Adapting better to climate change

Adapting better to climate change

Context:

Various instances of failures of adaptation project highlight the need to address equity issues while considering and framing such projects.

What are adaptation projects?

The adaptation projects are efforts to help people live in a world where average global temperatures are rising

Failure of adaptation projects to address equity issues:

• A 2010 survey by James Ford and his colleagues of over 1,700 projects had concluded that adaptation projects were not helping the most vulnerable communities.  The benefits were reaching those who had been assisted earlier.
• When several projects from the Global Adaptation Fund had been analysed, they were also found to fail to take into account unequal power structures.
• Study by Benjamin Sovocool and his colleagues:
• They had studied the power struggles among those competing for limited resources.
• For their study, they had developed a new framework involving four main themes to show that failures in adaptation projects fell under one or more of these categories.
• The first mode of failure is enclosure, which is when private agents acquire public assets or expand their authority over them.
• The second mode of failure is exclusion, which is associated with some stakeholders getting excluded or marginalised, thus limiting their access to decision-making processes.
• The third is encroachment, in which the adaptation actions undertaken during the project end up intervening in areas that are rich in biodiversity, thereby interfering with ecosystem services and often resulting in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
• The last is entrenchment, where the condition of those who are already disempowered or marginalised in the local social context, such as the poor, women or other minorities, worsens from the intervention.
• There are various examples of projects from both developing and advanced industrial countries that fail under these themes.
• Example: A desalination plant was constructed in Melbourne, Australia, by seizing valuable land from the Bunurong aboriginal community and turning it over to private actors
• An example of encroachment from Tanzania shows how marine protection areas that were set up to boost the resilience of coral reefs encroached on the lands of traditional fishing communities who then turned to energy-intensive farming which led to higher rates of greenhouse gas emissions.

Lessons learnt:

• Politics and power struggles to control resources need to be acknowledged as being part and parcel of adaptation projects.
• Mechanisms to anticipate and deal with power struggles correctly should be incorporated in the adaptation projects well in advance.
• It should be accepted that elite networks will capture prized outcomes of projects, such as land, water or other resources and privileges. However, measures to prevent or mitigate their actions need to be identified.

Lessons for India:

In addition to vulnerabilities and costs, issues around equity, justice and social hierarchies must be equally considered while considering and designing climate change adaptation projects.