Sustainable adaptation under adverse development? - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 192

that adaptation funding is not incapacitated by donor-led mitigation strategies.
Sustainable adaptation approaches must therefore include local adaptation
efforts as part of a larger strategy for producing global development pathways
that can act to reduce global emissions - including changes in trade systems,
consumption patterns and technologies.
transforming development
The previous section has shown some practical implications of the four
normative principles of sustainable adaptation in an Ethiopian context. In this
section, we apply these findings to show that a different conceptualization of
the adaptation process is required to achieve sustainable adaptation pathways.
Such pathways are predicated on negotiated strong sustainability goals of social
equity and environmental integrity, as compared to the conceptualization that
underlies a model of 'development as usual' focused on modernization.
The 'development as usual' conceptualization of adaptation rests on the
assumption that appropriate policy interventions aimed at observed climate
threats will result in successful mitigation and adaptation ( Figure 10.2a ). Here,
adaptation is conceived as emerging from policy interventions that focus on
adjustments in technology, management or governance systems, without
changing the underlying social and political systems. Our analysis contradicts
this assumed adaptation pathway, and shows that sustainable adaptation requires
political change to ensure that a central role in formal strategies is accorded
to local understanding of climatic events and how they can be managed. A
sustainable adaptation approach acknowledges that decisions are made by a
whole range of actors in addition to policy-makers. Rather than being restricted
only to formal policy-led adaptation and mitigation measures ( Figure 10.2a ),
negotiated decisions lead to diverse actions that permeate daily life and economic
sectors, including livelihood strategies, shifting practices and technology
adoption, infrastructure and service provision, natural resource management,
investments, development projects, and formal adaptation and mitigation
projects, as illustrated in Figure 10.2b .
Adaptation in the 'development as usual' conceptualization, is an outcome
of the past and current decisions of a few policy actors based on implicit or
unquestioned development goals or understandings. In Afar, modernization
is an implicit development goal or paradigm that drives decisions toward
uncontested development destinations. Shove (2010) argues that such de-
politicization helps to enable governments to structure options and possibilities
actively, including unsustainable economic institutions and ways of life. In the
'development as usual' conceptualization of adaptation, the role of development
goals and values - and how they are negotiated through social and political
relations to reach particular decisions that favour some interests over others
- is not recognized. In our view, adaptation can become more sustainable
if the sets of power relations and political processes inherent in choosing