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Part I
Introduction
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1 Why this book? Why now?
Edith Kürzinger and Astrid Carrapatoso
This publication is primarily based on the revised and, in many cases, substantially enhanced papers originally discussed in the context of the General Conference 2011 of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI). The EADI conference was organised jointly with the Development Studies Association (DSA) on 19–22 September 2011 at the University of York in the United Kingdom on the topic: ‘Rethinking Development in an Age of Scarcity and Uncertainty: New Values, Voices, and Alliances for Increased Resilience’.1
The main purpose of the four sessions of the EADI Working Group ‘Environment, Climate Change and Sustainable Development’, subsumed in the present publication, was to organise an exchange between academia and practitioners, with the former bringing in the theoretical discourse and lessons from empirical case studies by researchers around the topics ‘climate change, livelihoods, vulnerability and resilience’, and the latter offering conceptual reflections on climate-related problems and the deficiencies regarding the design and implementation of international climate policies. The specific objective of the fruitful, even though mostly virtual, dialogue between researchers and practitioners ‘on the ground’ was to create common ground on the following questions:
- Where and how are climate stressors endangering livelihoods, how are the affected actors responding to them, and what can be learned from a bottom-up perspective for best practice and policy design with respect to climate change management?
- Whether and how are policies and politics at local and national levels effectively supporting these efforts, and which improvements or reforms are needed?
- To what extent and how does the international climate regime provide mechanisms that help (or hinder) local and national adaptation and mitigation efforts, and how could these be improved?
- How can the tardiness, even de facto stagnation, and the limited outcome of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiation process be bypassed through bottom-up approaches in the form of enhanced local, national, and inter-regional action, and (how) could this (re)inject new energy into the global climate management process?
- Finally, what lessons can be drawn for a research agenda on climate-resilient development, and which recommendations can be given for actors at different levels?
Workshop participants critically discussed the challenges, achievements, and shortcomings of the UNFCCC process, and, in the context of the case studies provided, UNFCCC’s effect on climate-resilient development. Contributors concurred that there was a need to not only reform the negotiation process (if it was to be kept alive), but also to give more room for bottom-up thinking and initiatives. Activities (and research) ‘on the ground’ provide best practice examples of climate-resilient development (CRD) for specific local contexts; they also show why implementation of CRD policies is a challenging task as socio-economic, political, and ecological factors must simultaneously be taken into account, considering both development and climate change issues. Participants were of the opinion that paying more attention to the implementation side of global climate policy making and allowing for an enhanced bottom-up process would certainly render societies more resilient to climate change.
Through this book, the contributors want to share their ideas, experiences, and critical thinking on climate policy with a wider audience ranging from academics, policy makers, and diplomats to ‘on the ground’ practitioners, civil society, and economic actors from both the environment/climate and the development community. This book incorporates discussions of a wide variety of topics raised by actors in both of these policy fields related to climate-resilient development, climate policy and diplomacy, sustainable development, environmental governance, livelihoods approaches, resilience thinking, resource efficiency issues, and development studies.
At the heart of the book are case studies stemming from upwards of 15 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, carried out through empirical research, in some cases through action research (Part II), and the conceptual reflections on various elements of the international climate regime presented by a mix of practitioners and application-oriented scholars (Part III). The contributions by researchers and practitioners in these two parts are guided by the following questions:
- What contribution can the empirical case studies, research, and conceptual reflections make to climate-resilient development in the various countries and/or regions?
- What can be depicted as ‘best practice’ from a normative and problem-solving perspective in the analysed cases, or what has to be improved to transform them into best practice? Who will learn what from which kind of action?
- Which practical lessons can be learned from the analyses for national, regional, and/or international framework conditions regarding climate-resilient development? And what could this mean for the international climate regime?
This book shows that climate policy may have reached an impasse, with the failed climate summits since Copenhagen 2009 proving unable to produce a new global agreement on limiting greenhouse gas emissions that would commit major polluters, including the emerging economies, to reasonable reduction efforts. The contributions to this volume change the reader’s perspective from the current top-down approach to global climate policy to a bottom-up perspective: stepping down from the UNFCCC ivory tower, it puts local actors in developing countries and regions and their efforts towards adaptation and mitigation of climate change at the centre of analysis – as a starting point for disseminating lessons learned and good practice. This is an example of the general trend that was visible at the York conference and has also become apparent in other forums. After many decades in which Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries claimed to be the model for the developing world, 20 years after Rio’s Earth Summit, we may have finally entered into a world that leaves behind the North–South divide and opens the space for global learning from the best examples that can be found in whatever country and region to manage the long and arduous transition towards achieving sustainable, climate-resilient development for all.
The content
Part I: Introduction
In Chapter 2 ‘Finding a panacea? An introduction into climate-resilient development’ by Astrid Carrapatoso and Edith Kürzinger, the authors analyse the theoretical debate on concepts relevant for understanding climate-resilient development and provide the context for the enhanced and modified conference papers. They address the following questions:
- Why is the UNFCCC process, at least at present, a blind alley for the effective management of climate change?
- Why is CRD a value-adding concept that facilitates the integration of ideas and actors from, so far, four separate realms: science, climate diplomacy, policy making, and actors ‘on the ground’?
- How is CRD embedded in the wider framework of sustainable development and its implementation problems?
- Why does it make sense to use CRD as a theoretical concept, and how is it defined?
- How is CRD related (or not) to processes, such as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and Green Economy?
- How can CRD contribute towards developing and implementing, bottom up and step by step, a realistic policy model?
- Why and how can CRD trigger a new dialogue between the ‘development/ poverty eradication world’ and the ‘environmental/climate world’?
- What innovative contributions can CRD make to the international climate regime?
Part II: The contribution of local, regional, and national approaches to climate-resilient development or what good practices and lessons learned can be disseminated?
In this part, local, regional, and national approaches to foster climate resilience in Asia, Africa, and Latin America are discussed; the authors especially analyse policies that foster or hamper capacity-building and action at local and national levels and discuss their impact on climate-resilient development, its beneficiaries, and the establishment of best practice. The empirical case studies address the following topics:
- Chapter 3 ‘Shaping strategies: factors and actors in climate change adaptation’ by Ciara Kirrane, Cliona Sharkey and Lars Otto Naess. Through action research on households in four countries in Africa and Latin America, these authors analyse how actors, in this case rural families, are coping with climate stressors and livelihood issues.
- Chapter 4 ‘Climate change adaptation in southern Benin: a multi-scale perspective on rural communities of Mono and Couffo’ by Marie-Ange Baudoin. This author illustrates the felt threat of climate change (CC) to farmers in Benin, their autonomous adaptation and the (lack of) impact of National Action Plans for Adaptation (NAPA) to support local resilience and livelihoods by planned adaptation.
- Chapter 5 ‘Building community-based institutions in Western Orissa Rural Livelihoods Project for green development’ by Gala Bhaskar Reddy and Niranjan Sahu. Based on their work in a community-based rural and ‘green’ approach to integrated regional development in Orissa, India, these authors present a successful example of institution-building for coping with development and climate stressors to increase the resilience of rural actors.
- Chapter 6 ‘How good are good practices? Understanding CBDRM in Mozambique’ by Luís Artur. This author critically analyses the actual output of what turned out to be an only theoretical bottom-up approach to community-based disaster risk management in Mozambique.
- Chapter 7 ‘Making a difference through Integrated Natural Resources Management: the role of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana’ by Sampson E. Edusah. This author describes the process and results of the university’s response to stakeholders’ demands to introduce INRM into its teaching, research, and advisory services.
Part III: Climate-resilient development, innovation, and best practice – how to reform and bypass inefficiencies and structural shortcomings of the international climate regime
This part analyses the need and potential to reform the international climate regime, specifically the UNFCCC process with its existing and evolving mechanisms, such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), carbon trading, and Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA). The authors discuss the pros and cons of these approaches, lessons to be learned, and their implications for effective climate change mitigation and adaptation.
The contributions address the following topics:
- Chapter 8 ‘Green gold versus black gold: the Yasuní-ITT Initiative as an alternative way forward?’ by Amy Woodrow-Arai. This author discusses the results of the REDD process and the innovative Yasuní Ishpingo Tambococha Tiputini (ITT) approach in Ecuador, which aims to trade a national policy of ‘not digging out oil’ for nature conservation and international financial compensation.
- Chapter 9 ‘Developing economies in the current climate change regime: new prospects for resilience and sustainability? The case of CDM projects in Asia’ by Pauline Lacour and Jean-Christophe Simon. These authors analyse the implementation and impact of the CDM in Southeast Asia and China, and draw lessons for its future application and the effects on the current position of developing countries within the climate regime.
- Chapter 10 ‘Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing? Similar problem, opposing remedies – a comparison of the Montreal Protocol and Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism’ by Thomas Grammig. This author describes the reasons for and effects of the overlap between the Montreal and Kyoto Protocols and explores the impact of diverging approaches for phasing out ozone-depleting substances with global warming potential (HFC-R 134a).
- Chapter 11 ‘Interregional climate cooperation: EU–China relations as a success story?’ by Astrid Carrapatoso and Mareike Well. Using the example of the dialogue between the European Union (EU) and China, these authors assess the potential of inter-regional initiatives for stepping up action on concrete climate change management.
- Chapter 12 ‘How to bypass multilateral gridlocks: resilient climate change management and efficient multi-level climate politics’ by Edith Kürzinger.This author analyses the shortcomings of the ‘dead horse’ UNFCCC and the potential for reform, primarily from a change management perspective. A rest period for stocktaking and evaluation should lead to a redesign of the process based on the subsidiarity principle and a reorientation through new content, perspectives and methods, as well as to ‘bypassing mechanisms’ bottom up: massive scaling up of successful action experienced at different policy levels, especially the use of the untapped potentials of best practice in resource efficiency, cost-effective change management processes, no regret front-runner approaches, and climate-resilient policy reforms.
Part IV: The way forward to climate-resilient development
The final chapter, ‘Conclusions for research and policy agendas’ by Astrid Carrapatoso and Edith Kürzinger, brings together the key discussion points and conclusions drawn by the contributors, together with the recommendations resulting from the empirical studies and conceptual reflections. They identify avenues for further research and outline a potential agenda for a way forward. In ...
