| 1. |
- Atteridge, Aaron, et al.
(författare)
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Is adaptation reducing vulnerability or redistributing it?
- 2018
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Ingår i: Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 1757-7780 .- 1757-7799. ; 9:1
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- As globalization and other pressures intensify the economic, social and biophysical connections between people and places, it seems likely that adaptation responses intended to ameliorate the impacts of climate change might end up shifting risks and vulnerability between people and places. Building on earlier conceptual work in maladaptation and other literature, this article explores the extent to which concerns about vulnerability redistribution have influenced different realms of adaptation practice. The review leads us to conclude that the potential for adaptation to redistribute risk or vulnerability is being given only sparse—and typically superficial—attention by practitioners. Concerns about ‘maladaptation’, and occasionally vulnerability redistribution specifically, are mentioned on the margins but do not significantly influence the way adaptation choices are made or evaluated by policy makers, project planners or international funds. In research, the conceptual work on maladaptation is yet to translate into a significant body of empirical literature on the distributional impacts of real-world adaptation activities, which we argue calls into question our current knowledge base about adaptation. These gaps are troubling, because a process of cascading adaptation endeavors globally seems likely to eventually re-distribute risks or vulnerabilities to communities that are already marginalized and vulnerable. We conclude by discussing the implications that the potential for vulnerability redistribution might have for the governance of adaptation processes, and offer some reflections on how research might contribute to addressing gaps in knowledge and in practice.
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| 2. |
- Atteridge, Aaron, et al.
(författare)
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The indirect effects of adaptation : Pathways for vulnerability redistribution in the Colombian coffee sector
- 2013
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper examines the possibility that measures taken to bolster livelihoods and adapt to climate change in one place could increase vulnerability elsewhere. In a world characterized by increasingly complex economic, social and biophysical interconnections, vulnerability redistribution may in fact represent the norm rather than an exception. We examine the literature on globalization, development and adaptation to understand how adaptation interventions might create indirect effects that undermine the livelihoods of other people, and how we might predict and/or measure such indirect effects. We then propose a framework that practitioners could use to analyse planned adaptation interventions – specifically, those focused on strengthening livelihoods – in order to identify potential indirect impacts. We apply the framework to a case study of Colombia’s coffee sector, and find several examples of how, because of the connections between farmers in Colombia, and the global nature of the coffee market, adaptation actions within Colombia and abroad could redistribute vulnerability. Finally, we discuss how these insights might inform decisions by adaptation and development practitioners, and suggest areas for further research.
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| 3. |
- Black, Richard, et al.
(författare)
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Environment of Peace : Security in a New Era of Risk
- 2022
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The environmental crisis is increasing risks to security and peace worldwide, notably in countries that are already fragile. Indicators of insecurity such as the number of conflicts, the number of hungry people and military expenditure are rising; so are indicators of environmental decline, in climate change, biodiversity, pollution and other areas. In combination, the security and environmental crises are creating compound, cascading, emergent, systemic and existential risks. Without profound changes of approach by institutions of authority, risks will inevitably proliferate quickly. Environment of Peace surveys the evolving risk landscape and documents a number of developments that indicate a pathway to solutions––in international law and policy, in peacekeeping operations and among non-governmental organizations. It finds that two principal avenues need to be developed: (a) combining peace-building and environmental restoration, and (b) effectively addressing the underlying environmental issues. It also analyses the potential of existing and emerging pro-environment measures for exacerbating risks to peace and security. The findings demonstrate that only just and peaceful transitions to more sustainable practices can be effective––and show that these transitions also need to be rapid.
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| 4. |
- Carson, Marcus, et al.
(författare)
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Institutionalising gender equality in disaster risk reduction : DRR challenges and impacts on women and men, girls and boys in the context of a changing climate
- 2013
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- While MSB has many years of experience of implementing environmental and gender perspectives in its humanitarian work; disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation present a different set of opportunities and challenges. Thesefurther emphasise the inclusion of a social change component that overlaps somewhat with more conventional development work. MSB commissioned the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) to prepare this report, noting that women and men (as well as girls and boys) are affected differently by: i) the impacts of climate change, ii) efforts related to climate change adaptation (CCA), and iii) disaster risk reduction (DRR).
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| 5. |
- Mert, Ayşem, 1978-, et al.
(författare)
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Changes in the practices and narratives of the United Nations High-Level Political Forum during the COVID-19 pandemic
- 2023
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Ingår i: International Environmental Agreements. - 1567-9764 .- 1573-1553. ; 23:2, s. 123-132
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The 2023 SDG Summit, which will take place in September during the United Nations (UN) General Assembly high-level week, aims to review the state of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. As 2023 marks the mid-point to 2030, this meeting aims to respond to the impact of multiple and interlocking crises facing the world. The COVID-19 pandemic is only one of these critical crises. The pandemic meant an enormous backlash for the implementation of most SDGs, as discussed in the UN Secretary-General's mid-term progress report Toward a Rescue Plan for People and Planet. Therefore, it is at once an important background to the Summit and one that highlights the common overarching structural issues that underlie SDG implementation, as the pandemic not only posed a global health crisis but also led to lasting changes in policy areas concerning the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda, such as health, mobility, trade, industry, finance, and sustainability. This paper engages with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the practices of the UN High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) and the short-term policy narratives around the SDGs. Its goal is to document some of the changes the pandemic triggered in practices of sustainability governance, based on the findings of a 4-year project that draws on qualitative analysis of participatory observations at the HLPF meetings, document analysis, and in-depth interviews.
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| 6. |
- Persson, Åsa, et al.
(författare)
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Equity and efficiency in adaptation finance: initial experiences of the Adaptation Fund
- 2014
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Ingår i: Climate Policy. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 1469-3062 .- 1752-7457. ; 14:4, s. 488-506
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Adaptation Fund, established under the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), has now been approving funding for adaptation projects for more than two years. Given its particular institutional status and specific focus on concrete adaptation, it is particularly relevant to study the initial experiences of it for any future upscaling of international adaptation finance, despite the fact that its own resources are getting scarce. Alternative rationales for allocating funds, based on equity and efficiency concerns at both international and subnational levels, are here tested against the criteria and priorities of the Fund and decisions made on project approval. It is concluded that equity concerns appear to be the primary motivation and that allocation is de facto made between states rather than by considering inequity between subnational communities. However, the currency of vulnerability for determining equitable outcomes in allocation decisions has not been formalized, despite its central importance to the Fund. Instead, uniform national caps have been introduced. Such an equality approach can be considered inequitable. Finally, it is noted that although the Adaptation Fund Board has continuously developed its proposal review practices and adopted a learning-by-doing approach, it should provide both a further specification of the evaluation criteria and a compilation of best practices from approved proposals, and moreover enhance the transparency of the review process, all of which would clarify its core priorities for current and future project proponents.
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| 7. |
- Remling, Elise, 1986-
(författare)
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Adaptation, now? : Exploring the Politics of Climate Adaptation through Poststructuralist Discourse Theory
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Increasing evidence of anthropogenic climate change and the recognition that warming is likely to go beyond 2°C raises the need for responses that help people cope with the anticipated changes. The rise of attention to so-called climate adaptation on political agendas at the local, national and international scale has come about with a hastily growing field of academic knowledge production. But while adaptation choices are inherently political, adaptation has been largely considered a ‘problem free’ process and ‘tame’ challenge; only a relatively small strand of scholarly work engages in critical enquiry into the idea of adaptation, the discursive practices through which it is imagined, and related questions of power and politics.Responding to calls for more attention to the socio-political dimensions of adaptation and for conceptually embedded research, this thesis investigates the creation, interpretation and use of adaptation as a concept in research, policy and practice. Drawing on Poststructuralist Discourse Theory and the so-called Logics of Critical Explanation in particular, it develops a perspective through which the politics of adaptation can be investigated in a theoretically and methodologically consistent and transparent manner. Through a close analysis of official adaptation discourses at the international level, the EU level, and the national level in Germany, the thesis enquires into the discursive practices around adaptation responses and what these different discourses open up or limit in terms of broader implications for political action.The contributions of the thesis are empirical, methodological and conceptual. In addition to providing critical insights into contemporary understandings of adaptation, including revealing some depoliticising ‘building blocks’ in conventional adaptation discourses, the thesis makes two important conceptual contributions to the growing field of critical adaptation studies: (1) It suggests that the increasing interconnectedness between people and places makes it impossible to know whether adaptation efforts undertaken have in reality reduced net vulnerability or simply shuffled vulnerability across the board. Ignoring the potential for such redistributive effects can have significant consequences in practice and will likely lead to unsustainable and, in the long run, maladaptive outcomes. (2) It argues that non-rational and affective dimensions are vital to the emergence of adaptation responses and that paying attention to them is important if critical scholarship is to understand and intervene in the persistence of techno-managerial approaches to adaptation. Furthermore, to the field of critical policy studies this thesis makes a methodological contribution by developing a new analytical framework for poststructuralist policy analysis.
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| 8. |
- Remling, Elise, et al.
(författare)
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Community-based action in Fiji’s Gau Island: a model for the Pacific?
- 2016
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Ingår i: International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 1756-8692 .- 1756-8706. ; 8:3, s. 375-398
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose – Drawing on qualitative fieldwork on a remote outer island in Fiji, this paper aims to address a shortcoming in the literature on climate adaptation in the Pacific. Internationally community-based adaptation (CBA) is recognised as a promising approach to help vulnerable populations adjust to climate change. However, with pilot projects in their infancy documented experience for Pacific Islands remains scarce. This limits the ability of the region – faced with persisting development challenges and predicted significant climate impacts – to learn from and build on previous experiences and develop robust responses to climate change.Design/methodology/approach – By using a community-based initiative in response to environmental challenges and unsustainable development as a proxy, the paper interrogates the potential usefulness of the CBA framework for the Pacific and identifies potential strengths and weaknesses. Sketching out the process and its outcomes, it shows how the initiative has resulted in a diversity of strategies, ranging from pollution control measures, to improved governance of resources and community participation in decision making, to livelihood and income diversification.Findings – Findings indicate that CBA could have a lot of potential for building more resilient communities in the face of climate change and other pressures associated with modernising Pacific societies. However, to be effective, interventions should pay attention to people’s development aspirations; immediate economic, social and environmental benefits; dynamics of village governance, social rules and protocols; and traditional forms of knowledge that can inform sustainable solutions.Originality/value – The conclusions provide a reflection on the CBA framework in general and make concrete suggestions for practitioners on how the framework could be usefully implemented in the Pacific context.
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| 9. |
- Remling, Elise
(författare)
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Depoliticizing adaptation: a critical analysis of EU climate adaptation policy
- 2018
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Ingår i: Environmental Politics. - : Routledge. - 0964-4016 .- 1743-8934. ; 27:3, s. 477-497
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The ways in which climate adaptation is understood in the European Union is examined via three key policy documents: the Strategy on adaptation and the Green and White Papers that preceded it. Drawing on Poststructuralist Discourse Theory, light is shed on the implicit values and assumptions that underpin this recent policy initiative. The findings demonstrate a tension between the declared ambition to act on adaptation and implicit suggestions that nothing really has to change, and the challenge can be addressed by market and technological innovations, and by mainstreaming adaptation into existing sectoral policies. The policy discourse effectively serves to depoliticize choices societies make in response to climate change, presenting adaptation as a non-political issue. Insight into European adaptation discourse enables deeper understanding of recent policy developments and opens up possible entry points for critique.
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| 10. |
- Remling, Elise
(författare)
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Logics, assumptions and genre chains : a framework for poststructuralist policy analysis
- 2018
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Ingår i: Critical Discourse Studies. - : Taylor & Francis. - 1740-5904 .- 1740-5912. ; 5:1, s. 1-18
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- An unresolved aspect of the Logics Approach within Poststructuralist Discourse Theory (PDT) is how to operationalize its abstract theoretical concepts – of social, political and fantasmatic logics – for concrete textual analysis, especially of policy documents. Policies often institute new understandings, procedures or practices, something the logics, as originally articulated, fall somewhat short of capturing. To overcome these methodological challenges this article constructs a framework for poststructuralist policy analysis that brings together the Logics Approach with more textually oriented tools developed within Critical Discourse Analysis, namely assumptions and genre chains. For empirical illustration it draws on a case study of the European Union's adaptation policy in response to climate change. The resulting framework offers a means through which more implicit social and political logics can be examined, and contributes new insights to methodological debates around the use of the Logics Approach (and PDT more broadly), specifically in relation to critical policy analysis. The article concludes with seven observations of relevance for future studies and suggests avenues for further empirical and conceptual exploration.
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