Natalie Suckall

Presenting Triple-Wins? Assessing Projects That Deliver Adaptation, Mitigation and Development Co-benefits in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa

The concept of climate compatible development (CCD) is increasingly employed by donors and policy makers seeking ‘triple-wins’ for development, adaptation and mitigation. While CCD rhetoric is becoming more widespread, analyses drawing on empirical cases that present triple-wins are sorely lacking. We address this knowledge gap. Drawing on examples in rural sub-Saharan Africa, we provide the first glimpse into how projects that demonstrate triple-win potential are framed and presented within the scientific literature. We identify that development projects are still commonly evaluated in terms of adaptation or mitigation benefits. Few are framed according to their benefits across all three dimensions. Consequently, where triple-wins are occurring, they are likely to be under-reported. This has important implications, which underestimates the co-benefits that projects can deliver. A more robust academic evidence base for the delivery of triple-wins is necessary to encourage continued donor investment in activities offering the potential to deliver CCD.

Applying the global RCP–SSP–SPA scenario framework at sub-national scale: A multi-scale and participatory scenario approach

To better anticipate potential impacts of climate change, diverse information about the future is required, including climate, society and economy, and adaptation and mitigation. To address this need, a global RCP (Representative Concentration Pathways), SSP (Shared Socio-economic Pathways), and SPA (Shared climate Policy Assumptions) (RCP-SSP-SPA) scenario framework has been developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC-AR5). Application of this full global framework at sub-national scales introduces two key challenges: added complexity in capturing the multiple dimensions of change, and issues of scale. Perhaps for this reason, there are few such applications of this new framework. Here, we present an integrated multi-scale hybrid scenario approach that combines both expert-based and participatory methods. The framework has been developed and applied within the DECCMA1 project with the purpose of exploring migration and adaptation in three deltas across West Africa and South Asia: (i) the Volta delta (Ghana), (ii) the Mahanadi delta (India), and (iii) the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) delta (Bangladesh/India). Using a climate scenario that encompasses a wide range of impacts (RCP8.5) combined with three SSP-based socio-economic scenarios (SSP2, SSP3, SSP5), we generate highly divergent and challenging scenario contexts across multiple scales against which robustness of the human and natural systems within the deltas are tested. In addition, we consider four distinct adaptation policy trajectories: Minimum intervention, Economic capacity expansion, System efficiency enhancement, and System restructuring, which describe alternative future bundles of adaptation actions/measures under different socio-economic trajectories. The paper highlights the importance of multi-scale (combined top-down and bottom-up) and participatory (joint expert-stakeholder) scenario methods for addressing uncertainty in adaptation decision-making. The framework facilitates improved integrated assessments of the potential impacts and plausible adaptation policy choices (including migration) under uncertain future changing conditions. The concept, methods, and processes presented are transferable to other sub-national socio-ecological settings with multi-scale challenges.

A framework for identifying and selecting long term adaptation policy directions for deltas

Deltas are precarious environments experiencing significant biophysical, and socio-economic changes with the ebb and flow of seasons (including with floods and drought), with infrastructural developments (such as dikes and polders), with the movement of people, and as a result of climate and environmental variability and change. Decisions are being taken about the future of deltas and about the provision of adaptation investment to enable people and the environment to respond to the changing climate and related changes. The paper presents a framework to identify options for, and trade-offs between, long term adaptation strategies in deltas. Using a three step process, we: (1) identify current policy-led adaptations actions in deltas by conducting literature searches on current observable adaptations, potential transformational adaptations and government policy; (2) develop narratives of future adaptation policy directions that take into account investment cost of adaptation and the extent to which significant policy change/political effort is required; and (3) explore trade-offs that occur within each policy direction using a subjective weighting process developed during a collaborative expert workshop. We conclude that the process of developing policy directions for adaptation can assist policy makers in scoping the spectrum of options that exist, while enabling them to consider their own willingness to make significant policy changes within the delta and to initiate transformative change.

Labour migration amidst ecological change

One of the grand questions for research on the impacts of climate change is whether people can rely on migration to safeguard progress towards development even while experiencing severe environmental hardship. This is the ‘migration as adaptation’ hypothesis. Labour migration theory proposes assumptions about the use of migration by people faced with economic uncertainty and limited access to capital to raise standards of development. This paper asks how environmental stress affects labour migration, and evaluates the labour migration arising from a spectrum of ecological stress, from increasingly variable precipitation to catastrophic flooding in Honduras and Malawi. Evidence suggests that environmental stress changes the nature of labour migration. New environmental forms of mobility do not take forms predicted by labour migration theory; migrations are not made with the purpose of exploiting economic opportunities; they do not take place on the basis of rational choice, particularly as displaced persons are frequently emotionally stressed; and among environmental migrants are those less likely to be able to absorb costs and extract benefits associated with migration (i.e. the unwell, the elderly or the unskilled). Nevertheless, social networks still remain the principal medium for conferring access to labour alternatives and resources to invest in migration. In the end, the remittances that environmental migrants send are less likely to be used for investment in development.

Reduced migration under climate change: evidence from Malawi using an aspirations and capabilities framework

For farmers in rural Africa, climate change could significantly alter the natural environment, leading to a loss of income, food security and well-being; however, much remains unknown about the way a change in climate may affect a persons decision to migrate away from their home. Using a framework based on migration aspirations and capabilities, this paper examines how climate stresses (such as droughts that cause a long-term decline in harvests) and climate shocks (i.e. acute food shortages and sudden flooding) may affect migration decision-making in rural Malawi. Drawing on survey (n = 255), interview (n = 75) and focus group (n = 93) data from rural and urban dwellers, we find that climate stresses typically do not change rural dwellers’ aspiration to leave their homes, except for a small group of younger farmers from better-off households. However, these same stresses may erode human, financial and social capital, thus reducing migration capability. Data also reveal that acute shocks erode both the migration aspirations and capabilities of even the most dedicated would-be migrant. Drawing from these two findings, this paper concludes that climate change is likely to increase barriers to migration rather than increasing migration flows in countries like Malawi where the economy is still predominately rural.