31 Understanding how to respond to climate change in a context of transformational change
The contribution of sustainable adaptation
Introduction – problematizing adaptation
With the increasing prominence of climate change in the public and policy agendas, there are growing calls for critical thought regarding the type of response measures that are formulated (Barnett and O’Neill, 2010). For example, it has been pointed out that adjustments to reduce potential damages and realize new opportunities that may arise with such changes are not necessarily all benign (Adger et al., 2007; Eriksen and Selboe, 2013). Like any other intervention or action, adaptation aimed at one particular group or purpose can have negative effects on other groups or in the long term (Eriksen and O’Brien, 2007; Barnett and O’Neill, 2010). This concern is the motivation for the term “sustainable adaptation,” that is “adaptation that contributes to socially and environmentally sustainable development pathways, including both social justice and environmental integrity” (Eriksen et al., 2011: 8). How can the term sustainable adaptation inform how we respond to climate change?
A key problem with the way that adaptation to climate change has been conceived so far is the tendency to see adaptation as actions or policies directed only at climate change in isolation from societal change processes at large. Adaptation is often assumed to take place more or less automatically as a largely unproblematic process once the right policies and interventions are in place (Eriksen and O’Brien, 2007). There is increasing attention directed at the need to see vulnerability as a result of multiple stressors, including non-climatic social and environmental changes (Eakin, 2006; Reid and Vogel, 2006; Leichenko and O’Brien, 2008; O’Brien et al., 2009). However, so far, we do not really understand how adaptation links with other processes of change in society, nor what it should look like. The failure to frame adaptation and climate responses as part of social change and development processes means that critical thinking regarding development processes and how they take place is not reflected in most understandings and discussions of adaptation.
The failure to link adaptation to an understanding of development and social change manifests itself in two main ways in adaptation efforts: first, some policy responses are formulated to narrowly address climate change as an environmental problem, isolated from societal problems and change at large. Measures, such as those described in national adaptation assessments and programs in wealthy as well as poor countries alike (Agrawal and Perrin, 2009; NOU, 2010) are typically sectoral, top-down (Agrawal and Perrin, 2009; NOU, 2010). They are often focused on avoiding physical or monetary damage, human injuries and death from extreme events, rather than on local needs and strategies (Vincent et al., this volume). They direct attention to questions such as what dimensions should drainable pipes have or what sort of flood early warning systems do we need with projected change in precipitation patterns? Or how many more forest fires may result from future warming? There is increased research focus on community adaptation, local risk management including local actions, and how people live with environmental disasters (Huq and Reid, 2007; Commission on Climate Change and Development, 2009) but there is still a need to link more closely to existing understanding of how people build their livelihoods (Sabates-Wheeler et al., 2008) and what values and aspirations beyond material needs and survival people strive to secure in the face of change (O’Brien, 2009). Adaptation projects that focus on specific manifestations of climate change rather than people’s daily actions and felt threats risk leading to measures that are isolated from development needs and efforts.
A second and related challenge emerging from the failure to explicitly link adaptation with development is the risk that a wide range of development actions are uncritically implemented in the name of climate change without being explicit about what aspect of vulnerability they are actually addressing. Based on the assumption that “more development” necessarily reduces vulnerability and is therefore always good, development organizations may be tempted to label current activities as adaptation without a critical examination of whether they address root causes of vulnerability or indeed reinforce vulnerability, how poverty and vulnerability differ, and whose vulnerability they address. This may lead to ineffective or counterproductive measures (Klein et al., 2007). Worse, justifying actions as climate change measures may cloud important political or problematic aspects of these actions. There is a long history of environmental discourses (such as desertification and nature conservation) contributing to a loss of local control over resources to central government institutions, as well as to top-down imposition of rules and regulations that constrain livelihoods and disregard the complexities of socio-environmental processes of change (Benjaminsen et al., 2006). There is a similar danger that climate change discourses lead to mitigation and adaptation policies that are distant from local contexts and concerns and which in effect disempower people.
In order to expand critical thinking regarding adaptation there is an urgent need to build adaptation understanding on development insights. This chapter suggests that the term sustainable adaptation may contribute to addressing this challenge by linking adaptation with sustainable development literatures, in particular linking understandings of adaptation to development pathways, empowerment, distributional issues and strong sustainability (Redclift, 2005; Adams, 2009). Human security and sustainable adaptation, though not without problems, are terms that may bring in much reflection on adaptation, highlighting people’s efforts, options, and capacity to build flourishing lives in the face of multiple stressors, and the role of competing interests and values involved in adaptation processes and decision making, and the need to transform development pathways.
Sustainable adaptation as a transformative change process: a conceptual understanding
The need to think critically about what types of adaptation actions are needed has been reflected in increasing calls over the past decades to target the poor in particular, or creating “pro-poor” adaptation, ostensibly to prioritize measures that focus on challenges met by the poor, compared to the interests of other groups (Eriksen and Næss, 2003; Tanner and Mitchell, 2008). These efforts recognize that adaptation outcomes may differ between groups and that conscious considerations need to be made to ensure that adaptation addresses poverty or at least does not undermine poverty reduction efforts (Yohe et al., 2007; Moser and Satterthwaite, 2008; Vernon, 2008; Jones, 2009). At least implicitly, a normative judgment is made that adaptation should not exacerbate poverty and inequalities.
The term “sustainable adaptation” as used by Eriksen and O’Brien (2007) builds on these insights and emphasizes social equity as a critical part of adaptation. This is important because the tendency of many poor to be highly vulnerable to climate change is often used to justify adaptation measures; however, little thought is then given to whether the proposed measures actually reduce the vulnerability of the poor. Indeed, some adaptation measures may inadvertently increase the vulnerability of the poor. While there have been several efforts to develop tools to guide adaptation (Lim et al., 2005; IUCN, IISD, SEI-US and Intercooperation, 2007; Debels et al., 2009), sustainability is seldom explicitly assessed.
In addition to pointing to the need to prioritize normative outcomes of adaptation, early elaborations of the term sustainable adaptation highlight the importance of processes that lead to these particular outcomes. Eriksen and O’Brien (2007) argue that adaptation cannot be sustainable unless vulnerability-poverty linkages are consciously addressed by:
reducing climate risk to well-being of the poor (for example, climate forecast information, disaster management, drought resistant agriculture);
strengthening adaptive capacity of the poor (for example, diverse livelihoods, social capital, financial and technological capacity); and
targeting the causes of vulnerability of the poor (for example, economic, social and political processes like privatization of resources and loss of rights, power relations and political marginalization, and deteriorating terms of trade).
Hence, the term broadens the focus of climate change adaptation beyond a narrow environmental risk issue to focusing on understanding the social processes creating vulnerability. This is in line with recognition of the need to shift focus from an outcome vulnerability framing, which refers to the likelihood of injury, death, loss, disruption of livelihoods or other harms as the result of stressors or shocks resulting from climate change, to a contextual vulnerability framing. This second interpretation links vulnerability closely to the context in which people experience shocks and stressors related to any type of change, and the processes that create this context (O’Brien et al. 2009).
The wide variation in the way that sustainability is understood opens up for misuse of the term, however (Cohen et al., 1998; Brown, 2011). There is the danger that adding the sustainability term to adaptation may make it seem “double good” – not only does it address climate change, it is also sustainable – hiding the need to critically assess the effects and motivation of a particular adaptation effort. Reformist and ecological modernization type approaches to sustainability suggest that improved technologies, practices and economic instruments can combine current economic growth models with social and environmental sustainability (Soltau, 2006). Norwegian economic policy, for example, frames sustainability in terms of maintaining national wealth and incomes for future generations (Johnsen, 2011) while the retreat of Arctic sea ice is seen as an opportunity to expand oil exploitation northwards (Kristoffersen, 2013) perpetuating fossil fuel based economic growth and high emissions.
Hence, in order to avoid “greenwashing” of adaptation (Brown, 2011), strong sustainability and political economy approaches need to be promoted, which implies altering current modes of development and economic growth (Redclift, 2005; Eriksen et al., 2011). The climate change problem has brought the relevance of the key message of sustainable development – an environmentalist critique of development that is causing both environmental problems poverty – back on the center stage (Adams, 2009). Both social inequities underlying vulnerability and high energy consumption associated with increasing emissions are generated by and intrinsic to our current development model. Sustainable adaptation involves developing new types of responses that contribute to alternative pathways, rather than reproducing fossil fuel driven economic growth development pathways.
In line with these insights, there is increasing recognition that adaptation cannot be seen merely as a techno-managerial challenge involving incremental adjustment to technologies, regulations, policies and practices in order to sustain current ways of living with change. Instead fundamental shifts in societal systems are required, including “the transformation of energy and agricultural systems, financial systems, governance regimes, development paradigms, power and gender relations, production and consumption patterns, lifestyles, knowledge production systems, or values and world-views” (O’Brien, 2012: 671). Critical here is the need for deliberate transformation, that is, to consciously take actions to influence future change towards more sustainable pathways including reducing emissions and vulnerability (contrasting with unintended transformation and outcomes of a process).
Such an understanding of climate change – development relations implies that adaptation can be interpreted as forming part of a wider transformation process. Adaptation is here seen as a process taking place in the form of interaction between actions, decisions, relations and structures across several scales (in contrast with viewing adaptation as a single policy, project or action). Conceptually, what is termed “responses” in a contextual vulnerability approach (O’Brien et al., 2009) can be unpacked as consisting of an interaction between transformation and development pathways. These in turn affect climatic and societal changes and contextual conditions. In the continuum between deliberate and unintended transformation processes, sustainable adaptation is placed closer to the deliberate transformation end since it aims to achieve particular normative development pathways (in contrast with maladaptive processes, which would be located closer to the unintended transformation end).
Adaptation processes inherent in transformation and the resulting development pathways can lead to both positive and negative outcomes or contextual conditions (such as poverty, welfare, equity, greenhouse gas concentrations, social relations and structures) at particular points in time and space. Even within deliberate forms of change, outcomes will sometimes be negative for some groups or at particular points in time; what is important is the direction and character of the process. Rather than being a particular outcome or isolated action, sustainable adaptation is a process characterized by an ability to shape the social and environmental conditions of the future.
The assumption that we can to some extent deliberately choose the kind of world we will end up living in (Robinson and Herbert, 2001) relies on a political adaptation approach, which emphasizes agency in shaping change; for example, current power structures, relations and hegemonic ideas determine decisions and development pathways (Eriksen and Lind, 2009; Cote and Nightingale, 2011; Tanner and Allouche, 2011). Taking as a starting point that transformation is a continuous process shaped by decisions and social structures, the crucial question then is how it can be influenced towards deliberate (rather than unintended) forms, and hence desired development pathways.
Developing a normative vision for change
Recent elaborations of human security and sustainable adaptation concepts provide some important guidance. Deliberate transformation necessarily involves normative judgments about what is a desirable future, and ethical considerations about what outcomes are acceptable for whom.
Importantly, human security elaborates just what a “vision” for society may constitute and specifies that this is much more than meeting materialistic needs or economic goals. Human security can be seen as a condition when and where individuals and communities have the options necessary to end, mitigate, or adapt to risks to their human, environmental, and social rights; have the capacity and freedom to exercise these options; and actively participate in attaining these options (GECHS, 1999).
Well-being, quality of life, and human flourishing entails that people have the freedom to choose and to pursue the outcomes and way of life they want. Drawing from Sen’s capabilities approach, O’Brien and Leichenko (2007) hence draw attention to the fact that a sustainable pathway is not just about the opportunities that exist but also the processes that allow freedom of action and decisions. In particular, attention is focused on the importance of individuals’ control over own circumstances and feeling socially and culturally secure in one’s own life situation, enriching what social equity means beyond normal poverty notions of income or basic needs (Barnett, 2003). O’Brien and Leichenko (2007) propose that the interlinkage between human security and sustainable adaptation revolves around the close connection between equity and connectivity. Differential outcomes and inequity result from processes and relations that link people across space and time. Such outcomes are not just the result of local dynamics or conditions but are linked to global development models, including economic and political processes and structures. Human security highlights the need to shift the climate change discourse, and the way that the climate change issue is addressed, towards approaches that act to empower people, including expanding their options and strengthening their ability to manage a multitude of processes of change. Instead of imposing narrow environmental regulations or specific technical solutions to reduce climate sensitivity, policies must focus on creating an inclusive vision for how society, whether at local or national level, needs to be transformed.
Building on insights regarding the importance for shaping desirable futures of vulnerability context, differential values and competing interests, power in decision making and interconnectivity, recent elaborations of the term sustainable adaptation develop four normative principles to guide the adaptation process (Eriksen et al., 2011).
Widening responses to recognize and address the context for vulnerability is the first of four normative principles identified. A focus on local context in terms of the multiple processes of change that create vulnerability, and people’s strategies to manage these processes, is central to understanding what elements societal transformations need to involve. The underlying social, economic, institutional, and cultural conditions that contribute to a wider context for vulnerability need to be examined in order to distinguish direct and indirect consequences of adaptation efforts on different groups over time. Studying the local vulnerability context, for example, may involve considering how trade liberalization is changing the context for agriculture and farming, and the diverse strategies people use in facing both import competition and climate variability and change (Eakin, 2006). It follows that actions to promote sustainable adaptation pathways vary with the local vulnerability context.
The second principle is to acknowledge differing values and interests, and how these are negotiated through social and political relations and processes. Sustainable adaptation pays specific attention to threats posed by climate change or responses to climate change to a wide set of aspirations beyond basic survival and income, such as people’s capacity to: earn an income and meet material needs; speak up for oneself and have rights; maintain health and basic education; and maintain a sense of social and cultural affiliation. This principle is closely linked to the human security focus on human flourishing – and the contrasting meanings this may have for different groups – rather than economic growth and other set measures for development. The diversity of values and empowerment aspects highlight that adaptation involves conscious choices, and that these need to be made explicit in order to avoid creating futures through “non-decision-making,” that is following business as usual based on existing power structures and development models. In order to contribute to sustainable adaptation, it is important that policy processes recognize competing interests and potential value conflicts, identify how these may influence vulnerability and adaptation outcomes, and make explicit and transparent choices about what values and interests are to be promoted over others. Specific attention should also be paid to the fact that the social process of adaptation can be conflictual. It is often assumed that adaptation to climatic and other changes takes place in peaceful and orderly settings. In fact, adaptation takes place as part of situations of great social flux including conflict and post-conflict settings where fluidity, violence, and uncertainty, rather than order and predictability, dictate people’s strategies as well as the politics of adaptation (that is, whose interests count and how competing or conflicting interests are negotiated) (Eriksen and Lind, 2009).
For example, in a study of two dryland areas in eastern and northern Kenya, Eriksen and Lind (2009) found that there were huge local conflicts of interests in terms of adaptation strategies to a situation of frequent drought. Some people benefited from new income opportunities from trade between pastoral and agro-pastoral groups, while others felt threatened by changes in the natural resource access regime and shifts in local power relations that such trade implied. This illustrates the importance of linking democratization and empowerment efforts with those of adaptation in order to reduce the causes of vulnerability in a way that considers the differing and often conflicting adaptation interests. The second principle suggests the need to target power structures and formal and informal decision-making processes more generally and to, more specifically, ensure that groups that are vulnerable to climate variability and change are represented and empowered in such processes.
The third principle highlights that particular knowledge and problem understandings often determine which adaptation interests are prioritized. The principle hence emphasizes the need to integrate local knowledge with other sources of knowledge about climate change into adaptation responses, in particular to counter any discourse tendency to blame environmental degradation on practices of the poor and seeing increased state or private sector control over natural resources as the solution (Benjaminsen et al., 2006). In order to move towards more sustainable pathways, local knowledge and participation, as well as local strategies for living with environmental variability, need to play a central role in formal efforts to build resilience or manage disasters (Wisner et al., 2004; Schipper and Pelling, 2006; Berkes, 2007; van Aalst et al., 2008).
In line with the human security focus on interconnectedness, the fourth principle considers potential feedbacks between local and global processes and the need for responses to recognize the interactions between scales. Adaptation efforts in one place can influence both social justice and environmental integrity over space and time through, for example, economic linkages, and global flows of resources, people, and information (Adger et al., 2007). Local measures need to be interrogated in terms of the potential positive and negative feedbacks, for example, on biodiversity and water access elsewhere as well as greenhouse gas emissions.
Crucially, the four principles are interdependent. Focusing on one principle alone does not effectively lead to more sustainable adaptation pathways unless other principles are also addressed at the same time. The principles guide an approach to understanding and developing adaptation efforts rather than constituting a one-size-fits-all checklist of specific measures, in line with post-development approaches (Ireland and Keegan, this volume). The principles raise a host of new questions and policy challenges. How does one create local empowerment and holistic vision in decision-making processes, incorporating more diverse values and interests than those included in conventional more top-down decision-making processes? Can new policy efforts such as REDD or those initiated by the UN Climate Change Convention (National Adaptation Programmes of Action) or development efforts (PRSPs, MDGs) contribute to local empowerment, or are there problematic aspects that may reinforce disempowerment? Early explorations have provided some illustrations of what sustainable adaptation could mean in a local context (Eriksen and Marin, 2011), though further elaboration through examination of practical cases is needed to understand how the principles can translate into action.
Conclusions
The term sustainable adaptation reflects the urgent need to critically reflect on what types of responses to climate change are desirable. Bringing in sustainable development perspectives helps distinguish such responses. Building on strong sustainability traditions, it emphasizes the need for fundamental societal changes and challenges dominant perspectives that have often seen the question of climate change as a managerial, economic, and technological issue. As pointed out by McNeill and García-Godos (2005: 23), “[s]ustainable development is a political, ethical, social issue as much as it is a technical issue.” Addressing structural inequalities, pervasive poverty and disempowerment is central to sustainable adaptation. It frames climate change as intrinsically linked to development pathways.
Sustainable adaptation provides a tool for critically examining how current development efforts and modes may in fact be contributing to vulnerability (and hence should not be relabeled as adaptation) and how climate change responses may be reproducing development pathways currently driving emissions, poverty and inequity. Instead, transforming societal development is required.
Conceptually, sustainable adaptation can usefully be regarded as part of deliberate transformation processes. Determining a vision for what society we want to move towards, in terms of making conscious and explicit choices regarding which interests and values are prioritized in adaptation, is a critical part of this process. Equity includes a wide set of values and aspirations beyond basic needs, as well as the processes through which people seek to achieve these. Hence, the term sustainable adaptation is not just about social equity and environmental integrity outcomes, but about altering the adaptation process. Strengthening people’s ability to choose and achieve their aspirations entails empowering individuals and communities to make decisions about their own adaptation outcomes. This may involve a transformation of decision making, democratizing climate change policy processes to include stakeholders, and reconcile values and competing understandings beyond those embodied by the state and by science, in line with processes previously described by Funtowicz and Ravetz (1993).
Crucially, a political understanding of adaptation is required if sustainable adaptation is to be achieved. Adaptation is not apolitical – and understanding responses and transformations as intrinsically political processes means considering adaptation as a process of continuous negotiation of competing interests between groups as well as inequities in these negotiations. For example, policy attention and investments are often skewed towards commercial farmers and large land owners at the expense of small scale resource users who have a poor negotiating position in labor and trade markets (Eriksen and Silva, 2009). Changing development models requires political and ideological shifts. Furthermore, inequalities, empowerment, and causes of vulnerability can only be addressed by challenging the structures and relations that sustain them.
Achieving such shifts is admittedly a tall order; however, identifying what changes are actually required as well as highlighting the multiple ways in which current development models are not leading to sustainable responses represent a first step towards responding effectively to climate change.
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