Christine Jurt

Local perceptions in climate change debates: insights from case studies in the Alps and the Andes

The importance of integrating local perspectives into international debates about climate change has received increasing attention. Local perspectives on the impacts of climate change often focus on issues of loss and harm and support the widely recognized need for global responses to climate change as suggested by scientists and international institutions. Here we argue that local perspectives need to be addressed not only from outside communities but also from inside in order to understand people’s responses to climate change: their concerns, their understanding of themselves as members of particular groups and their position in the world, their view on responsibilities for causing climate change, and their perceptions of possible responses. The ethnographic work at two study sites, one in Carhuaz, Cordillera Blanca, Peru, and one in Stilfs, South Tyrolean Alps, Italy, identifies dominant perceptions on climate change at each site with a particular focus on glacier retreat. The case studies show that the view on the need for global action as response to climate change is not necessarily shared throughout the world, and thus presents a challenge to global collaboration.

Science in the Context of Climate Change Adaptation: Case Studies from the Peruvian Andes

Within the context of the Climate Change Adaptation Program (PACC), a number of scientific investigations on water resources, natural disasters and perceptions by local people highlight adaptation needs in the regions of Cusco and Apurimac in Peru, considering past, present-day and future climate conditions. This chapter compiles their findings and attempts a systematic evaluation with respect to their contributions to climate change adaptation. The studies consistently find aggravating water scarcity during the dry season (April to September) due to projected precipitation decreases and reduced storage capacity of shrinking glaciers. Impacts include below-capacity hydropower generation and increased crop failure risks. For natural disasters, database inconsistencies prevent a detection of trends. While the natural science studies have produced a new and more comprehensive understanding of the target regions, their implications for society have hardly been investigated anthropologically. One of the few social science studies emphasizes that climate change is only one out of many determinants of rural livelihoods in the target regions, which have not been addressed scientifically yet. We thereby find an imbalance of available scientific knowledge regarding natural vs. social sciences. Overcoming such imbalance would allow for a more comprehensive integration of scientific findings into design and implementation of adaptation measures within the local context.

Loss and Damage in the mountain cryosphere

The mountain cryosphere, which includes glaciers, permafrost, and snow, is one of the Earth’s systems most strongly affected by climate change. In recent decades, changes in the cryosphere have been well documented in many high-mountain regions. While there are some benefits from snow and ice loss, the negative impacts, including from glacier lake outburst floods and variations in glacier runoff, are generally considered to far outweigh the positive impacts, particularly if cultural impacts are considered. In international climate policy, there has been growing momentum to address the negative impacts of climate change, or ‘Loss and Damage’ (L&D) from climate change. It is not clear exactly what can and should be done to tackle L&D, but researchers and practitioners are beginning to engage with policy discussions and develop potential frameworks and supporting information. Despite the strong impact of climate change on the mountain cryosphere, there has been limited interaction between cryosphere researchers and L&D. Therefore, little work has been done to consider how L&D in the mountain cryosphere might be conceptualized, categorized, and assessed. Here, we make a first attempt to analyze L&D in the mountain cryosphere by conducting a systematic literature review to extract L&D impacts and examples from existing literature. We find that L&D is a global phenomenon in the mountain cryosphere and has been more frequently documented in the developing world, both in relation with slow and sudden onset processes. We develop a categorization of L&D, making distinctions between physical and societal impacts, primary and secondary impacts, and identifying seven types of L&D (including L&D to culture, livelihoods, revenue, natural resources, life, and security). We hope this conceptual approach will support future work to understand and address L&D in the mountain cryosphere.