Siri Eriksen

Why different interpretations of vulnerability matter in climate change discourses

In this article, we discuss how two interpretations of vulnerability in the climate change literature are manifestations of different discourses and framings of the climate change problem. The two differing interpretations, conceptualized here as ‘outcome vulnerability’ and ‘contextual vulnerability’, are linked respectively to a scientific framing and a human-security framing. Each framing prioritizes the production of different types of knowledge, and emphasizes different types of policy responses to climate change. Nevertheless, studies are seldom explicit about the interpretation that they use. We present a diagnostic tool for distinguishing the two interpretations of vulnerability and use this tool to illustrate the practical consequences that interpretations of vulnerability have for climate change policy and responses in Mozambique. We argue that because the two interpretations are rooted in different discourses and differ fundamentally in their conceptualization of the character and causes of vulnerability, they cannot be integrated into one common framework. Instead, it should be recognized that the two interpretations represent complementary approaches to the climate change issue. We point out that the human-security framing of climate change has been far less visible in formal, international scientific and policy debates, and addressing this imbalance would broaden the scope of adaptation policies.

When not every response to climate change is a good one: Identifying principles for sustainable adaptation

Climate adaptation has become a pressing issue. Yet little attention has been paid to the consequences of adaptation policies and practices for sustainability. Recognition that not every adaptation to climate change is a good one has drawn attention to the need for sustainable adaptation strategies and measures that contribute to social justice and environmental integrity. This article presents four normative principles to guide responses to climate change and illustrates the significance of the ‘sustainable adaptation’ concept through case studies from diverse contexts. The principles are: first, recognize the context for vulnerability, including multiple stressors; second, acknowledge that differing values and interests affect adaptation outcomes; third, integrate local knowledge into adaptation responses; and fourth, consider potential feedbacks between local and global processes. We argue that fundamental societal transformations are required in order to achieve sustainable development pathways and avoid adaptation funding going into efforts that exacerbate vulnerability and contribute to rising emissions. Despite numerous challenges involved in achieving such change, we suggest that sustainable adaptation practices have the potential to address some of the shortcomings of conventional social and economic development pathways.

Questioning Complacency: Climate Change Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation in Norway

Abstract Most European assessments of climate change impacts have been carried out on sectors and ecosystems, providing a narrow understanding of what climate change really means for society. Furthermore, the main focus has been on technological adaptations, with less attention paid to the process of climate change adaptation. In this article, we present and analyze findings from recent studies on climate change impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation in Norway, with the aim of identifying the wider social impacts of climate change. Three main lessons can be drawn. First, the potential thresholds and indirect effects may be more important than the direct, sectoral effects. Second, highly sensitive sectors, regions, and communities combine with differential social vulnerability to create both winners and losers. Third, high national levels of adaptive capacity mask the barriers and constraints to adaptation, particularly among those who are most vulnerable to climate change. Based on these results, we question complacency in Norway and other European countries regarding climate change impacts and adaptation. We argue that greater attention needs to be placed on the social context of climate change impacts and on the processes shaping vulnerability and adaptation.

Vulnerability, poverty and the need for sustainable adaptation measures

The need to address both poverty and vulnerability to climate change can be considered two of the major challenges facing human society in the 21st century. While the two concepts are closely interconnected, they are nonetheless distinct. A conceptual understanding of the relationship between vulnerability and poverty is presented, and the types of responses that can address both of these challenges are identified. An empirical example from Kenya is used to show how climate change adaptation can potentially reconcile the objectives of both poverty reduction and vulnerability reduction. Significantly, each and every poverty reduction measure does not reduce vulnerability to climate change, just as each and every adaptation measure does not automatically contribute to poverty reduction. It is argued that adaptation measures need to specifically target vulnerability—poverty linkages. Although most adaptation efforts have been focused on reducing risk, there is a need to address local capacity to adapt, as well as the societal processes generating vulnerability. An implication is that the mode of implementing adaptation measures must capture the specificity of both the vulnerability and poverty context. Furthermore, adaptation is not simply a local activity, since targeting the processes generating vulnerability and poverty often entails addressing political and economic structures.

Adaptation as a Political Process: Adjusting to Drought and Conflict in Kenya’s Drylands

In this article, we argue that people’s adjustments to multiple shocks and changes, such as conflict and drought, are intrinsically political processes that have uneven outcomes. Strengthening local adaptive capacity is a critical component of adapting to climate change. Based on fieldwork in two areas in Kenya, we investigate how people seek to access livelihood adjustment options and promote particular adaptation interests through forming social relations and political alliances to influence collective decision-making. First, we find that, in the face of drought and conflict, relations are formed among individuals, politicians, customary institutions, and government administration aimed at retaining or strengthening power bases in addition to securing material means of survival. Second, national economic and political structures and processes affect local adaptive capacity in fundamental ways, such as through the unequal allocation of resources across regions, development policy biased against pastoralism, and competition for elected political positions. Third, conflict is part and parcel of the adaptation process, not just an external factor inhibiting local adaptation strategies. Fourth, there are relative winners and losers of adaptation, but whether or not local adjustments to drought and conflict compound existing inequalities depends on power relations at multiple geographic scales that shape how conflicting interests are negotiated locally. Climate change adaptation policies are unlikely to be successful or minimize inequity unless the political dimensions of local adaptation are considered; however, existing power structures and conflicts of interests represent political obstacles to developing such policies.

Sustainable adaptation to climate change

The term ‘sustainable adaptation’ has emerged with the realization that while adaptation to climate change will be increasingly required over the next decades, we know little about the wider or longer term impacts and implications of adaptation itself. To date there is no certainty that our responses to climate change are sustainable either socially or environmentally, nor how they are likely to contribute to human well-being and poverty alleviation. Previous studies have highlighted how climate change represents both a threat (Yohe et al., 2007) and an opportunity (Commission on Climate Change and Development, 2009) for sustainable development. Only recently have there been attempts to document and compare the experiences of both externally and internally initiated, planned and autonomous, adaptations and their impact in developing countries (McGray et al., 2007; Below et al., 2010; Mearns and Norton, 2010). From these and other studies, there is emerging evidence that many of our responses run counter to principles of sustainable development. This suggests that adaptation policies and interventions that focus on reducing specific climate sensitivities such as predicted changes in precipitation or hydrological regimes, can, even if benefiting some interests, at the same time adversely affect vulnerable groups and create social inequity, as well as unintentionally undermining environmental integrity (Barnett and O’Neill, 2010). In this special issue of Climate and Development, we argue that radical change is required in order to push for strong sustainability in responses to climate change. Eriksen and O’Brien (2007) highlighted the importance of ensuring that adaptation is socially and environmentally sustainable, contributing to poverty reduction as well as confronting the socio-environmental processes driving vulnerability. To ensure this, and in order to respond to climate change in ways that contribute to sustainable development, there is an urgent need to integrate the relatively well-established understanding of sustainable development with the more recent concerns of vulnerability to climate change. Academic thinking and scientific analysis are now taking up this challenge, and a double session at the Human Security in an Era of Global Change Conference in June 2009 was devoted specifically to presentations and discussions on ‘sustainable adaptation’. This issue synthesizes this discussion, bringing together a collection of articles – originally presented at the 2009 conference – that discuss the challenge of ensuring that we respond to climate change in a way that contributes to sustainable development, in terms of both equity and environmental integrity in the long term. The theme that we wish to highlight is that how we adapt to climate change – in terms of the types of measures, policy frameworks and local household strategies – matters for future development, and particularly for social and environmental sustainability. This has been largely overlooked, and adaptation is normally assumed to be benign for development. The articles explore some of the problems with such an assumption, and what directing adaptation towards principles of sustainability would mean in practice, as well as the conceptual and practical challenges inherent in trying to make adaptation sustainable. The articles develop our understanding of sustainable adaptation by both including conceptual discussion and drawing on empirical research from diverse geographical contexts, including Kenya, Vietnam and the UK. This collection hence addresses a shortcoming in adaptation literature so far; that is, the tendency to consider adaptation in developing and developed countries as very separate issues, when human responses are in fact closely interlinked through their direct and indirect effects on other groups and regions. editorial

Public Sector Reform and Governance for Adaptation: Implications of New Public Management for Adaptive Capacity in Mexico and Norway

Although many governments are assuming the responsibility of initiating adaptation policy in relation to climate change, the compatibility of “governance-for-adaptation” with the current paradigms of public administration has generally been overlooked. Over the last several decades, countries around the globe have embraced variants of the philosophy of administration broadly called “New Public Management” (NPM) in an effort to improve administrative efficiencies and the provision of public services. Using evidence from a case study of reforms in the building sector in Norway, and a case study of water and flood risk management in central Mexico, we analyze the implications of the adoption of the tenets of NPM for adaptive capacity. Our cases illustrate that some of the key attributes associated with governance for adaptation—namely, technical and financial capacities; institutional memory, learning and knowledge; and participation and accountability—have been eroded by NPM reforms. Despite improvements in specific operational tasks of the public sector in each case, we show that the success of NPM reforms presumes the existence of core elements of governance that have often been found lacking, including solid institutional frameworks and accountability. Our analysis illustrates the importance of considering both longer-term adaptive capacities and short-term efficiency goals in public sector administration reform.

Adapting to Climate Change in a Dryland Mountain Environment in Kenya

Abstract Global warming is likely to lead to a variety of changes in local climatic conditions, including potential increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events such as drought, floods, and storms. Present capacity to respond to and manage climatic variability, including extreme events, is an important component of adjustments to climatic changes. In particular, identifying and addressing constraints on local adaptation mechanisms—whether political, economic or social in nature—is critical to developing effective adaptation policies. The drylands of Kenya present great survival challenges to the people living in these areas. The hilltops in the drylands provide favorable climate and resources for adapting to climate change. The present paper examines the role that one particular hilltop, Endau in Kitui District, eastern Kenya, plays in processes of local adaptation to climatic variability and drought. The project presented here investigated how conflict and exclusion from key hilltop resources constrain adaptation among the population groups living around the hilltop, and how these constraints are negotiated, addressed, or even exacerbated through institutional arrangements and development activities.

Gums and resins: The potential for supporting sustainable adaptation in Kenya's drylands

Frequent droughts and conflicts are key challenges faced by nomadic pastoralists in Kenyas drylands. Few options exist for alternative livelihoods. This article investigates the potential of collecting plant gums and resins for livelihood diversification and for contributing to sustainable adaptation to climate change in Kenyas drylands. Observations were made in various studies over a period of two years on dryland vegetation resources, and interviews undertaken with gum collectors. This research found that many households currently collect and sell plant gums and resins as alternative to livestock production. These include gum arabic from Acacia senegal and Acacia seyal; myrrh from Commiphora myrrha; hagar from Commiphora holtziana; and frankincense from Boswellia neglecta. Collectors include poor people, women and children and some opportunists. Incomes are relatively low, however, and several factors constrain the activity. The case of gums and resins illustrates that key principles of sustainable adaptation are related: supporting local knowledge and adaptation strategies (one key principle of sustainable adaptation) does not contribute to sustainability unless at the same time contextual factors that marginalize livelihoods are addressed (another key principle).

Sustainable adaptation and human security: Interactions between pastoral and agropastoral groups in dryland Kenya

This article investigates how pastoral and agropastoral populations interact in adapting to climate variability and change, particularly to drought. Interactions within trade, livestock and human mobility, and accessing forest resources are critical to local adaptive capacity in Kenyas drylands. Qualitative interview data collected between 2004 and 2007 in Endau, eastern Kenya, are analysed to explore the role of these interactions in sustainable adaptation, and how they have been affected by formal policies and informal governance. The article also explores how politics, decision making and conflicts interact in practice to shape decision making, and how dominant state orientation may facilitate or constrain sustainable adaptation. We conclude that both official policy and state practice in terms of actual decision making (whether in line with policy and legal frameworks or not) appear to undermine human security in terms of political and social rights, as well as sustainable adaptation in terms of social equity and environmental integrity. Sustainable adaptation for the case of Endau would imply a fundamental change in governance regime from one of imposing punitive measures to stop dynamic interactions to one through which, instead, interactions between the various groups are strengthened.