Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
can be used to assess adaptation options. These include frameworks for analysing
people's efforts to reduce and adapt to urban risk (Wamsler and Brink Chapter
4 ) , or for placing attention on multi-level, multi-sectoral analysis of the barriers
and potential for risk management inherent in the governance and political
context (Vedeld et al., Nightingale this volume). Such frameworks recognize
policy-process analyses of actors' roles and power relations as a necessary part
of more participatory adaptation approaches. Eriksen and Marin (this volume)
outline principles of sustainable adaptation, showing that a focus on vulnerability
contexts, political and social relations and empowerment in adaptation efforts
can potentially transform development pathways. The frameworks and tools
employed in adaptation practices will vary across contexts; what is most
important, however, is reflection about the assumptions and understandings of
vulnerability upon which each tool builds, and which facets of vulnerability
each tool and approach address and, more importantly, do not address.
Climate change may mean adapting to higher seas, more water/less water,
stronger winds, more intense heat, ecological changes and so on. Yet the
implications of these changes are not simply that society has to 'adapt' better.
This, as Paulo Freire (1970) emphasized, translates into practice as taking the
world as a given, without questioning the very systems and structures that drive
climate change, vulnerability, inequality and poverty (O'Brien, St. Clair and
Kristoffersen 2010; Pelling 2011). As a phenomenon, climate change calls for
questioning our collective assumptions about the continuity of energy-intensive
economic growth, about availability and access to adequate water and food
resources, about the permanence of coastlines, the security of livelihoods, the
predictability of 'extreme' climate events, and many other aspects of ecology
and society that have been taken for granted or considered 'manageable' within
the dominant development paradigm. What these changes should be telling us
is that it is time to rethink current development pathways, and to make stronger
links between current actions and future outcomes.
The need to move towards climate resilient pathways raises many important
questions: What processes contribute to climate resilient pathways in different
contexts, and how can such processes be catalysed and supported? Given that
there is no clear blueprint for actions, what are the key aspects of adaptation
and transformation processes that can be monitored and evaluated? How can
adaptation trigger ethical change in development pathways, especially in relation
to existing power asymmetries, and social inequities? These questions are likely
to be answered through a combination of research and practice, which draws
attention to the importance of reflexivity and learning. It is clear, however, that
climate change and its impacts present considerable risks to development, and
adapting to these risks without addressing the drivers of vulnerability represents
a missed opportunity to pursue transformations to sustainability. Adaptation
through transformation has the potential to become an inclusive, engaging and
empowering process that contributes to alternative and sustainable development
pathways.
 
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