Climate Change and development - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 275

Adaptation may take various forms, from vulnerability and exposure reduction
on the ground through development planning and practices, to transformations
within the practical, political and personal spheres of change (IPCC 2014b,
see SPM Box 1). Transformative responses apply to all the actions, decisions,
approaches or behaviours that contribute to systemic changes. They often
involve questioning the assumptions underlying incremental, business-as-usual
approaches and dominant paradigms (O'Brien 2012). However, the concept also
introduces some confusion, as transformation may be approached in various
ways: for example, there are two different but related facets of transformation
currently discussed in the literature on adaptation to climate change.
On the one hand, there is a growing recognition that some impacts of climate
change will call for transformational adaptations that will alter the nature,
composition and/or location of activities or systems (Brooks et al. 2011; Kates,
Travis and Wilbanks 2012; Denton et al. 2014). As described by Kates et al.
(2012), transformational adaptations may involve actions or interventions on a
larger scale, with greater intensity and over longer time-periods than previously
experienced. Examples here may include large-scale resettlement of coastal
communities, or a dramatic expansion of permaculture and agro-ecology to feed
a growing population sustainably in a changing climate. They may also involve
adaptations that are new or unprecedented in a given region or system, such as
new types of risk-sharing arrangements. Finally, they may involve adaptations that
transform places or lead to a shift in the location of activities. Transformational
adaptations are already evident in response to climate variability and change
(Marshall et al. 2012). It is expected that they will be increasingly necessary in
some locations and for marginalized or vulnerable groups. They may include,
for example, a shift to pastoralism or agropastoral production systems in areas
that become too dry for agriculture (Brooks et al. 2011), particularly if climate
change mitigation efforts are unsuccessful (Denton et al. 2014). Importantly,
this type of transformation is a proactive or reactive response to the impacts of
climate change, which are more or less taken as a given.
On the other hand, however, a transformational approach to adaptation can
also focus on reducing risk and vulnerability in the first place (Pelling 2011). This
type of adaptation involves altering the very systems and structures, economic
and social relations, and beliefs and behaviour that contribute to both climate
change and vulnerability (O'Brien 2012; Denton et al. 2014). Rather than
directly responding to the impacts of climate change, such transformations seek
to alter the risks to global development and human security posed by climate
change. As Pelling (2011: 86) puts it, transformation is concerned with the wider
and less visible roots of vulnerability: 'These lie in social, cultural, economic and
political spheres, often overlapping and interacting. They are difficult to grasp,
yet felt nonetheless. They may be so omnipresent that they become naturalized;
assumed to be part of the way the world is.' Such transformations are not
politically neutral: they inevitably challenge or promote some interests and
agendas over others (Smith and Stirling 2010). All the same, transformations