Adaptation spinoffs From technological and socio-economic Changes - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 163

benefits from increasing environmental awareness among consumers; shifting
to new crops, like grapes for wine production, can provide access to consumers
with newly acquired habits. Households can also alter their livelihood base by,
for instance, starting tourism-based activities or delivering services to more
affluent neighbours. Nevertheless, with changes new pitfalls may also emerge.
If households become heavily dependent on tourism-based profits, they are
also vulnerable to fluctuating tourist numbers or degraded environments
(see Gössling et al. 2002). Further, there are negative environmental, climate
and health effects from some new habits related to increased material
wellbeing, such as higher meat consumption (Steinfeld et al. 2006; Micha
et al. 2010) and private car use. The ways in which households respond to
changing societal demands can make them better or worse off in terms of
climate adaptation.
This chapter explores the spinoff concept in three cases in rural areas of
developing countries undergoing rapid economic growth. Our intention is to
promote the recognition and use of spinoffs from current and upcoming trends
that have potential for creating and enhancing climate adaptation strategies in
low-income households. This spinoff approach is innovative in that it frames
climate-related externalities within this dimensional framework; it enables
analysis of induced changes regardless of prior intentions; and it illustrates
how opportunities for achieving substantial positive differences can stem from
various types of innovations.
exploring adaptation spinoffs
Households face multiple stresses that can affect them in a myriad of ways
(O'Brien and Leichenko 2000): their vulnerability is inherently dynamic
and contextually determined (Vogel and O'Brien 2004). This also concerns
households' adaptive responses. A South African study (Maponya and Mpandeli
2012) showed that the same piece of information may induce different responses
depending on context, need and opportunity. Whereas resource-rich farmers
refined and improved their irrigation schemes after receiving drought warnings,
resource-poor farmers covered their crops to reduce evaporation. There is no
single road to vulnerability reduction (see Brock 1999), and changing contexts
must continually be addressed in day-to-day management, not as isolated once-
off exercises (see Hjerpe and Glaas 2012).
As Leichenko and O'Brien (2002:3) note, rapid economic and institutional
changes are 'exposing many rural regions to the impacts of globalization and
climate change, with new sets of winners and losers emerging in the process'.
The double exposure framework (O'Brien and Leichenko 2000) addresses both
climate and socio-economic stressors in order to assess vulnerability and
adaptive responses. Most research in this area has focused on climate-sensitive
activities and locations facing fairly dramatic social or institutional stresses,
such as structural adjustment programmes (see Eakin 2005). If we accept