20  Climate change adaptation

Challenging the mainstream

Philip Ireland and Peter Keegan

Introduction

Climate change adaptation (CCA) has rapidly emerged as an important and widely used concept within international development policy and programmatic discourses and practices. Defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities (IPCC, 2007), the concept has become widely used within the development aid sector.

This chapter explores how CCA may be being absorbed into business as usual approaches to development. We reflect on recent research that has investigated how CCA is being conceptualized and utilized across the development sector, and we show that many development actors may not be changing their approach in light of the new challenges posed by climate change, but rather conceptualizing and utilizing CCA within business-as-usual development aid frameworks. In contrast to these dominant approaches, we draw on postdevelopment approaches to both challenge existing understandings of CCA and provide an impetus for exploring the potential of diverse local understandings and initiatives for adaptation. Such an approach is not embedded in the familiar certainties of development, but is a new effort that calls development actors to move forward uneasily and build upon the diverse practices of local communities.

Three important background considerations inform the argument of the chapter. First, that there is already strong emerging evidence that climate change poses serious and negative threats to communities in developing countries and that some form of adaptation is and will be necessary (McKibben, 1999; Adger et al., 2009; Füssel, 2009; Karbassi et al., 2011; IPCC, 2012). A range of factors contribute to the heightened acuity of the climate change challenge in developing countries. These include geographical (such as in Asian river deltas or low-lying Pacific islands), political (including inadequate urban planning, failures of governance, and the presence of social conflict), and economic factors (such as heavy reliance on climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture and the scarcity of livelihood options for the poor) (World Bank, 2010; Nath and Behera, 2011; IPCC, 2012). These factors cause many scholars and practitioners to conclude that there is a fundamental link between CCA and development, as it is the familiar subjects of development efforts – “the poor” – who also experience the greatest vulnerability to the effects of climate change (Adger et al., 2003; Huq and Ried, 2004; Klein et al., 2007; Leary et al., 2008).

Second, as CCA has emerged as a significant influence within the development sector, it has increasingly been accompanied by an aid-driven response including large and growing volumes of dedicated CCA financing. There are currently over 14 dedicated multilateral CCA funds in addition to a range of other initiatives from bilateral aid programs and international development NGOs (Climate Funds Update, 2012). This trend looks set to increase into the future. Under commitments made at the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 (UNFCCC, 2009) and re-affirmed at the Cancun climate conference in 2010 (UNFCCC, 2011), climate financing in developing countries, which includes CCA, is expected to be scaled up to around 100bn USD per year by 2020. This is the same order of magnitude as total current annual overseas development assistance (World Bank, 2011).

Finally, in exploring the development sector’s conceptualizations and utilizations of CCA, something of the sector’s own contested history and nature must also be recognized. Far from being uncontested, there is wide criticism of development aid efforts for their failure to achieve goals and the creation of new and additional problems. Potential perverse outcomes from development initiatives identified in the research literature include environmental damage (Shiva, 1993; Sidaway, 2007), expanding bureaucratic state power (Ferguson, 1990), violent conflict (Verhoeven, 2011), widening social and economic inequality (Sachs 2010) and the creation of an imagined geography of underdevelopment (Escobar 1995). Recent scholarship, characterized by titles such as “The Curse of Aid” (Djankov et al., 2008), “The Trouble with Aid” (Glennie, 2008) and “The Aid Trap” (Hubbard and Duggan, 2009), questions the fundamental logic of aid and development and suggests that many development programs may have a net negative impact on developing countries.

Conceptualizations of climate change adaptation

In seeking to understand the role of development actors in CCA, we begin with the ways in which it is being conceptualized – how it is defined and understood – within the development aid sector. We show that in the literature and amongst development actors, the term is often employed malleably and through the constructs of pre-existing approaches and concepts of development.

Existing development approaches to disaster risk reduction (DRR) have been one of the major influences on contemporary conceptualizations of CCA. There is a wide literature that identifies the similarities between these two approaches and suggesting that DRR should be one of the first steps or key components of adaptation to climate change (cf. Venton and LaTrobe, 2008; Christoplos, 2008; Schipper, 2009; Ireland, 2010; Mercer, 2010). By examining how DRR is being considered in emerging theory and practice around CCA, Ireland (2010) also suggests that the field of CCA is still evolving as stakeholders attempt to understand what CCA is and what actions it involves.

DRR is not the only pre-existing concept that is shaping and influencing understandings of CCA. In the majority of cases, development actors who are engaging with CCA are doing so through the conceptual lenses of their own preferred existing approaches to development aid. A recent study used semi-structured interviews to identify, outline and categorize the conceptualizations of CCA held by 35 development actors (Ireland, 2012b). A range of understandings of CCA emerged from this research that can be categorized into six broad definitions: improving knowledge, reducing risk, improving livelihoods, coping with impacts, planning and infrastructure, and “good development”. The majority of participants’ conceptualizations of CCA were framed within one of these themes, though it does also need to be acknowledged that there is some degree of interrelationship between the categories.

When Ireland (2012b) further explores the nature of the responses that were included within each of these categories it becomes evident that CCA is principally being conceptualized through the lenses of existing approaches for many of these development actors. Under the theme of improving knowledge, several NGO actors suggested that CCA is about educating the community to understand the potential climatic changes they face. In relation to reducing risk, participants drew upon the pre-existing context of vulnerability and referred to pre-existing approaches such as DRR and sustainable livelihoods. Improving livelihoods also reflects this idea of utilizing pre-existing methods with a focus on specific activities such as crop diversification and resilient agriculture. The theme of “coping with impacts” included responses that focus on actions that are reactive whilst planning and infrastructure focused on pre-emptive actions including activities such as the construction of sea walls and urban planning. Finally, the most dominant theme that emerged is around the assertion that CCA is just “good development”. Under this category the participants suggested that CCA is not a new idea or approach, rather it is a component or natural outcome of “good development” which carried different implied meanings for different actors. Some conceptualizations of CCA have attempted to incorporate such a wide range of different activities by presenting adaptation as a continuum of different actions (McGray et al., 2007: Persson et al., 2009; Ireland, 2011). Whilst we can see the usefulness of these conceptualizations, the findings of Ireland (2012b) suggest that some of the actions being proposed as CCA are being driven by an ongoing imperative for certain types of development, more than by a consideration of the unique challenges of climate change.

Ireland and Schipper (in review) also show the tendency for CCA to be conceptualized through pre-existing concepts and linked to pre-existing activities of development organizations such as resilience, coping and risk. In the absence of clearer and more commonly understood conceptual boundaries, this tendency risks making CCA a meaningless term that may be operationalized in such a way that undermines possibilities for adaptation in the future. They argue that:

The breadth of CCA conceptualizations and the risk that this may lead to projects being funded that do not result in effective adaptation, and at worst make people more vulnerable to climate change, is also reflected in the utilization of the concept as we examine in the next section.

Utilizations of climate change adaptation

In this section we examine the ways in which these different conceptualizations of CCA are being used in the day-to-day practice of development actors. Utilizations of CCA include the way the concept is employed within funding proposals and the actual development projects and programs that are conducted in the name of CCA. We suggest CCA is not only being conceptualized in light of existing development discourses; it is also being utilized as a means to repeat, strengthen and perpetuate these business-as-usual approaches to development aid.

If we consider first the use of CCA concepts in project funding applications and processes, Ireland’s (2012b) study of development actors presents an interesting view of the way some actors are utilizing CCA. Several of the interviewed actors explained how they “rebadge” and “rename” current development activities as CCA due to perceptions that this language is more “sexy”, can “capture the imagination of the donors” and results in “more money” (Ireland, 2012b). As one NGO manager said, “We call our projects different things to meet the donors’ needs … It’s not ideal but we need to use the language of the donor” (Ireland, 2012b: 100). The implication of the tendency to simply rebadge existing initiatives as CCA is that despite climate change being recognized as a new and different challenge, there has been little change in the actual development activities that are being implemented including activities implemented in the name of CCA. Indeed, some development actors are taking advantage of the flexible conceptualizations of CCA in order to attain funding for a range of pre-existing work that may or may not actually result in adaptation to climate change.

This is true at many different levels of the development sector, including amongst multi-lateral actors as demonstrated by the World Bank’s World Development Report (2010). The World Development Reports are the World Bank’s flagship publications and have significant influence upon the shape of policies of governments and development aid organizations (Paalman et al., 1998; Rigg et al., 2009). These reports have been critiqued for being ideologically driven and donor centric (Rigg et al., 2009; Wade, 2001). Ireland and McKinnon (2013) explore the 2010 World Development Report and show that it supports well-worn neoliberal solutions such as privatization, economic growth and removal of subsidies as contributions to CCA. This appropriation of CCA is something that was both recognized and expressed as a concern by some development actors within Ireland’s (2012b) study. Several of the participants in this research suggested that the new focus upon CCA is donor driven. In some instances small local organizations are being marginalized and disempowered as they are not able to utilize the concept of CCA in their current work or proposals.

As a result of the tendency by development actors to utilize CCA as a means to further existing development paradigms, we see that it is leading not only to varying, but in some instances directly contradictory, approaches to adaptation. The contrast between the World Bank (2010) and Oxfam (Pettengell, 2010) provides a case in point in relation to developing country agriculture. The two organizations are promoting seemingly opposing approaches to the issue. Whereas the World Bank identifies chemically intensive high yielding approaches associated with the Green Revolution as potential CCA initiatives, Oxfam posits organic agriculture as a more appropriate adaptation strategy. While this example may demonstrate the link between flexible conceptualizations of CCA and divergent actions, it also raises questions around how these actions will ultimately help vulnerable communities cope with and prepare for the impacts of climate change.

When considered critically, the emerging patterns of CCA conceptualization and utilization described in this chapter risk repeating problematic aspects of development aid. At the level of development activities, the patterns of CCA usage described above demonstrate a range of diverse – and in places contradictory – initiatives to support adaptation. With this proliferation and potential contradiction, there is an accompanying risk that at least some activities may drive forms of maladaptation that produce opposite outcomes to the IPCC definition – increasing harm or diminishing beneficial opportunities.

However, beyond these tangible activities, another important set of questions may be raised above the emerging use of CCA in relation to its place within the broader history and discourses of the development sector. There is an underlying tendency within the sector to adopt new foci and discourses in ways that strengthen and perpetuate the pre-existing agendas and ideologies of development actors (Pieterse, 2010). The practice of co-opting and integrating new development ideas with existing business-as-usual approaches to development outlined above is not unique to CCA but has previously been identified in relation to other foci such as the Millennium Development Goals (Langford, 2010; Vandemoortele, 2011). This tendency may serve to obscure more fundamental problems with the broader development aid effort. Indeed, recent critiques have suggested that the development sector continually produces new discourses and fashions precisely in order to conceal the low success rate of development interventions and to maintain itself (Pieterse, 2010). A key question that emerges from this analysis is whether CCA is being appropriated into existing development paradigms or whether it could be something different.

Other critiques suggest that the very foundations of global development aid efforts are predicated on problematic patterns of aid transfers from the “developed” to the “developing” world. The current and emerging conceptualizations of CCA explored in this chapter are often consistent with this underlying paradigm. That is, they tend to regard international donors as benign actors disconnected from the causes of the vulnerability that their adaptation efforts seek to reduce. In this vein, Ireland (2010) explored how the new focus upon adaptation within the development sector raises important questions about the reasons for communities’ vulnerability to climate change in the first instance. It is also possible that the effective de-linking of adaptation from mitigation may ultimately obscure the extent to which “[d]ominant Western countries are designing and upholding global institutional arrangements, geared to their domestic elites, that foreseeably and avoidably produce massive deprivations in most of the much poorer regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America” (Pogge, 2008: 3). Consequently CCA becomes framed as a matter of aid and international altruism rather than justice or international responsibility.

For the concept of CCA, this means on one level there is a risk of becoming yet another development goal that is mal-aligned with the priorities of communities and implemented ineffectively. However, it also means that the increasing emphasis on CCA could be seen through the lens of Pieterse’s (2010) critique as having the potential to divert attention from previous development failures, including problematic overarching paradigms. It may simultaneously facilitate funding for new development programs that follow similar patterns. In light of the large volumes of funding that are available for CCA identified in the introductory section, there is a risk that it may not just end up being an avenue for the repetition of well critiqued approaches to development; it may end up strengthening and perpetuating them.

The contribution of postdevelopment perspectives to CCA

Given the evidence to suggest that CCA is at risk of being absorbed into existing business-as-usual approaches and paradigms to development, here we draw upon Ireland and McKinnon’s (forthcoming) work to conclude by arguing that postdevelopment perspectives may offer one set of possibilities for challenging the emerging CCA mainstream. These perspectives suggest options “bedded not in familiar certainties but in a new effort to move uneasily, supporting the diverse practices of local communities as they respond in their own particular ways to the universal threat of climate change” (Ireland and McKinnon, 2013).

Postdevelopment theorists call for a critical rethinking of development that is mindful of the long history of critiques (Ferguson, 1990; Escobar, 1995; Saunders, 2002; Sidaway, 2007) and attentive to nascent possibilities (Gibson-Graham, 2005; McKinnon, 2007). They argue that development is always embedded in politics and ideology and warrants critical analysis and mindful interrogation (Ferguson, 1990; McKinnon, 2007). Critics of postdevelopment suggest that it draws upon a narrow version of development and fails to present genuine alternatives or a positive program (Pieterse, 2010). In our view, whilst postdevelopment does not seek to codify universalizing approaches to development, it does offer viable alternatives and does not make the development sector redundant. A postdevelopment approach to CCA requires those engaged in development aid to move with critical uneasiness – without the confidence that any particular approach is the right one – and with openness to new possibilities (Ireland and McKinnon, in review). In this vein, postdevelopment perspectives value diverse practices that are already occurring at the local level in response to a long history of hierarchical logics of scale in development that have obscured the significance of the local (Escobar, 2001; Santos, 2004; Gibson-Graham, 2005).

Ireland and McKinnon (2013) draw on postdevelopment perspectives to identify nascent opportunities and possibilities for adaptation to climate change in the developing world. They draw on field research in Nepal and Bangladesh (including Ireland and Thomalla, 2011; Ireland, 2012a) conducted in communities that are already responding to challenges identified locally as environmental change but that can be linked to broader patterns of climate change. In one example, local women’s collectives are responding to challenges associated with the climate in Nepalganj, Nepal by taking specific action at a local level in response to considered reflection on the changes required to living patterns, resource use and collective behavior in the face of environmental changes. It was found that these actions were driven by local actors rather than by aid or the agendas of external development actors (Ireland 2012a). In this context the actions included raising the walkways between their houses to help them cope with flooding and combining some of their savings to purchase land to grow some of their own food in response to a shortage of work and income. In Kohlpur, Nepal, savings and loans collectives have begun to cooperate as disaster assistance networks to help communities prepare for and cope with severe storms and floods (Ireland and Thomalla, 2011; Ireland, 2012a). Similarly, research from Bangladesh showed how after several years of intense storms and cyclones some local NGOs are trialing new methods to better survive in the future. These actions include revegetating roadsides, reducing local deforestation, saving local seeds, developing floating vegetable gardens and building clay pots into the walls of new homes to save basic food and water for times of emergency (Ireland and McKinnon, 2013).

A postdevelopment approach does not lead us to view examples such as these simply as isolated instances that contribute to local adaptation processes. Instead it sees these examples as contributing to “a global network of localised actions […] accumulating towards a diverse set of climate change adaptations that enact important alternatives to the emerging norms of CCA” (Ireland and McKinnon, 2013). Examples like these, and the use of a postdevelopment perspective, point to both the narrowness of many current conceptualizations and utilizations of CCA, and to the possibility of alternatives that take seriously the unique challenges of climate change, are grounded in a critically reflective stance toward dominant development paradigms, and recognize the legitimacy and value of local actions.

Future adaptation efforts by the development sector should be built upon the needs, priorities and capacities of local communities. If the development sector is to contribute to effective adaptation across the world it must move uneasily into the subject of adaptation to climate change. Whilst this approach to adaptation is informed by postdevelopment perspectives we depart from postdevelopment and agree with Ireland and Schipper (in review) who suggest that there is a need for commonly understood boundaries of what adaptation can mean within the development sector. Commonly understood boundaries will inevitably posit some limits on what local actions can be supported as adaptation processes by the development sector, but also minimize the potential for a range of preexisting and ideologically driven development aid efforts to be labeled and funded as adaptation. We contend that there is a necessary and dynamic tension that development actors need to grapple with between supporting previously unseen opportunities and limiting the potential for adaptation to become a catch-all concept that can be used to mobilize financing for any development aid activity. This approach could limit the incidence of maladaptation and the repetition of problematic aspects of development aid.

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