Page - (000217) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

thus that responses to climate changemitigation and adaptation can be integrated with poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Small scale hydroelectric and solar systems can reduce emissions, enable adaptation and help local liveli- hoods although there are numerous problems that limit the success of projects including poor design, inequitable distribution of benefits, negative user percep- tions, andpoorlydesignedornon-existent governanceandmaintenance structures. Although the design of some case study projects did not allow for the triple objective tobecurrentlymet, thisdoesnotpreclude theprojects frommeeting it in the future. Insomeprojects, aproperPARanalysiswasn’t carriedoutas therewere no extreme weather events reported or any other emergency that showed the usefulness, robustnessorvulnerabilityof thetechnologyorof thepopulationthanks totheinfrastructure. Indeed,someDREprojectscanbemorerobust,andsomehave already been rebuilt after specific extremeweather events. Some users indicated that their systemscouldstill beworkinghad the localdonoror implementingNGO beenmore aware and visitedmore often and not disappeared. This points to the need for greater and better monitoring as well as evaluation, which hadn’t been carriedout insomeoftheprojectsvisited,despite theirbeingimplementedformore than5years. Table 11.5 gives a summary of the results of all the case studies, according to eachmajor categoryof indicators. Thenotes belowexplain in greater detail the concept of each column. 11.5 RenewableEnergyandClimateAdaptation As hypothesized, DRE systems have been seen to both increase and decrease vulnerability to extremeclimate events.Todate, thepotential response to extreme weathereventsofDREsystemshashardlybeenconsideredandithasbeenseenthat they are vulnerable to extremeweather eventswhich can harm users and hamper their statedgoals suchas inNicaragua.For example, awoman inGuatemalahada nervous breakdownwhenher solar PVsystemhad a short circuit inside her house during a particular storm. In this case, the fault was due to improper system installationwhichwasn’t reported earlier as thiswas the first external visit to the systemandhousehold.Ontheotherhand,onecasestudy,NuevaAlianza,usedtheir biodiesel system after only 1 day of being installed, and it was robust enough to withstand the force ofHurricane Stan. In general, the case studies helped identify the main vulnerabilities of DRE systems to extreme climate events. The case studies also showed that communities in which adaptation goals are being met are communities inwhich,more often than not, development goals are also being achieved. Actions that enable adaptation also enable development, such as com- munications, alternate income sources and more community unity. However, research results also indicate that inmost cases, adaptation to natural disasters is better in communities where there is a good governance structure andwhere the renewable energy system is commonly owned. Although this result might have 11 SustainableDevelopment,ClimateChange, andRenewableEnergy inRural. . . 201