16-2-2014

Geography of Developing Countries

Professors Chris Kesteloot & Jean Poessen

KU Leuven

Karina Azar, Ida Carlsson, Céline Hélias, Svongwa Nemadire, Xiang Yang

CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Geography of Developing Countries Azar, Carlsson, Hélias, Nemadire, Yang

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Task N° 1: Climate Change Adaptation and Development

Climate change has received increased attention worldwide, being considered as a risk to

sustainable development. A way to mitigate this risk is through adaptation to climate change,

which is defined as “adjustments in ecological, social, or economic systems in response to actual

or expected climatic stimuli and their effects or impacts”1. Throughout the two articles we were

able to establish a link of how adaptation can reduce negative impacts and enhance positive

impacts of climate change (current or anticipated ones). During the analysis of the readings, we

found that this phenomenon is not only seen with a negative perspective: adaptation used to be

seen as a way to predict the future risks of climate change, whereas now it is also seen as an

opportunity that affected areas can take advantage of. Nevertheless, being climate change an

environmental concept per se, the articles were mainly focused on the social impact of climate

change, leaving behind the evident effect of it on the environment.

“Adaptation to Climate Change in the Context of Sustainable Development and Equity”, by Smit

et al.

Different types of adaptation to climate change can be distinguished; however we would like to

highlight the autonomous and the planned types of adaptation. It is necessary to stress that they

both depend on the context of the region that is implementing this strategy. The first type

(autonomous) tends to be reactive and is normally implemented by private entities. On the other

hand, planned adaptation is implemented by public entities. However, if there is a weak

institutional/Governmental system in the local region where planned adaptation arises, the long

term results won’t be successful.

Possible adaptation measures in different areas can be challenging as well, as they are context and

region dependent. This means that there is no ‘one size fits all’ adaptation measure. The authors

also suggest that little effort is put on the interaction between development projects and

adaptation to climate change. However, the Klein et al article appears in 2007 (6 years after the

Smit et al) as a formal initiative for linking these two dimensions. We will refer to this in the

second part of this paper.

A negative point to address is that the approach of the article is mostly top down: from

Governments or development agencies to the grassroots and not the other way round. However,

during the Klein et al article, the authors agree that “adaptation is primarily a local process”2, but

this is not further developed during their research. Nevertheless, none of the articles mention the

awareness of the local community, which could be necessary to have a bottom-up approach. For

example, the local community could work jointly with the Government to implement adaptation

related projects.

1 B. Smit, O. Pilifosova, 2001. Adaptation to Climate Change in the Context of Sustainable Development and Equity, page

881 2 Klein et al, page 27

Geography of Developing Countries Azar, Carlsson, Hélias, Nemadire, Yang

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Some models have shown that in certain circumstances adaptation can have a positive impact on

agriculture. Even if climate change effects are shown up in the food sector, for example, with

adaptation it would be possible to contribute to the increase of the food production.

“Portfolio Screening to Support the Mainstreaming of Adaptation to Climate Change into

Development Assistance”, by Klein et al.

Climate change adaptation should occur together with sustainable development processes, but

linking these two can be problematic taking into consideration that they are both very broad and

‘fuzzy’ concepts. Poverty reduction as a way for adaption may increase the vulnerability of people

to climate change. It can be seen that in the implementation of adaptation projects some

differences could arise between poverty and vulnerability reduction. This is because some

projects can target the first issues, but when implementing them, they can have side effects to

another part of the population or environment. For example, building a road to increase

connectivity in an isolated region could have a negative pollution or erosion impact on a sea

located right next to it.3

It is necessary to highlight the differences between the traditional perspective of adaptation, and

the new mainstream. On this article we found that traditional views on adaptation tend to be too

focused on technological improvements, while attention to socio-economic and local factors

should be more important for development projects to succeed. The conventional methods were

under the responsibility of Governments; whereas in the new mainstream we can see how private

or international cooperation agencies also play an important role on it.

The authors show examples of six development and cooperation agencies which incorporated new

portfolio screenings. However, they were performed independently of one another, without

looking at the same factors. This makes the result difficult to generalize, without establishing some

common ground of how to evaluate and define approaches towards a mainstreaming of

adaptation in various development projects.

To conclude, we found that the Smit et al article brings concepts and a general vision to

adaptation to climate change and development. On the other hand, the one by Klein et al

supports these concepts with examples of agencies implementing development programs in

adaptation. Both articles are presented with a top-down approach, where the two ideas that were

linked (adaptation to climate change and sustainable development) tend to be very broad

concepts.

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Example taken from Klein et al, page 28