Governance Approaches to Mitigation of and Adaptation to Climate Change in Asia

H. Ha, T. Dhakal, H. Ha, T. Dhakal

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137325204
• eBook ISBN: 9781137325211
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Academics and practitioners from across Asia and beyond revisit the issues and impact of climate change in Asia. They examine the preconditions for good governance regarding climate change, and the role of state and non-state actors in climate change governance, and explore different political-legal frameworks.

Part I

Issues and Impact of Climate Change in Asia

1

Governance Approaches to Mitigation of and Adaptation to Climate Change in Asia: An Introduction

Huong Ha and Tek Nath Dhakal

1. Introduction

Climate change (CC) has become one of the pressing issues in several business and policy debates because it is one of the most serious and prolonged threats to the security and well-being of millions of people across all nations. Shortages of food, energy, water, medicine, healthcare and so forth make up a horrific picture of the adverse effects of CC on our planet. The increasingly powerful and more frequent occurrences of typhoons, droughts, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and volcanic activities/eruptions have intensified such effects. It should be noted that some of these are man-made but others are natural, so solutions to address the causes are different. While, for many reasons, several nations worldwide have not been seriously pursuing any common agenda to either stop or slow down the process, or mitigate the impact of CC, adaptation to its consequences has absolutely become a real challenge for all relevant stakeholders, including states, the private sector, civil society and individuals in different countries.

Climate change is a major environmental, economic and social issue. The increased amount of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) has made CC a major and costly challenge to climate-vulnerable people and communities. The impacts of CC are more pronounced in landlocked and mountainous countries. South Asia is particularly vulnerable to its impacts. Some of the effects have already been seen, such as droughts, downstream flooding, intense rainfall, shifting of monsoon periods and declining crop productivity. Managing the adverse impacts of CC on people’s livelihoods, agriculture, water resources, energy, health and biodiversity is a huge challenge that requires comprehensive national strategies and action plans. The occurrences and reoccurrences of several natural and man-made disasters in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in South and East Asia (and recently in North and South America) suggest an urgent and increased demand for inspection, monitoring, capacity-building, and enhancement of public governance and administration to create greater security for the world’s population and the global economy.

Since the impact of CC has gone beyond the conventional governance approaches, and has transcended research fields/disciplines and national boundaries, multifaceted and multi-sector governance approaches are required to effectively and efficiently manage CC and its impact. The absence of good governance, especially in South Asian and Southeast Asian regions, has often been ascribed to many different reasons. Among them are insufficient capacity and lack of commitment of the public sector and other groups of stakeholders, lack of transparency and accountability in policy-making and the implementation processes, and a high level of corruption in the public sector.

Governments in the Asian region, especially in South Asia, are at the juncture of searching for novel ways to improve governance and foster coordinated efforts with other non-state actors, such as the private sector, industry and civil society organisations, including non-governmental organisations, consumer associations, professional associations and community-based organisations. Although technological initiatives, such as green-IT and green-power technologies, have been available and used by many companies in some countries, these initiatives should be adopted by many more industries and countries. In this setting there has been a lengthy and intense debate about how all relevant groups of stakeholders can jointly address challenges associated with CC and environmental degradation, and embrace ‘better governance’ approaches through knowledge management and exchange, and improved organisational learning. Thus it is essential to investigate and analyse how state and non-state actors can cooperatively contribute to the common cause of improving governance in Asia.

The global mechanisms to deal with CC issues, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), under which global negotiations are held, must be enabled to work efficiently and effectively to tackle the growing menace of CC in an equitable and just manner. The Durban Climate Conference and the recent Rio Convention have facilitated some progress in the direction of ensuring the operationalisation of the Green Climate Fund in favour of developing countries, including least-developed countries, and globally binding emissions reductions by 2020. The Kyoto Protocol has been extended beyond its expiry in 2012. Given the urgency of the problem, the ways in which these mechanisms are working need to be streamlined and made more effective to ensure that more concrete results will be achieved. Regional organisations such as the Association of South East Asian Nations and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation should work in solidarity and with a sense of purpose to fight the menace of CC in a comprehensive manner. They should exert moral pressure on the developed world and relevant international organisations for deeper and speedier emissions cuts and an increased flow of resources, technology and funds for poor countries to cope with their increasing need to adopting appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures.

The objectives of this book are to (i) revisit the issues and impact of CC in Asia, (ii) examine the preconditions for good governance regarding CC, and the role of state and non-state actors in the governance for CC and (iii) explore different political–legal frameworks of decentralised and participatory state-planning, including the enactment of environmental legislation and impact assessment of various environmental projects.

The 14 chapters are contributed by authors from different countries and from various disciplines, focusing on CC impact and various governance models applied across countries in Asia. They are classified under the three following main themes: (i) issues and impact of CC in Asia (four chapters),(ii) preconditions of good governance and the role of different sectors (five chapters) and (iii) governance approaches for managing CC (five chapters).

2. An overview of the chapters

Part I starts with Chapter 2, ‘Climate Change, Vanishing Ecosystems and the Challenge of Achieving Human Prosperity’, by Amita Singh. This reflects the severe consequences of CC on current ecological and human systems. Land degradation, water depletion and large-scale deforestation leading to the extinction of several species are only some of the impacts of CC and environmental problems. CC not only induces (i) an increase in the cost of ecosystem services and (ii) a reduction in economic benefits; it also contributes to intensifying poverty. Findings from studies by different researchers, such as Pounds and Puschendorf (2004), Pimm (2007) and Chellaney (2011), and international governmental and non-governmental organisations, such as the World Resources Institute, the United Nations (UN) Environment Programme, the IPCC, the UN and others, confirm that there is a strong correlation between ecosystem depletion and human well-being. Singh highlights that some ‘convenient truth’ alerted the policy-makers and relevant stakeholders. She goes on to argue that isolated efforts to address issues associated with conservation of some commercial species in order to achieve sustainable development may produce adverse outcomes and jeopardise global progress regarding environmental sustainability. She explains that an anthropogenic or human-centred approach to achieving prosperity raises ethical questions of intragenerational equity and justice. Nevertheless, this situation can be improved considerably or reverted through both incremental and transformational changes in the current governance approaches, including policies, institutions, mechanisms and programmes, which aim to prevent undesirable trade-offs and enhance positive synergies in ecosystem conservation efforts.

Chapter 3, ‘The Interplay between Climate Change, Economy and Displacement: Experience from Asia’, by A.K.M. Ahsan Ullah, discusses the interdependence between CC, economy and displacement in the context of Asia. He agrees totally with Amita Singh that the impacts of CC on human beings have become one of the most pressing and sophisticated issues that must be addressed not only at the national level but also at the international level. CC can potentially and vigorously increase social and economic costs, cause habitat reduction and trigger human displacement in various locations in Asia. He clarifies that although human displacement has increasingly gained worldwide attention, efforts to address the imminent health and safety concerns of those who are affected by such displacement are not as robust as is merited. This is due to disagreement about how to respond to CC since the parties involved perceive that some responses may pose a threat to their personal or national interests. Therefore it is important for the involved parties to search for a consensus on how the accords and the agreements related to CC can be endorsed and stringently adopted.

Chapter 4, ‘Disaster Communication in Mitigating Climate Change in Sri Lanka: Problems and Prospects’, by R. Lalitha S. Fernando focuses on disaster communication in mitigating CC in Sri Lanka. This a very important topic, especially during crises. The long-lasting and haunting experience of the 2004 tsunami, and another disastrous situation in 2011, causing considerable damage to people’s lives, property and to the economy, are very painful. They are costly lessons of how better communication during disasters can save many lives. Fernando stresses that if citizens are ignorant about possible disasters, their lives are at significant risk, and without communication, no disaster management is possible. Ineffective communication is considered to be one of the main barriers to the management of natural disasters in Sri Lanka. This chapter examines various measures which can help to improve two-way communication in the process of mitigation of CC in Sri Lanka. Fernando argues that information and communications technology can be used by relevant stakeholders as a feasible and effective means to communicate with the public and with each other in the governance process to respond to CC.

In Chapter 5, ‘Climate Change and Global Environmental Governance: The Asian Experience’, Gamini Herath explores various impacts of CC, not only from the standpoint of an environmentalist but also from that of an economist and a futurist. The key issue discussed in this chapter evolves around the escalated increase in GHG emissions worldwide as discussed by other authors – namely, Beg et al. (2002), Shui and Robert (2006), and Raman (2009). He explains that although developing countries have adopted several measures to respond to the widespread and long-lasting adverse effects of CC, insufficient capacity together with inadequate financial and social resources create one of the barriers to effective mitigation and adaptation to CC impacts. This issue does not pertain to developing countries, but developed countries have also struggled in establishing a common understanding of how to govern CC effectively and efficiently. One of the examples cited by Herath is the limited effectiveness of the Kyoto Protocol due to the disagreement among political leaders in respective countries. The leaders of many developed countries have refused to rectify this agreement for many reasons. Ironically, these countries produce the most GHG emissions per capita, but at the same time they call for novel and innovative approaches to prevent and alleviate the destructive effects of CC.

At the start of Part II, Chapter 6, ‘Approaches to Climate Change Adaptation: A Case Study of Agricultural Initiatives in Japan’, by Izumi Tsurita, S.V.R.K Prabhakar and Daisuke Sano, discusses various measures to adapt CC impacts on the agricultural sector. Unlike others, the authors claim that research studies on how a developed country addresses issues associated with CC is as important as debates and studies on CC adaptation in developing countries. Thus the chapter examines the initiatives taken in the agricultural sector in Japan, using two prefectures – namely, Niigata and Miyazaki, as case studies. The findings reveal that these prefectures have embarked on an ambitious plan to develop rice varieties that can withstand the predicted climatic vagaries. However, such initiatives are limited and fragmented, and they lack central coordination and cooperation. The authors suggest that it is imperative to formulate an all-inclusive masterplan which embraces multistakeholder, multisectorial and multilevel approaches in order to address the ongoing and new challenges of the governance of CC.

In the context of Japan, S.V.R.K. Prabhakar, Misa Aoki and Reina Mashimo explore CC adaptive policies at the macro level in Chapter 7, ‘How Adaptive Policies Are in Japan and Can Adaptive Policies Mean Effective Policies? Some Implications for Governing Climate Change Adaptation’. They observe that policies, structures and institutions, which are adaptive in nature or are designed to change, are assumed to be able to cope with CC impacts (Parry et al., 2007). Yet there has been insufficient assessment of the effectiveness of such systems in terms of adaptation to CC due to the unavailability of substantial experience in CC adaptation in most countries. This chapter explores the development of agriculture policies over time in Japan. It also examines the challenges which policy-makers and implementers have faced and addressed during the course of action (Ohara and Soda, 1994). The findings of their study demonstrate that variables, such as the timeliness of introduction of policies and frequent revision of policies, may not be correlated with the success of adaptive policies because other variables – for example, the understanding by relevant stakeholders of the issues on the basis of which the policy was made – also affect the effectiveness of the adaptive policies in the agriculture sector.

In Chapter 8, ‘Management of Climate-Induced National Security: Paradigm Shift from Geopolitics to Carbon Politics’, Md Shafiqul Islam debates another dimension of CC management – that is, the management of climate-induced national security. He explains that the vulnerabilities induced from CC include human displacement, reduction of clean water, loss of livelihood, health hazards, energy crisis, and change of hydrological patterns and ecosystems. Such vulnerabilities directly affect human security, which eventually leads to national insecurity (Joshua, 2007; Muniruzzaman, 2011). Islam argues that, in order to address the threats to national security associated with CC, there should be a paradigm shift f...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• Part I: Issues and Impact of Climate Change in Asia
• Part II: Preconditions of Good Governance and the Role of Different Sectors
• Part III: Governance Approaches to Managing Climate Change
• Index