Introduction - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 10

This does not mean that technical adaptations are irrelevant or unnecessary,
but rather that they are insufficient and unlikely to improve the wellbeing of
current and future generations unless also social relations and structural issues,
including power and political processes, are dealt with. The chapters in this topic
show what recognizing adaptation as a process of development and change means
in practice, hence providing entry points for approaching it in practical terms.
Several features of adaptation (as a social process) emerge: first, local capacity is
a critical part of the adaptation process and is closely linked to empowerment;
second, the framework for adaptation is set by decisions on several levels and
within multiple spheres of policy; and third, because adaptation is about change
and processes where decisions, interests and implications are negotiated, it is
a highly political process. The rich empirical material presented in this topic
exemplifies how adaptation can address social relations and processes with the
aim of reducing vulnerability and transforming development towards more
sustainable pathways.
The importance of vulnerability context and local capacity
The local level is where the impacts of climate change will be felt, and adaptation is
often targeted at this level. What is striking, however, is that existing local strategies
and vulnerability contexts are seldom at the heart of interventions. In Chapter 2 , Jon
Ensor, Emily Boyd, Sirrku Juhola and Vanesa Castán Broto argue that development
actors have focused more on reducing the impacts than building capacities to adapt
and transform. Capacity building is not only a matter of strengthening strategies at
the community level; it is also vitally important for influencing and creating change
at higher levels, the very levels where marginalization and inequality originate.
Ensor and colleagues find that a community's access to power sharing, knowledge
and experimentation is an important premise for building strong adaptive capacity
and thus a way for communities to participate effectively, gaining recognition for
local understandings, needs and values in the higher bureaucracies. Such access is
also critical for influencing the structural causes of vulnerability to climate change,
instead of being reduced to passive recipients of a given governance arrangement
or set of actions.
Affirming and empowering local livelihood strategies through adaptation
processes is further elaborated in Chapter 3 . Using the case of charcoal
production, Caroline Ochieng, Sirkku Juhola and Francis X. Johnson argue
that local strategies that have often been seen as merely short-term survival
strategies detrimental to the local environment are, in fact, an important part
of longer-term adaptation. Therefore, policy efforts should shift away from
focusing on technical adjustments and interventions that are delinked from, or
even undermine, local strategies - and instead take these as a starting point in
supporting a wider adaptation process. Crucially, such a change of perspective
means that the social and economic relations of production through which local
strategies are carried out need to be improved, in effect challenging current