Sustainable adaptation under adverse development? - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 181

of 'sustainable adaptation' built on the recognition that altering the conditions
under which climate change occurs, addressing the social and environmental
processes driving vulnerability, and enabling people to better respond to changes
are central to reducing the vulnerability of the poor (Eriksen and O'Brien 2007).
Later elaborations of sustainable adaptation formulated four normative
principles (explained in greater detail in Eriksen et al. 2011 and in the section on
'Principles of sustainable adaptation: development pathways, vulnerability and
adaptation in Afar' below) aimed at equity and environmental criteria, linking
sustainable adaptation more closely to recent discussions of transformative
change (Pelling 2010; O'Brien 2012; Kates et al. 2012). O'Brien (2012: 671)
argues for the need for fundamental shifts in societal systems, including
'transformation of energy and agricultural systems, financial systems, governance
regimes, development paradigms, power and gender relations, production and
consumption patterns, lifestyles, knowledge production systems, or values and
world-views' in order to achieve sustainable development.
Transformation and sustainability have been explored theoretically and
empirically, especially within resilience research (Westley et al. 2011); however,
such approaches have been criticized for ignoring the political aspects of
social change (Cote and Nightingale 2011). In contrast, recent elaborations of
sustainable adaptation focus specifically on the political - that is, on conflicts
of interests and decision-making processes (Eriksen et al. 2011). Changes of a
political nature are required in order to change governance systems that control
the access to and use of resources, adjust development priorities, and empower
local decision-making. Sustainable adaptation is hence aligned more closely to
traditions in political ecology and political economy, investigating the processes
that create exclusion and inequity (Adams 2001). It forms part of a wider deliberate
transformation process, where actions are undertaken purposefully, in order to
influence future change towards more sustainable pathways, including reducing
emissions and vulnerability (Eriksen 2013). It is argued that the potential to alter
development pathways lies in the fact that every decision (or non-decision) is
in essence political - overtly or covertly favouring certain interests or objectives
over others.
studying sustainable adaptation in afar
The study reported here was conducted in the Afar region of north-eastern
Ethiopia. The region is the fourth largest in Ethiopia (100,860 km 2 ), with an
estimated population of 1.4 million people, and is one of the poorest regions
in the country (Macro International Inc. 2008). Average rainfall is less than
300 mm/year (Viste et al. 2012), measured at only 202 mm/year (1982-2011)
at Dubti, the nearest rainfall station to our sites. Moreover, the region is one of
the hottest inhabited places on Earth, with temperatures sometimes exceeding
50°C (Davies and Bennett 2009). Temperature increases associated with climate
change may restrict adaptation in the future (Sherwood and Huber 2010).