation Pro-
gramme (HICAP) partners CICERO and ICIMOD to pre-
pare a report on the impact of climate change, specifically
how the livelihoods of women in mountain communities
of the Hindu-Kush are affected. Two GRID-Arendal staff
spent three weeks on a field mission in the northern re-
gion of Mustand Province in Nepal to conduct data gath-
ering and interviews in selected communities.
The resulting Rapid Response Assessment (RRA), Wom-
en at the Frontline of Climate Change: Gender Risks and
Hopes,48 was launched in December 2011 at a side event
of the UNFCCC COP 17. The report shows that women
play a stronger role than men in the management of eco-
systems services and food security in the region, and that
they are often in the ‘frontline’ in respect to the impacts of
a changing climate. The report inter alia calls for the de-
sign of climate change adaptation programmes that are
sensitive and responsive to the differentiated and multi-
ple roles of men and women; improving women’s liveli-
hoods through greater access, control and ownership of
resources, and; ensuring an enabling environment for the
increased participation and substantive inputs of women
in decision and policy-making related to climate change
issues.
Prior to the launch of the report, HICAP partners and the
Mountain Partnership Secretariat of FAO organised a
Mountain Day event at COP 17, “Highlighting the Criti-
cal Role of Mountain Ecosystems for Climate Adaptation
and Sustainable Development”. A high-level panel, includ-
Maybe
(What will happen when the Greenlandic Ice melts away?)
Greenland’s inland ice is melting.
Maybe Greenland is going to be like a green land.
Maybe there will be strange animals and new vegetables.
Maybe the life of Greenlanders will change in the future.
Maybe the fish will disappear and new fish will come instead.
Maybe Greenlanders cannot fish anymore.
They have to look for new jobs.
Maybe there will be no ice.
– Aqqa Lange
47. The Portraits of Resilience collection was further expanded in 2011
through a photo project at schools in Fiji, Kiribati, and Tuvalu.
48.
Figure 2: Humpback annual migrations between feeding grounds in polar waters to mating and calving grounds in tropical waters are amongst
the longest of any mammal