Framings of Climate

Change Adaptation

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views or policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), or its Board of Directors or the governments
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 Cutting the Adaptation Cake
• Numerous different ways of understanding approaches to CCA.
• The following is a conceptual technique to discuss approaches that are highly
overlapping.

Predict & Climate Risk Resilience Root Causes of

Provide Management Vulnerability A and B

External Internal
IPCC Standard IPCC Integrated IPCC
Approaches or Approaches Vulnerability
‘Top Down’ Approaches or
‘Bottom Up’
Predict and Provide
Predict and Provide: Overview

• Vulnerability arising from biophysical/natural/

structural factors
• Adaptation to external factors
• Employs climatology, meteorology, natural
hazards management, engineering, positivistic
• Long term perspective
• Based on hazards and exposure
• Top down
Predict and Provide: Example of Tools

• Climate Change Scenarios

• Modelling
Predict and Provide: Benefits

• Impacts felt relatively quickly

• Easier to manage, monitor and execute

• In certain cases these are the last line of

defence
 Predict and Provide: View of Uncertainty

• Minimising/overcoming uncertainty through focus on sophisticated modelling and

scenarios.
 Predict and Provide: Examples of Practice

• UNEP and ICIMOD: Draining glacial

lakes through using engineering and
hard solutions

• Governments: Migration due to CC

impacts from island countries to New
Zealand

• Tidal walls to protect against sea level

rise found across the globe
Predict and Provide: Critique

• Usually overlooks community priorities

• Does not consider social, cultural and political
factors
• Usually centralised
• Sectoral / operates silos
• Rigid, does not acknowledge ‘unknown
unknowns’
Climate Risk Management
Climate Risk Management: Overview
• Vulnerability arising from biophysical/natural/ structural
factors
• Process of incorporating climate information into
decisions
• Managing current climate risk as a step in managing
longer term risk from climate change
• Focus on analysing climate information

• Difference from Predict and Provide-

• P&P is longer term, led by the timescales given by the
climate change scenario models
• CRM is more aligned to timescales associated with
existing decision making frameworks
Climate Risk Management: Example of
Tools

• Orchid

• Various mainstreaming
tools
Climate Risk Management: Benefits

• Less risk of maladaptation due to integration of

info on climate variability

• Works with past, present and future variability

to minimise risk

• Only adaptation option in certain situations

Climate Risk Management:
View of Uncertainty
• Focus on minimising uncertainty by integrating
past, present and future climate change
information.
Climate Risk Management:
Examples of Practice
• IFRC: use of improved meteorological
information for improved DRR and
prepositioning relief stocks.

• ADB: Integrating information on CC impacts

on cyclone, wind speed and sea levels into
design of breakwater.

• Kenya: seasonal forecasts allow farmers to

reduce exposure; longer term trends allow
farmers to gauge robustness of investments
Climate Risk Management: Critique
• Leads to not planning for failure

• Does not engage with unknown unknowns

• Stresses on climate information rather than community

priorities
• Usually top down and centralised

• Usually sectoral

• Based on exposure
Root Causes of Vulnerability (A)
Social/Cultural
Social/Cultural: Overview

• Vulnerability arising from social/cultural/ factors

• Adaptation as process of engaging with internal factors

• Employs social scientific approaches drawing from community &

participatory development, sociology, anthropology, normative

• Adaptation determined by analysing socio-economic inequity,

gender disparities, class, community empowerment

• Based on sensitivity
Social and Cultural: Example of Tools

• Vulnerability Capacity
Assessment

• Participatory Rural Appraisal

Social/Cultural: Benefits
• Potential for structural transformation

• Wide ranging development gains

• More room to accommodate community concerns

• Credence to usually ignored social/ cultural factors

Social/Cultural: View of uncertainty

• No overt engagement with uncertainty

• Assumption that CC brings uncertainties to any setting

• Seeks to buffer against it by working to improve

skewed social and cultural dynamics
 Social/ Cultural: Example of Practice

• UNDP: Community development

committees, community participation
(including women) , education, information
and networking as adaptation

• Oxfam: Gender empowerment as

adaptation

• Cordaid: mapping the vulnerabilities and

studying the coping mechanisms of Dalits
Social/ Cultural: Critique
• Time consuming: benefits and adaptation witnessed over
long time scales

• Arduous: meticulous research and planning required to

understand community setting

• Highly relative: each setting requires a unique

combination of activities.

• Maladadptive/ investing too much in one reality

Root Causes of Vulnerability (B)
Economic/Political
 Economic/Political: Overview

• Overlap with previous approach but separated for gaining a better

understanding
• Adaptation requires engagement with problems existing within a

system
• Vulnerability arising from political, economic and institutional factors

• Economics, econometrics; political and institutional analyses

• Based on sensitivity
 Economic/Political: Benefit

• Potential for structural transformation

• Leads to CCA and reduced poverty

• Realistic as it acknowledges the importance of

politics which is usually ignored
 Economic/Political: Example of Tools

• Econometrics

• Livelihood assessments

• Political economy analysis

• Growth diagnostics

• Drivers of change
 Economic/Political: View of Uncertainty

• Not centrally concerned with mapping and

reducing uncertainty but with correcting skewed
political-economic structures
Economic/Political: Example of Practice
• BRAC: Lending conditional on
adoption of hybrid crop varieties
(saline resistant) for boosting crop
production

• World Bank: Working with famers to

modernize irrigation, improve water
use and increase famer’s access to
technology, financing and markets

• DFID: LFP
 Economic/Political: Critique

• Complex and time consuming

• In focussing on economic analyses can

sometimes ignore social and cultural
causes/solutions

• Not effective in certain situations

Resilience
 Resilience: Overview
• Borrows from other approaches but some innovative ideas

• Key tenets include: flexibility (rather than optimising resources),

preparedness, redundancy, no stable state, effective learning

• Other characteristics include: high level of diversity, effective

governance and institutions, accepting uncertainty, community
involvement, social values, equity, cross scalar perspective

• Long term
 Resilience: Benefits

• Transformative potential

• Leads to resilience to various disturbances

which may impact development

• Comprehensive as it acknowledges dynamism

in socio-ecological systems
 Resilience: View of Uncertainty

• Seeks to help systems actively embrace

and work with uncertainty
• Acknowledges that there are ‘unknown
unknowns’
 Resilience: Examples of Practice

• Rockefeller Foundation: ACCCRN

• DFID: Ethiopia

• Nepal: NAPA+ and PPCR

 Resilience: Example of Tools
• Shared Learning Dialogues:
 Resilience: Critique

• Lack of evidence

• Wide ranging and it is unclear at what stage a state of

resilience is achieved

• Resilience discussed in the context of systems but

unclear what the limits of a system are

• Resilience increasingly used as catch all for adaptation

 For further discussion-

Example of flexible, integrated approach :

• Thames 2100 project:Flood risk management

actions in the short (next 25 years), medium (the
following 35 years) and long term (to the end of the
century). Also indicates how actions would need to
change on changing predictions. (Hybrid, anomalous
approach).
 For further discussion....
• Low carbon development: involves generating energy
from low-carbon sources (e.g. renewables), protecting
carbon stores (e.g. forests), encouraging the development
of low-carbon technologies and increasing energy security.

• Harnessing synergies with CCA: possible win-win

solutions- Eg. Adapting to increased heat by cooling
buildings through improved shading.
Eg. Community forestry for improved
livelihood and mitigation.
 For further discussion....
Work in progress-
Transformative

External Internal

Minimising
Damage