Draft, 29 April 2015

Paul J. Govind & Robert R.M. Verchick, Natural Disaster and Climate Change, in INTERNATIONAL
ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND THE GLOBAL SOUTH: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES (Shawkat Alam, Sumudu
Atapattu, Carmen G. Gonzalez, & Jona Razzaque eds., Cambridge University Press 2015) (forthcoming)

NATURAL DISASTER AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Paul J. Govind*
Robert R.M. Verchick**

This essay examines the relationship between international adaptation efforts

with regard to climate change and disaster management policy. Reviewing the respective
United Nations frameworks for both climate and natural disasters, we find many shared
interests and opportunities for collaboration. To better unite these areas of law, we
suggest focusing on two concepts relevant to both fields: global group responsibility and
a focus on local action and socio-economic conditions. While these ideas may at first
seem in conflict, we will show how each is critical to policy initiatives in both fields and
can therefore serve as important points of intersection. We illustrate our claim by way of
two very different case studies. The first examines the recent international negotiations
over “loss and damage” under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC), which have now erupted into a major debate about the North’s
responsibility to the South. The second case study examines a relatively small climate
resilience project, funded by a private foundation, in the Indian city of Surat, a global
center for textile manufacturing and diamond polishing, which is also prone to enormous
coastal floods. The relative success realized here suggests the promise of integrating
local organizational methods into a global commitment to climate adaptation. The
example suggests how wealthy actors (in this case a foundation) can guide and empower
vulnerable communities by tapping into local values and existing networks. Our aim is to
begin a conversation about the relationship between climate change adaptation and
disaster risk reduction.

keywords: climate change adaptation, climate change mitigation, disaster law, disaster
risk reduction, international environmental law, international development, international
law, resilience, wealth inequality

*
Lecturer, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
**
Gauthier-St. Martin Chair in Environmental Law, Loyola University New Orleans; Senior Fellow in
Disaster Resilience Leadership, Tulane University. Our discussion of Surat, India, is based on field
research that Professor Verchick conducted in 2012, while working as a Fulbright-Nehru Environmental
Leadership Scholar and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Policy Research (CPR) in New Delhi. He is
grateful to the Fulbright Scholar Program and to CPR for their generous support.

1
 In the twenty-first century, it is nearly impossible to talk about the environment

without also talking about climate change whilst in turn it is nearly impossible to talk

about climate change without also talking about natural disasters. Global warming, rising

seas, and recurring drought are all part of the same unfolding story. One can hardly read

an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment or government white

paper without browsing through page after glossy page of swamped fishing villages,

collapsed favelas, and withering maize. What saves the photo spreads from fetish is that

the hazards they depict are real and ongoing.

Despite this increasing evidence, policy makers have been slow to align the legal

mechanisms confronting climate change and natural disaster. This is especially true at the

international level, where attempts to bridge the gap between climate change adaptation

(CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) have re-opened old debates between the Global

North and Global South, and where ideas hatched in sparkling banquet rooms never make

it to the eroding banks of the riverside slum.

In this chapter, we examine the relationship between international adaptation

efforts with regard to climate change, on the one hand and disaster management policy,

on the other. Reviewing the respective United Nations frameworks for both climate and

natural disasters, we find many shared interests and opportunities for collaboration. In

particular, we think that notions of causation and group responsibility—both found in

international climate policy—can provide a necessary context for imagining disaster

resilience on a warming planet. Similarly, we believe the emphasis on local action and

socio-economic conditions—a trademark of disaster planning—can inspire the next wave

of adaptation efforts. We will make these arguments by way of two very different case

2
studies. The first examines the recent international negotiations over “loss and damage”

under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which

have now erupted into a major debate about the North’s responsibility to the South.1

The second case study examines a relatively small climate resilience project,

funded by a private foundation, in the Indian city of Surat, a global center for textile

manufacturing and diamond polishing, which is also prone to enormous coastal floods.

The relative success realized here suggests the promise of integrating local organizational

methods into a global commitment to climate adaptation. The example suggests how

wealthy actors (in this case a foundation) can guide and empower vulnerable

communities by tapping into local values and existing networks. Our aim is to begin a

conversation about the relationship between CCA and DDR.

I. Framing the Discussion

A. An Introduction to Natural Disasters and Climate Change

Before turning to the case studies, we will frame the discussion by reviewing

some facts about natural disasters, climate change impacts, and the applicable law. A

“natural disaster,” as the term is generally used, describes a calamitous event that is

triggered at least in part by a natural force—an earthquake, a flood, a hurricane, drought,

or something similar. Many experts dismiss the possibility of any disaster being

completely “natural,” since human decisions about settlement or planning always play a

role.2 Global warming, which has the potential to influence nearly any weather-related

1
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 9 May 1992,, in force 21 March 1994, 1771
UNTS 107 (UNFCCC).
2
See Robert R.M. Verchick, Facing Catastrophe: Environmental Action for a Post-Katrina World
Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2010) (describing increased trend in disasters as driven by growing
population, expanded development, and global warming); Bob Bolin, ‘Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Disaster

3
event, challenges the term in even stronger ways, a point we will investigate later.

Disaster, of course, implies disruption, or in language approved by the United Nations, “a

serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society involving widespread

human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the

ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources.” 3 Two

points are worth noting. First, an extreme event is only a “disaster” if the affected

community is overwhelmed and cannot “cope.” Second, a community’s ability to cope

will necessarily depend on its exposure to a hazard and its economic and social capacity

to withstand the blow.

Every year natural disasters cause thousands of deaths and cost billions of dollars

in disaster aid, disruption of commerce, and destruction of homes and critical

infrastructure. In 2013, for instance, Typhoon Haiyan—considered the strongest storm

ever to make landfall—tore through the central Philippines, killing more than 6,000

people and costing $13 billion in economic loss.4 The same year, Cyclone Phailin raked

through the Indian state of Odisha, demolishing hundreds of thousands of homes and

affecting 9 million people; the storm also destroyed paddy crops worth hundreds of

Vulnerability’, in Havidán Rodrìguez, Enrico L. Quarantelli & Russell R. Dynes (eds), Handbook of
Disaster Research (New York, Springer, 2006), pp. 113 – 114; (quoting Enrico L. Quarantelli, ‘Disaster
Prevention and Mitigation in Planning and Implementing in Composite Country’ 18 (1990) (“[T]here can
never be a natural disaster; at most there is a conjuncture of certain physical happenings and certain social
happening”).
3
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), 2009 UNISDR Terminology on
Disaster Risk Reduction (Geneva, United Nations Press, 2009).
4
‘Stress Test: Responding to this disaster is essential, but so is preparing for the next’,The Economist,
Nov. 16, 2013, available at http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21589883-responding-disaster-
essential-so-preparing-next-stress-test (noting fatalities); Annual Global Climate and Catastrophe Report:
Impact Forecasting – 2013 (Impact Forecasting, 2014) p. 4, Exhibit 1, available at
http://thoughtleadership.aonbenfield.com/Documents/20140113_ab_if_annual_climate_catastrophe_report.
pdf. (noting economic impact).

4
millions of dollars. 5 Viewed over many years, the losses are almost hard to imagine.

Between January 1975 and October 2008, and excluding epidemics, the International

Emergency Disasters Database EMDAT recorded 8,866 events killing 2,283,767 people.6

Of course, natural disasters strike Northern countries too. In the spring of 2013,

hammering rains caused massive flooding across Germany, Austria, and East-Central

Europe. At least 21 lives were lost and economic damage totaled $22 billion.7 The year

before, Hurricane Sandy swept through the northeastern United States, killing 159 people

and causing $65 billion in economic loss.8 The data reveal how fatalities in the South

dwarf fatalities in the North and how economic loss in the North so often exceeds, in

absolute terms, similar loss in the South. 9 In terms of public safety, the difference in

fatalities shows how much higher the stakes are in the developing world. But economic

risk is also higher in the South, since even comparatively small losses in a poor country

can represent a significant share of its GDP.10

In January 2005, government officials from around the globe met in Kobe, Japan,

to discuss disaster preparation and response. By an odd coincidence, only days before, an

5
‘Cyclone Phailin hits 90 lakh people; 23 dead, lakhs of homes damaged’, Times of India, 13 October
2013: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Cyclone-Phailin-hits-90-lakh-people-23-dead-lakhs-of-
homes-damaged/articleshow/24102125.cms.
6
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat (UNISDR), ‘Global Assessment
Report on Disaster Risk Reduction: Risk and Poverty in a Changing Climate (2009), available at
http://www.preventionweb.net/english/hyogo/gar/report/index.php?id=9413..
7
‘Europe Flood Kills at Least 21’ CBS News, 9 June 2013: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/europe-floods-
kill-at-least-21-1.1384993 (noting fatalities); Annual Global Climate and Catastrophe Report: Impact
Forecasting – 2013 (Impact Forecasting, 2014) p. 4, Exhibit 1, available at
http://thoughtleadership.aonbenfield.com/Documents/20140113_ab_if_annual_climate_catastrophe_report.
pdf. (noting economic impact).
8
See Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Taskforce, ‘Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Strategy: Stronger
Communities, A Resilient Region’ (Aug. 2013) available at
http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=hsrebuildingstrategy.pdf.
9
See generally, (UNISDR), Risk and Poverty in a Changing Climate.
10
Ibid. p 7 (concluding, “poorer countries have disproportionately higher mortality and economic loss
risks, given similar levels of hazard exposure”).

5
enormous earthquake off the west coast of Sumatra had triggered the devastating Asian

tsunami that battered the coasts of eleven countries and killed more than 225,000 people.

At that international meeting, called the World Conference on Disaster Reduction, all UN

member states agreed to reduce disaster loss by strengthening the resilience of nations

and communities at risk. The conference produced an early warning system to identify

coastal threats and proposed an ambitious framework to reduce disaster risk throughout

the world. 11 Called the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), (named after the prefecture

in which Kobe is located), the agreement lays out expectations for the world's disaster

initiatives through 2015 and charges the United Nations International Strategy for

Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) to oversee implementation.12

Climate change should be discussed against this backdrop. According to the IPCC

the effects of climate change are already occurring “on all continents and across the

oceans.”13 Observed “climate-related extremes” include “heat waves, droughts, floods,

cyclones, and wildfires.” 14 The IPCC finds that “[f]or countries at all levels of

development, these impacts are consistent with a significant lack of preparedness for

current climate variability in some sectors,” adding that the impacts of climate-related

11
See Daniel A. Farber, Jim Chen, Robert R.M Verchick and Lisa Grow Sun (eds), Disaster Law and
Policy, ( Philadelphia, Aspen Publishers, 2015) (forthcoming).
12
See United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), ‘Hyogo Framework for
Action 2005 – 2015: Building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters’ extract from Report of
the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, January 2005, Kobe, Japan -
http://www.unisdr.org/files/1037_hyogoframeworkforactionenglish.pdf.
13
C.B Field,., V.R. Barros, D.J. Dokken, K.J. Mach, M.D. Mastrandrea, T.E. Bilir, M. Chatterjee, K.L. Ebi,
Y.O. Estrada, R.C. Genova, B. Girma, E.S. Kissel, A.N. Levy, S. MacCracken,, P.R. Mastrandrea, and L.L.
White (eds.), IPCC, 2014: Summary for policymakers. In: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and
Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2014).https://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/IPCC_WG2AR5_SPM_Approved.pdf, p. 6.
14
Ibid. p.7.

6
hazards on the poor are particularly devastating.15 The need to adapt to these impacts is

crucial. The IPCC defines climate change adaptation as “the adjustment in natural or

human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects.”16 The

IPCC recognizes that climate impacts have occurred and are continually occurring; it

presumes that many of these trends will inevitably continue to some degree, independent

of our efforts to reduce greenhouse gases (“mitigation”). Adaptation aims to lessen the

magnitude of these impacts through proactive or previously planned reactive actions. As

the IPCC states, “[M]itigation will always be required to avoid ‘dangerous’ and

irreversible changes to the climate system. Irrespective of the scale of mitigation

measures that are implemented in the next 10–20 years, adaptation measures will still be

required due to inertia in the climate system.” 17 Or, as President Obama’s science

advisor, James Holdren, explains, “We must avoid the climate impacts we can’t manage

and manage the climate impacts we can’t avoid.”18

B. Linking Disaster Policy to Climate Policy

Global law and policy on climate change and disaster management has reached a

critical juncture. At the conclusion of 2013, the Warsaw International Mechanism for

Loss and Damage (Warsaw International Mechanism or WIM) became part of the

15
Ibid. p. 6-7.
16
Martin Parry, Osvaldo Canziani, Jean Palutikof, Technical Summary. Climate Change 2007: Impacts,
Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007)
available at http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_assessment_report_wg2
_report_impacts_adaptation_and_vulnerability.htm (follow “Technical Summary” hyperlink).
17
Ibid available at
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_assessment_report_wg3
_report_mitigation_of_climate_change.htm (follow “Chapter 1: Introduction” hyperlink ).
18
James Holdren, Assistant to the President for Sci. and Technology and Dir. of the White House Office of
Sci. and Technology Policy, ‘Remarks at the National Climate Adaptation Summit,’ Washington, D.C.
(May 25, 2011) (notes on file with the authors).

7
international climate change regime, reinforcing the link between DRR and CCA. 19

While nations under the UNFCCC begin work under WIM, negotiations continue within

disaster policy circles to realize a successor to the HFA.20 Recent developments in both

the international climate change and disaster regimes suggest increased alignment

between DRR and CCA. Indeed, since the adoption of the Bali Action Plan in 2007 there

have been attempts within the climate regime to characterize the issue of linkage between

DRR and CCA.21

The relationship between climate change and disaster management raises themes

important to this book. Central to the “North-South Divide,” is the complaint that

increased standards of living in the North derive from environmental destruction in the

South. For more than a century, the North has pumped carbon dioxide into the

atmosphere beyond its “fair share,” but the nations most stressed about famine and flood

are in the South. Global development has always been about insulating communities from

the vagaries of nature (disease, poor harvests, and, of course, natural disasters), but global

warming amplifies the moral and economic dimensions.22 Climate change also feeds into

the tension between global and local action. For understandable reasons, the North’s

central focus has been to reduce carbon emissions on a global scale, while the South

19
Report of the Conference of the Parties on Its Nineteenth Session, Held in Warsaw from 11 to 23
November 2013 – Addendum – Part Two: Action Taken by the Conference of the Parties at Its Nineteenth
Session, UN Doc FCCC/CP/2013/10/Add.1 (31 January 2014) Decision 2/CP.19 (Warsaw International
Mechanism)).
20
UNISDR, ‘Hyogo Framework for Action 2005 – 2015.’
21
Report of the Conference of the Parties on Its Thirteenth Session, Held in Bali from 3 December to 15
December 2007 – Addendum – Part Two: Action Taken by the Conference of the Parties at Its Thirteenth
Session, UN Doc FCCC/CP/2007/6/Add.1 (14 March 2008) Decision 1/CP.13. For further background see,
Lisa Schipper, ‘Meeting at the crossroads? : Exploring the linkages between climate change adaptation and
disaster risk reduction’ Climate and Development 1:1 (2009), 16 – 30 at 20; Maarten K. Van Aalst, ‘The
impacts of climate change on the risk of natural disasters’ Disasters (2006) 30(1), 5 – 18.
22
Robert R.M. Verchick, ‘Adaptation, Economics, and Justice', in David M. Driesen (ed.), Economic
Thought and U.S. Climate Change Policy (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2010), p. 277.

8
emphasizes the more local and immediate needs of energy production and climate

resilience. The global perspective highlights the significant inequalities between affluent

and poorer countries, but that focus also helps conceal substantial inequalities within

nations (both rich and poor). Thus social vulnerability at the regional and local level

demands much more attention than it is receiving.

Addressing adaptation and disaster management together offers several

advantages. Most obviously, it is more efficient to double up when the risks imposed by

climate change and natural disasters take the same form. Governments and civil society

groups already have disaster management structures in place with attendant legal

authorities, staff, lines of communication, and channels of distribution. 23 Social and

family networks have also developed strategies for reducing and responding to disaster

emergencies. Integrating adaptation into this infrastructure is easier than starting from

scratch. Much of the conceptual work in modern disaster management, the product of

decades of study, also transfers readily to adaptation.

In addition, merging the two fields helps appeal to a wider range of culture-based

values. For instance, the importance of better disaster management has always been

obvious to those in the monsoon belt or the quake-prone Himalaya, but global efforts to

reduce the risks of “ordinary” natural disasters (those not previously associated with

climate change) have never matched the need. The focus on “climate” disasters, however,

appears to be changing the conversation in the North by tapping into values beyond

sympathy. When an earthquake kills thousands in Pakistan, it is hard to say that policies

23
See, e.g., Farber, Chen, Verchick, & Sun, Disaster Law and Policy; (describing disaster management
structures in the United States); see also, U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction,
PreventionWeb: Countries and Region, available at http://www.preventionweb.net/english/countries/
(offering information about national disaster management structures in countries throughout the world).

9
in the North contributed to that misery; but when an island sinks in the Bay of Bengal, the

link is direct. The fact that global warming is also threatening lives and treasure in the

North further pulls the South into the North’s circle of concern.24 This gives leverage for

Southern countries to demand more in the way of disaster risk reduction.25

On the flip side, the traditional disaster-management concerns of poorer nations

help residents in vulnerable areas to see the value of focusing on climate change. The

vegetable farmer in Kerala may know nothing about the “450 ppm” threshold,26 but she

can tell you how late the monsoon was this year and what it means for her harvest. Social

scientists tell us that such “back-loop learning” helps communities understand and

address new versions of old threats. 27 Finally, the traditional disaster-management

perspective emphasizes the importance of localized knowledge, participation, and buy-in.

It is said that the first “first responders” are always the affected residents. This insight can

help expand the role for local contributions in adaptation policy.

However, there are challenges in linking adaptation to disaster-risk reduction.

The most obvious is that their circles of concern do not exactly match. Not all natural

disasters are linked to climate change (earthquakes being the classic example). And not

all climate impacts are natural disasters. Disaster usually implies a sudden change, an

24
Verchick, ‘Adaptation, Economics, and Justice’, p. 289-290, (describing how the global economy
requires participation of the South to meet goals of the North, including the goal of reducing carbon
emissions).
25
Ibid.
26
An average global carbon dioxide reading of 450 parts per million (ppm), is seen by many climate
experts as the maximum level compatible with limiting the damage from climate impacts to a tolerable
degree. See Justin Gillis, ‘Heat Trapping Gas Passes Milestone, Raising Fears’, NEW YORK TIMES, 10 May,
2013,http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/science/earth/carbon-dioxide-level-passes-long-feared-
milestone.html?pagewanted=all. In the spring of 2013, the earth’s average carbon dioxide reading
surpassed 400 ppm. Ibid.
27
Sarah O. Reed, Richard Friend, Vu Canh Toan, Pakamas Thingphanga, Ratri Sutarto and Dilip Singh,
‘‘Shared Learning’ For Building Urban Climate Resilience – Experiences From Asian Cities,’,(2013) 25(2)
Environment and Urbanization 393 – 412.

10
outsize scale, and an overwhelming impact. However, many climate effects will unroll

slowly and incrementally such as rising seas or species extinction; they will challenge,

but not always overwhelm existing systems. At a time when much global assistance is

flowing toward adaptation, advocates of traditional disaster management will find

themselves competing with other non-disaster-related adaptation goals.

A second challenge involves predictability. Before the era of global warming,

disasters like storms and floods followed general historical patterns. Assigning

probabilities to events of defined magnitudes was something experts became relatively

good at. Over time local people developed workable understandings of such risks and

prepared for them; with assistance from scientists and engineers, their efforts were further

sharpened. But global warming has changed all this. The uncertainties involved in the

climate process make many forms of prediction dubious. We know the future will not

follow the wheel-ruts of the past. For this reason, experts in climate adaption warn

against using probabilities and predictions. They instead speak of “projections,” “multiple

scenarios,” and “adaptive management.” This reflects a different way of thinking that is

only now becoming familiar to policy makers. Modeling scenarios (and scaling them to

specific regions) requires technical skill, terabytes of data, and enormous computing

power. In the field, it means implementing responses that are monitored, adjustable, and

informed by local judgments of acceptable risk. Adaptation projects therefore stress land-

use planning and often prefer dynamic “green” infrastructure (like barrier islands and

11
mangrove forests) to static “gray” infrastructure (like seawalls and dikes).28 This sort of

resilience requires efforts that are both top-down and bottom-up.

C. Two Critical Issues: Group Responsibility and Local Vantage

The frameworks addressing climate change and disaster risk each have strengths

potentially beneficial to the other. In particular, we think that notions of causation and

group responsibility found in international climate policy are important for understanding

the future of disaster planning in the era of climate change. Similarly, we believe the

emphasis in DRR policy upon local action and socio-economic conditions can inspire the

next wave of adaptation efforts. We introduce these two critical issues below. After a

brief examination, we then turn to the case studies.

1. Group Responsibility

Global Warming is driven by natural forces and by human ones, but there is little

doubt we humans are responsible for the lion’s share—about 74%, by some estimates.29

And while large developing countries like China and India are swiftly increasing their

carbon output, it remains true that the largest historical contributions to the greenhouse

effect have come from the Global North.30 If we make a list of the largest historical

contributors per citizen not a single poor country breaks into the top ten.31

For this reason, the UNFCCC directed industrialized nations early on to take the

28
For a discussion of green infrastructure as a means of reducing disaster risk in the developing world, see
Robert R.M. Verchick, Facing Catastrophe: Environmental Action for a Post-Katrina World (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2010), p.25-37.
29
See Quirin Schiermeier, ‘At least three-quarters of climate change is man-made’, Nature, 4 December,
2011 - http://www.nature.com/news/at-least-three-quarters-of-climate-change-is-man-made-1.9538.
30
See Duncan Clark ‘Which nations are most responsible for climate change?’ , The Guardian, 22 April
2011 - http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/21/countries-responsible-climate-change.
31
Ibid.

12
lead in reducing emissions and addressing climate impacts. Through the legal framework,

developed nations agreed to provide financial and technical support to developing nations

to help them reduce carbon emissions and adapt to climate-induced hazards. 32 Legal

hooks were carved from the foundational “polluter pays principle” and the doctrine of

“transboundary harm,” under which a polluting state is held responsible for damage

caused to its neighbors.33 The legal framework is based on the principle of “common but

differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” (CBDR/RC), 34 a widely

accepted notion that a state’s duty toward global environmental sustainability should be

proportionate to its contribution to a given problem and its capacity to address it. To use a

dichotomy associated with political philosopher Judith Shklar, climate disruption, as

experienced by the Global South, is not a blameless “misfortune,” but a blameworthy

“injustice.”35 And that requires a sincere attempt to make the injured party whole.

In contrast to climate-induced hazards, international law treats natural disasters

like garden-variety misfortune. At the root is a desire for charity well-spent. As policy

analysts, M.J. Mace and Michiel Schaeffer write,

The motivation for DRR . . . and the Hyogo Framework is to reduce

environmental, human and economic losses from natural disasters, and the
costs of humanitarian assistance in responding to disasters, by encouraging
impacted countries to take greater responsibility for reducing their pre-

32
See M.J. Mace and Michiel Schaeffer , Loss and Damage under the UNFCCC. What relationship to the
Hyogo Framework ? - http://www.lossanddamage.net/download/7248.pdf.
33
Ibid., at p. 2.
34
For a broader discussion of CBDR/RC in the context of climate change law see, Lavanya Rajamani,
Differential Treatment in International Environmental Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006);
Sumudu Atapattu, ‘Climate Change, Differentiated Responsibilities and State Responsibility; Devising
Novel Legal Strategies for Damage Caused by Climate Change, in BJ Richardson, Y Le Bouthillier, H
McLeod-Kilmurray and S Wood (eds.) Climate Change Law and Developing Countries: Legal and Policy
Challenges for the World Economy (Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009), pp. 37 – 62
35
See Judith N. Shklar, The Faces of Injustice 50 ((New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).) p. 50. For a
discussion of Shklar’s “misfortune/injustice” thesis in the context of natural disaster, see Robert R.M.
Verchick ‘Disaster Justice: The Geography of Human Capability’, (2012) 24 Duke Environmental Law &
Policy Forum 23, 27-29.

13
 disaster vulnerability and exposure to hazards - to move to a “prevention
culture.” These approaches also encourage self-reliance and greater
reliance on national resources to facilitate recovery.”36

Reduced loss, more self-reliance, and a smarter “prevention culture” are terrific goals.

But the HFA envisions a world where the worst hazards are traceable either to natural

forces or to a state’s own failure to plan. Thus, while the HFA strongly encourages

international cooperation, the document makes it clear that “each State has the primary

responsibility for its own sustainable development and for taking effective measures to

reduce disaster risk.” 37 The HFA focuses mainly on the deployment of a state’s own
38
resources, institutions, and existing revenue streams. While the DRR regime

contemplates hazards arising from “climate change,” its use of that term (in contrast to

that of the UNFCCC) includes both natural and anthropogenic causes.39 Otherwise, risks

caused by human action beyond national borders are not addressed at all.40

Aid from other countries depends on voluntary contributions based on what

geographer Mark Pelling calls a “flexible commitment, largely based on self-regulation

and trust.”41 While the idea makes sense for at least many kinds of natural disasters, it

loses traction in an era in which blameworthy carbon dioxide emissions have been raising

the seas, swelling the rivers, and baking the fields in provinces all over the world. As we

will see in Part II, it is this debate over misfortune and injustice that is bogging down

36
See Mace and Schaeffer, Loss and Damage under the UNFCCC. What relationship to the Hyogo
Framework ?
37
Framework for Action 2005 – 2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters ,
III A(b), (emphasis added).
38
See Mace and Schaeffer, Loss and Damage under the UNFCCC. What relationship to the Hyogo
Framework?
39
Ibid.
40
Ibid.
41
Mark Pelling, Adaptation to Climate Change From Resilience to Transformation (Abingdon: Routledge,
2011), p. 44. Also see, see Lisa Schipper and Mark Pelling, ‘Disaster risk, climate change, and international
development, scope for, and challenges to integration’ (2006) 30(1) Disasters, 19 – 31

14
current efforts to integrate DRR and CCA.

2. Local Vantage

The issues of causation and responsibility were highlighted by the Global South

during the formative stages of climate negotiations and despite being largely unresolved

in the UNFCCC, they remain critical elements to a global resilience strategy. DRR has

something to teach CCA advocates as well—namely that effective policy must take the

right vantage point. International efforts to curb GHGs understandably began with a

global perspective in mind. They came from everywhere; they went everywhere; and

each unit of a given gas (carbon dioxide, methane) was fungible. Policy was shaped at the

international level then kicked down to the national and local governments. The

UNFCCC acknowledged the need for adaptation strategies from the very beginning, but

took several years to produce specific programs. Today, there are special assistance funds

to help least developed countries draft adaptation plans, support local resilience projects,

preserve important ecosystems, and aid coastal zone planning.42 But the programs, which

intersect mainly at the national level, are not very effective at harnessing energy at the

local level. They are also severely underfunded.

In contrast, the DRR regime has primarily been driven by a “bottom up”

approach. Disaster is recognized at the point of impact and in that sense is localized. It

follows that disaster policy is an example of bottom up policy building that moves in

upward direction from the local to national and then international levels. 43 The

arrangement arises partly from the assumption, discussed above, that natural disasters are

42
See Verchick, ‘Adaptation, Economics, and Justice’, p.280-281.
43
IPCC, IPCC WGII AR5 Summary for Policymakers, ‘Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptations, and
Vulnerability’ available at https://ipcc-
wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/IPCC_WG2AR5_SPM_Approved.pdf, 427

15
inherently domestic affairs but the local vantage comes also from the recognition that

response and recovery, to be effective, demand planning and implementation at the local

level. The UNISDR has thus had a hand in incorporating disaster response information in

grade school curricula in Kazakhstan, in building risk reduction into regional planning

budgets in Nigeria, and in lifting villagers out of poverty in the low-lying river basins of

Vietnam.44

This last example—lifting villagers out of poverty—points to another aspect of

the bottom-up point of view, namely that a community’s risk to disasters is a product of

both physical exposure and social vulnerability. Indeed, factors contributing to social

vulnerability—poverty, low literacy, racism, sexism, and the like—can contribute as

much to a community’s disaster risk as any geological or hydrological feature.45 Whilst

the UNFCCC does recognize that poverty alleviation is an overriding priority for

countries in the Global South it fails to provide any meaningful detail on how to continue

economic development in the context of climate vulnerability, risk and resilience. One

reason is that poverty and related ills belong to other offices in the U.N. family.

Bureaucracies lend themselves to specialized subdivisions, and integration is hard. A

second, more substantive reason is that taking on social vulnerability would involve yet

another discussion of causation and responsibility. How, after all, does one decide what

share of a developing country’s climate vulnerability is attributable to GHG emissions

and what share is attributable to indigence? And what responsibility, if any, do countries

44
See. Farber, Chen, Verchick, & Grow Sun, (eds.), Disaster Law and Policy (Chapter 9).
45
See Verchick, ‘Facing Catastrophe’, pp. 111-16; Generally see, Kristen Dow, Frans Berkhout, Benjamin
L Preston, Richard J T Klein, Guy Midgley and M Rebecca Shaw, ‘Commentary: Limits to Adaptation’
(2013) 3 Nature Climate Change, 305 – 307; W Neil Adger, Suraje Dessai, Marisa Goulden, Mike Hulme,
Irene Lorenzoni, Donald R Nelson, Lars Otto Naess, Johanna Wolf and Anita Wreford, ‘Are there social
limits to adaptation to climate change?’ (2009) 93 Climatic Change, 335 – 354.

16
in the Global North have for conditions of poverty in the Global South? The line between

misfortune and injustice is fading quickly.

To sum up, we have briefly outlined the similarities and differences between

disaster-risk management and climate resilience, both conceptually and as envisioned in

law. Among the many differences between these two regimes, we have emphasized two

that we think will play a critical role in the Global South: group responsibility and local

vantage. Group responsibility, which derives from the climate regime, stresses the

obligation that the Global North owes to the Global South because of its disproportionate

historical contribution to climate change. Local vantage, which derives from the disaster-

management regime, stresses the viewpoint of communities that experience the direct

effects of storms, floods, and droughts. The idea stresses the need for local engagement

as well as the broader reality of social vulnerability. Both concepts are important to

developing countries eager to move forward on climate resilience. To show the specific

role that each concept can play, we turn now to two case studies, one involving the global

policy making stage, the other the diamond-polishing capital of India.

II. “Loss and Damage” under the UNFCCC

The most recent battle on group responsibility is now taking place over the issue

of “loss and damage” under the UNFCCC. Under the Warsaw International Mechanism

or WIM, established in 2013, parties agreed to integrate DRR and CCA to “address[] loss

17
and damage associated with climate change adding that loss and damage... in some cases

involves more than that which can be reduced by adaptation.”46

The issue of “loss and damage” had long been pursued by the Global South. During the

negotiations of the UNFCCC, for instance, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS)

had proposed an international insurance scheme to “compensate the most vulnerable

small-island and low-lying coastal developing countries for loss and damage arising from

sea level rise.”47 At the time it was clear that the issue of vulnerability and responsibility

were at play. Contributions to an assistance fund were to be determined on the basis of

nations’ contribution to global warming and their relative economic strength. Funding

under the insurance scheme was to apply to adverse impacts from sea level rise that

exceeded reasonable adaptation efforts of the “most vulnerable small-island and low level

developing countries.”48

The acknowledgement of DRR has added a significant element of complexity to

the overall debate on loss and damage particularly with regard to the issue of

responsibility. It has prompted the Global North to discuss loss and damage within the

parameters of DRR . The potential to divert the conversation outside the purview of

climate change law and policy was evident in the negotiations following the 18th

46
Report of the Conference of the Parties on Its Nineteenth Session, Held in Warsaw from 11 to 23
November 2013 – Addendum – Part Two: Action Taken by the Conference of the Parties at Its Nineteenth
Session, UN Doc FCCC/CP/2013/10/Add.1 (31 January 2014) Decision 2/CP.19. For further commentary
see, Kristen Dow and Frans Berkhout Climate change, Limits to Adaptation and the ‘Loss and Damage’
Debate March 13, 2014 , http://www.e-ir.info/2014/03/13/climate-change-limits-to-adaptation-and-the-
loss-and-damage-debate/; Roda Verheyen, Tackling Loss and Damage – A New Role for the Climate
Regime? http://www.lossanddamage.net/download/6877.pdf, 6-7.
47
Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) for a Framework Convention on Climate Change
(FCCC), Fourth session, 9-20 December 1991, Geneva, Switzerland Report of the Intergovernmental
Negotiating Committee for a Framework Convention on Climate Change on the work of its fourth session,
held at Geneva from 9 to 20 December 1991 at p 127.
48
Mace and Schaeffer, Loss and Damage under the UNFCCC. What relationship to the Hyogo Framework
? .

18
Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP-18)49 and in the lead up to the WIM.

The Global South was adamant that the institutional arrangements mentioned in the COP-

18 decision take the form of a new international mechanism that provided support to

vulnerable developing countries in minimizing the impacts of loss and damage especially

in the form of more frequent and severe weather events as well as the progressive loss

and damage caused by slow onset events.50 By contrast, the Global North maintained that

a new, specific international mechanism was unnecessary and that the concerns of

countries vulnerable to adverse impacts and therefore loss and damage could be

adequately addressed under the existing disaster risk reduction frameworks, institutions

and processes, namely the UNISDR and HFA, that are located outside the UNFCCC –.51

For example the United States opposed the inclusion of loss and damage in the climate

change regime on a number of grounds including that the issue is adequately represented

in DRR instruments and that national response measures were sufficient thereby negating

the need for an international approach. 52 The European Union asserted that the gap

between DRR and CCA needed to be bridged and that, “assessing the risk of loss and

damage associated with the adverse impacts of climate change should be seen in the

49
Report of the Conference of the Parties on Its Eighteenth Session, Held in Doha from 26 Novemeber to 8
December 2012 – Addendum – Part Two: Action Taken by the Conference of the Parties at Its Thirteenth
Session, UN Doc FCCC/CP/2007/6/Add.1 (14 March 2008)
50
Submission by Nauru on behalf of AOSIS, FCCC/SBI/2012/MISC.14; Submission by Gambia in behalf
of the LDCs. FCCC/SBI/2011/MISC.8; More generally, See Subsidiary Body for Implementation, Thirty-
Seventh Session, Doha, (26 November to- 1 December,), Views and information from Parties and relevant
organizations on the possible elements to be included in the recommendation of loss and damage in
accordance with decision 1/CP.16 (8 October 2012).
51
See - Subsidiary Body for Implementation, Thirty Fifth Session, Durban, 28 November to 3 December
2011, Views and information on the thematic areas in the implementation of the work programme, Item 8 of
the provisional agenda, Approaches to address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in
developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change to enhance
adaptive capacity (14 November 2011) - http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2011/sbi/eng/misc08a01.pdf>
52
Roda Verheyen, Tackling Loss and Damage – A New Role for the Climate Regime?
http://www.lossanddamage.net/download/6877.pdf, p. 6-7.

19
broader context of disaster risk management, where interventions pertain to reducing the

risk, anticipating the risk and responding to it as well as interventions to recover from

impacts.”53

The Global South has argued that such submissions reflect the propensity of the

Global North to continually deflect questions of responsibility.54 It is claimed that the

inclusion of references to DRR in documents dedicated to CCA such as the Cancun

Adaptation Framework and promotion of the HFA has come at the insistence of the

Global North and is a deliberate tactic to move the discussion out of the context of

climate change and into that of disaster policy.55 The object is to neutralize the issue of

state responsibility that still underlies the relationship between the Global North and

South in the climate change context. Mace and Schaeffer note that some nations of the

Global South view the attempt to relocate the discussion of loss and damage into a

different international framework as severing “the causal link between emissions and

impacts” and thereby placing “responsibility on countries to find ways to reduce their

own vulnerabilities, using their own resources.”56

The South may be right. The HFA, as noted before, has no way of accounting for

human causation, pollution spillovers, or group culpability. It anticipates no role for the

polluter pays principle, transboundary harm, or CBDR/RC. If climate hazard is a matter

of injustice rather than misfortune, it makes more sense to integrate DRR into CCA and

not the other way around. The global discussion of “loss and damage” is an example, in

53
Subsidiary Body for Implementation, Approaches to address loss and damage.
54
Mace and Schaeffer, Loss and Damage. under the UNFCCC. What relationship to the Hyogo Framework
?
55
Ibid.
56
Ibid.

20
our eyes, of integration between disaster resilience and climate resilience going wrong.

That is because influential parties in the North are underestimating (or willfully ignoring)

the importance of responsibility and justice that underlies all climate change issues.

However there is also potential for integration to go right. Adaptation efforts

under the UNFCCC have arguably failed to reach their potential in part because they are

poorly funded and do not adequately engage the local community. The challenge is

immense. Yet some private foundations have begun experimenting with pilot projects

across the developing world to see how true climate resilience might take root. Many of

these projects are informed by basic teachings in DRR literature which emphasize local

networking and social and economic conditions in the community. Were adaptation

efforts under the UNFCCC to integrate these lessons, the result might be a more

community-based model such as the one described below.

III. Surat, India

Perhaps no country in the world is as vulnerable on so many fronts to climate

change as India. With 7,000 kilometers of coastline, the vast Himalayan glaciers, and

nearly 70 million hectares of forests, India is especially vulnerable to a climate trending

toward warmer temperatures, erratic precipitation, higher seas, and swifter storms. Then

there are India’s megacities (housing nearly a quarter of the population, many of them

living in slums), where all of these trends conspire to threaten public health and safety on

a grand scale—portending heat waves, drought, thicker smog layers, coastal storms, and

blown-out sewer systems. These problems will surely grow as rural populations displaced

by negative climate effects migrate into the cities, overwhelming critical services related

to health, transportation, housing, energy, and water. When experts rank countries in

21
terms of population centers most exposed to extreme weather events (like droughts and

floods) or the hazards of sea-level rise, India is always at the top of the list.57 Yet, in the

midst of these grim facts, there are glints of hope, as in a recent resilience project taking

place in Surat.

Surat, a medium-sized Indian city of 4.5 million people, is a global center for

textile production and diamond polishing. 58 Eighty percent of the diamonds sold in

jewelry shops around the world are shaped by Surati hands. Nearly every Indian has

something in their wardrobe from Surat—which is what one would expect from a city

whose clattering looms churn out 30 million meters of fabric a day.59 The city lies 250

kilometers north of Mumbai, near the Arabian Sea. Its proximity to the Tapti River

delta—a strategic advantage in trade—also makes Surat a flood magnet. In the last 20

years, the city has been affected by three major floods caused by emergency releases

from an upstream dam. Lesser floods, caused by hard rains, occur more frequently. In

1994, such a flood led to an outbreak of the plague.60 In addition, tidal surges moving up

the mouth of the Tapti River threaten the city from the opposite direction. Even on calm

days, high tides push salt water into parts of the river needed for drinking. All of these

57
See, e.g., U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, ‘Global: Twelve Countries on
Climate Change Hit-List’, IRIN News, 8 July 2009, available at http://www.irinnews.org/report/85179
(citing a World Bank study that ranks India as among the countries that are most vulnerable to droughts,
floods, and agricultural disasters, which are all linked to climate change); see also Stephane Hallegatte,
Colin Green, Robert J. Nicholls and Jan Corfee-Morlot, ‘Future flood losses in major coastal cities’ (2013)
3 Nature Climate Change 802–806 (ranking Mumbai, India, as the fifth most vulnerable city, in terms of
material assets at risk to sea-level rise).
58
G K Bhat, Anup Karanth, Lalit Dashora and Umamaheshwaran Rajasekar, ‘Addressing flooding in the
city of Surat beyond its boundaries’ (2013) 25(2) Environment and Urbanization, pp. 429 – 441; Surat City
Resilience Strategy April 2011; ACCRN, Climate Resilient Urban Development: Vulnerability Profiles of
20 Indian Cities 2013;
59
Surat City Resilience Strategy, April 2011, p. 14.
60
See A.K. Dutt, R. Akhtar, M. McVeigh, ‘Surat Plague of 1994 Re-Examined’, (2006) 37 Southeast Asian
Journal of Tropical Medicine and Public Health, 755.

22
problems will be aggravated by climate change, due to stronger downpours and rising

seas.

For these reasons, Surat has developed an urban “resilience strategy,” focused on

adapting to climatic change.61 The initiative is supported by the Asian Cities Climate

Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN), an organization funded by the Rockefeller

Foundation. With the help of outside experts, the city has assessed the climatic risks in

relation to flood management, energy, and public health. The city is implementing a new

early warning system for major floods and designing an inflatable dam to protect the river

from saltwater intrusion. Much of this work has been accomplished through a flexible

and relatively loose network of public officials, business people, and community

members organized around one compelling goal: climate resilience. But that goal serves

an array of interests. The political and business communities were concerned about trade

and economic growth, which were threatened by downtown floods. The public health

community, still haunted by its experience with the plague, was committed to cleaning

the streets and delivering potable water. And everyone, most notably those in the poor

and working classes, wanted housing that would not wash away with the next monsoon.

Addressing climate impacts, it must be noted, were not anyone’s first priority. But when

ACCCRN announced its interest in funding projects pursuing that goal, city managers

were savvy enough to jump at the chance. While not without their flaws, Surat’s efforts

are considered one of the success stories of urban adaption projects in Asia.

Integrating climate resilience into everyday governance requires effective

networking and a solid legal framework—features that were previously referred to as

61
See Surat City Resilience Strategy April 2011, p. 11.

23
“rope lines” and “footholds.”62 “Rope lines” describe the formal or informal relationships

among public and private actors at various levels of jurisdictional boundaries (national,

regional, local) and across given sectors (public health, agriculture, energy, and so on).63

The relationships can be described as vertical (related to level of jurisdiction) or

horizontal (related to sector).64 “Footholds” describe existing policies or laws that may

be used to “anchor” new initiatives related to climate adaptation.65

The climate resiliency initiatives in Surat, illustrate the importance of vertical

rope lines. Developing a municipal warning system for river-based floods proved

challenging because the events were triggered by planned releases from a dam in a

neighboring state. 66 Negotiating the plan took years and involved local leaders, state

water management offices, and participation from India’s central government. Other

adaptation efforts also relied on existing land-use authorities (“footholds”) to reconfigure

street drainage and public health laws to support its efforts in protecting drinking water

from saltwater intrusion. All of this is overseen by a recently-created municipal climate

adaptation council—a horizontal “rope line,” whose participants include representatives

from city government, the local chamber of commerce, and public health advocates.67

Additional horizontal networking came about through experiences of “shared

learning.” Shared learning emphasizes the role of local actors in complex adaptive

systems. By involving community members early in the process and actively facilitating

62
See Robert R.M. Verchick and Abby Hall, ‘Adapting to Climate Change while Planning for Disaster:
Footholds, Rope Lines, and the Iowa Floods’, (2011) 6 Brigham Young Universuty (BYU) Law Review.
2203.
63
Ibid. at 2204-2205.
64
Ibid. at 2210-2211.
65
Ibid.
66
Ibid. at 2236-2237.
67
Ibid. at 2235.

24
planning and communication strategies, the method “promote[s] learning and co-

production of knowledge; build[s] new formal and informal networks across scales and

sectors; build[s] capacities of stakeholders for analysis and self-representation; and

spark[s] innovative responses to problems.” 68 There is also more of a chance that

69
outcomes will be “socially just.” But social learning demands more than an

organizational template or policy “tool kit.” It requires high levels of involvement not

only from residents, but also from sponsors and facilitators.

Techniques in social learning, described above, can help communities identify

vulnerabilities and develop practical solutions. Some municipalities are also taking

advantage of new technological tools, like GIS mapping. As part of its climate

vulnerability assessment, the city of Surat used a combination of household interviews,

hydrological data, and GIS mapping to create a “vulnerability and capacity” index for the

city’s neighborhoods. The index combined data on physical vulnerabilities like flood risk

and sewer backups with social vulnerabilities, measured in terms of income, education,

and social cohesion. The highlighted risk in slums and low-income neighborhoods

prompted several proposals, including a computer database of vulnerable households,

stronger building codes in poor areas, and community banks where flood-prone

households can protect valuable goods.70

But Surat’s experience raises a cautionary note. One of the city’s most dramatic

efforts to reduce flood risk involves the relocation of slums, many of which are located

along tidal creeks, river banks, or drainage lines. Over the last decade, Surat moved tens

68
Reed Friend, Toan, Thinphanga, Sutarto, and Singh, ‘ SharedLearning, 393-412.
69
Ibid.
70
Bhat, Karanth, Dashora and Rajasekar ‘Addressing flooding in the city of Surat beyond its boundaries’,,
11.

25
of thousands of families from flood-prone slums to townships in safer parts of the city.71

Similar efforts are planned for the future. But these townships, sometimes located several

kilometers away, lack the work opportunities and city services found in the urban core.

Many residents are moving back and re-settling (illegally) in the flood plains, again

increasing the city’s vulnerability index.

IV. Conclusion

Natural disasters and global warming compound pre-existing risks and present a

double menace. Thus far, the international frameworks we use for regulating and

combating these issues have lacked alignment. Integration is crucial, but not without

deliberation. If integrating CCA into DRR means giving up notions of group

responsibility—the leverage the South needs to win aid from the North—the marriage

would be a failure. If CCA continued without learning lessons in local networking and

social vulnerability from decades of DRR research, much potential good will have been

lost. The question is not whether the policies of disaster resilience and climate resilience

must align, but how, and in whose interest.

71
Surat City Resilience Strategy at 26.

26