Adopting a state-centric perspec- tive, Geoff Cockfield investigates the controversy around the merits of adaptation to, or mitigation of, climate change. He predicts that liberal- democratic states will struggle to accommodate the demands of those who want climate change policy to be focused on mitigation. As a result, state responses will include non-decision-making, compromised mitiga- tion programmes, weak implementation and a lack of accountability in pursuing outcomes and targets. Recognising these problems, he explores the limits and possible costs of relying more on adaptation as a response to climate change.

The next three chapters lo

Intersting question. I have no knowledge of serious critical approach to the IPCC point of view.

Or rather, there are many criticisms of the IPCC approach because considered too 'optimistic', given that the outcomes must be endorsed by all countries involved, and that in reality the situation is worse than reported in the IPCC reports.

It is a difficult to give an unbiaised opinion. It could be easier to found suspicious comments about IPCC report in litterature rather than objective feedbacks. In addition, you are not obliged to believe me.

However, you may notice that:

- the conclusions are based on scientific studies, which could be thought in majority honnest and lying on truth. Authors of the report are numerous and the references involve much more people.

- forecasts take into account several scenarii depending on demography and several choices of economical developments.

This article might be of use: http://www.pnas.org/content/109/19/7156 Not critical of IPCC per se, but a step beyond the usual 'incremental adaptation' rhetoric.

Rafael,

I am curious about your reasons to look for such literature. If you look in other questions in this site in Climate Change topic you will find some posts of researchers critical with IPCC and its reports, and in some of them they offer literature to support their positions. However, I agree with Fabio, as this literature is either outdated (some previous to IPCC, so it is not strictly critical with IPCC) or coming from blogs that just express opinions rather than reporting facts and findings.

Dear colleagues, Thank you for your answers! Just to clarify: I do not want to dispute IPCC reports, etc! I am interested on the resurgence / revival and meaning of the adaptation concept in the current climate change literature. More particularly on the dominance of the adjustment adaptation approaches, which view climate impacts as the main source of vulnerability. And why there is lack of attention in the this literature to the social roots of vulnerability and the necessity for political–economic change to achieve transformational adaptation.

@Raphael

your last post clarified the issue. I agree, sometimes seems that 'resilience', 'adaptation' and 'vulnerability' where words that don't exist before Climate Change became a 'best seller'. Who works in sustainable development knows very well that climate change effects are only the 'cherry' on top of a big tragedy.

I.E. few knows that in Bangladesh for cyclone flood in 1991 the death rate of women where 4,7 times the man rate: women don't know how climb threes, cannot swim and have to stay home waiting their husband came to bring them in a safety place. ( http://www.genderandenvironment.org/generoyambiente.org/index.php/en/knowledge-center/doc_download/1948-fact-sheet-climate-change-and-disaster-mitigation ).

There are plenty of experiences, theories, methods and strategies from international cooperation, to approach adaptation. Generally solutions are related with appropriate technologies, so low impact and low emissions technologies.

If we consider that one of the main uncertainty factors in mitigation and adaptation strategies is related with human behavior, we need to build interdisciplinary research groups and there is a lot to do.

For the complexity of Climate related issues we had a interesting thread, where a lot of people participate and suggest links about the important role of social sciences and cultural anthropology on mitigation and adaptation.

( https://www.researchgate.netjavascript:/post/Do_you_know_about_research_experiences_and_methods_on_qualitative_interview_oral_history_and_climate_change_adaptation_mitigation2 )

Hi,

I recommend Geoff Cockfield's chapter in my book:

http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=575329

Climate Change and Global Policy Regimes

Towards Institutional Legitimacy

International Political Economy Series

Edited By Timothy Cadman

Palgrave Macmillan, March 2013

ISBN: 978-1-137-00611-0, ISBN10: 1-137-00611-0,

5.430 x 8.500 inches, 304 pages, 12 b/w photos, 10 b/w tables,

Chapter:

4. Governing Adaptation Policies and Programmes; Geoff Cockfield

Adopting a state-centric perspec- tive, Geoff Cockfield investigates the controversy around the merits of adaptation to, or mitigation of, climate change. He predicts that liberal- democratic states will struggle to accommodate the demands of those who want climate change policy to be focused on mitigation. As a result, state responses will include non-decision-making, compromised mitiga- tion programmes, weak implementation and a lack of accountability in pursuing outcomes and targets. Recognising these problems, he explores the limits and possible costs of relying more on adaptation as a response to climate change.

The next three chapters lo

An important question: I have tried to approach it through:

Pelling M (2011) Adaptation to climate change: from resilience to transformation, Routlegde, London. This is a critique of adaptation (and resilience) as conservative efforts to defend the status quo - of values, technology etc. Transformative adaptation opens space for adaptation that works at root causes of risk production - ie development process and dominant values.

IPCC SREX - a major study, the final Chapter, Chapter 7 on 'towards a resilient and sustainable future' provides evidence that to reach this kind of future there is a need to transform development - this from a WGII perspective (ie adaptation, not mitigation). This is important because the framing has gone through government plenary.

A wider critique of climate change adaptation and development can be found in Pelling, Manuel-Navarrete and Redclift 9eds) (2011) Climate Change and the crisis of capitalism: a chance to reclaim self, society and nature, Routledge, London.

Any comment on the above very welcome.

Dear Prof. Timothy Cadman, thank you for the book chapter. I will read carefully.

Dear Prof. Mark Pelling, thank you for your answer. I found your book "Adaptation to climate change: from resilience to transformation" very inspiring and it is now a must read to those interested in what is being called transformative adaptation. Indeed, I am interested in understanding WHY the current conceptualization of adaptation has not been enriched by the political economic critique of the 1970s and 1980s and thus it does not represent something really new - to use the words of Bassett and Fogelman (2013).

In general, we can say that political economists viewed the natural hazards school’s attention and responses to climate impacts as palliative measures that did not address the social structural or root causes of vulnerability. The evidences that the technocratic interventions are palliative, not sustainable, remedies over time are crystal clear and are everywhere, for decades now. So, why does adaptation to climate keeps being framed in such a narrow, myopic way by international organizations and governments alike?

I do not know if you have advanced any of these issues in the book that you mentioned “Climate Change and the crisis of capitalism: a chance to reclaim self, society and nature”. Unfortunately, it is extremely expensive here in Brazil (more than 180,00 EUROS for one hard copy) and the university’s library refused our purchase suggestion. As I am now also based in Mozambique, it does not help any better to get the book… :(

I agree with you that the IPCC SREX report is a major progress and I assume that some chapters in IPCC AR5 WGII will continue to follow these lines. In the end, I agree with those who claimed that adaptation to climate change is a really contested political and scientific arena. I might be wrong, but I think there is the need to increasingly politicize the discussion around adaptation in this context. Although the debate has inflated significantly in the last decade or so, the framings are still greatly influenced by the natural / biophysical sciences. And in many countries social science research informing these issues is not only a marginal part, but also an outlier in the climate change policy circles.

So, perhaps to find the answer to the “why” question I will have to look further for references in cultural studies. I am starting to read Hulme’s Why we disagree about climate change (2009) and it might provide avenues to approach this question in different ways.

Thank you all once again for taking the time to engage in this discussion. And if you come across something that might be of my interest, do not hesitate to send me along!

Dear Rafael,

in general unortodox view on nature protection is presented by free-maket environmentalism group gathered around perc.org (see many fulltexts on their webpages). In particular, some years ago Edwin Dolan wrote a paper regarding the libertarian perspective of the CC adaptation:

Science, Public Policy, and Global Warming: Rethinking the Market-Liberal Position

Edwin G. Dolan, Cato Journal, 2006, vol. 26, issue 3, pages 445-468.

Another inspiration can be find in books written by Bjorn Lombork (Sceptical Environmentalist) or Julian Simon (Ultimate Resource).

Hope this will help.

Lenka

First of all, the new set of "IPCC-guided scenarios" (for lack of a better word...), include RCPs (concetration pathways and thus climate scenarios) and SSPs (socio-economic pathways and thus socio-economic scenarios) that are developed independently in what they call the "parallel process". Combinations of RCPs and SSPs lead to future worlds in which either climate is changing OR socio-economic factors are changing. It This opens the possibility to explore the effects of socio-economic change on adaptation, and vulnerability. In the very last bunch of calls of the 7th Framework Programme, three projects have been approved that will look at "high-end scenarios". In one of them, IMPRESSIONS, we have had disuccions very similar to what I read here. The website will be up and running in a few weeks, so please have a look at our thinking on this.

Ison, Raymond; Grant , Andrea and Bawden, Richard (2013). Scenario praxis for systemic and adaptive governance: a critical framework. Environment & Planning C: Government & Policy (in press).

Ison, Ray; Collins , Kevin; Colvin, John; Jiggins, Janice; Roggero, Pier Paolo; Seddaiu, Giovanna; Steyaert, Patrick; Toderi, Marco and Zanolla, Chiara (2011). Sustainable catchment managing in a climate changing world: new integrative modalities for connecting policy makers, scientists and other stakeholders. Water Resources Management, 25(15), pp. 3977–3992.

Godden , Lee; Ison, Raymond I. and Wallis , Philip J. (2011). Editorial: water governance in a climate change world: appraising systemic and adaptive effectiveness. Water Resources Management, 25(15), pp. 3971–3976.

http://oro.open.ac.uk/22901/1/Chapter_1.pdf

http://oro.open.ac.uk/22901/2/Chapter_9.pdf

Dono, G., Cortignani, R., Doro, L., Giraldo, L., Ledda, L., Pasqui, M., & Roggero, P. P. (2013). Adapting to uncertainty associated with short-term climate variability changes in irrigated Mediterranean farming systems. Agricultural systems, 117, 1-12.

Dono, G., Cortignani, R., Doro, L., Giraldo, L., Ledda, L., Pasqui, M., & Roggero, P. P. (2013). An Integrated Assessment of the Impacts of Changing Climate Variability on Agricultural Productivity and Profitability in an Irrigated Mediterranean Catchment. Water Resources Management, 1-16.

I recommend you Emma Lisa Freya Schipper's PhD Thesis titled Exploring adaptation to climate change: A development perspective (can be downloaded from Google search engine

It may be of use to have a look at the Adaptation Support Tool on:

http://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/web/guest/adaptation-support-tool/step-1

and other resources from the same site.

Well, migration is one way to adapt to climate change, something that is often not considered. That is one of our themes in a book we published recently, which centres on the problem of atoll island states, and possible adaptation strategies for them (with migration discussed in detail).

Yamamoto, L. and Esteban, M. (2014) “Atoll Island States and International Law – Influence of Climate Change on Sovereignty and Human Rights”,

See Voß, J.-P., and Bornemann, B., 2011. The politics of reflexive governance: challenges for designing adaptive management and transition management. Ecology and Society, 16: 2 (9).

Hi Rafael,

In addition to the valuable information above, I suggest you to have a look on the attached paper dedicated to the effects of uncertainties on the outputs of environmental models (particularly, climate change models). In my opinion, it is important we are all aware of these effects leading to strong controversies, which, in turn, may contribute to miss other sources of communities' vulnerability.

Dear Rafael, I have written my PhD thesis about adaptation to hurricane disasters in New Orleans from a long-term historical perspective (1718 to 1968). In my thesis, I challenge the IPCC's definition and approach to adaptation as it's not really usable for open-ended historical (or any social scientific) analysis. My thesis isn't published yet but it's certainly quotable. I can send you the chapter on adaptation (or the whole thesis) if you think it could be helpful for your research.

Best,

Eleonora

Dear Rafael,

Unfortunately, there is not a general strategy in this field. Estimations of the climate change have a wide diapason; different authors suggest different reasons triggering the climate change. I will send you several articles.

Lev

One additional paper.

3rd article

4th paper

Dear all,

Thank you for your responses, contributions and literature suggestions!

Eleonora, it will be great if you can send your PhD dissertation with your discussion on adaptation. I would definitely quote it as I did not find much literature that challenge the mainstream UNFCCC/IPCC view. You can send me through Research Gate or by email: rdamartins AT gmail.com

It is great to see the discussion going on...

Best regards,

Rafael

I'm not sure what exactly constitutes "radical and critical", but I've written a bit about understanding adaptation as autonomous process of socio-technical change in response to climate stress (among others). This diverges from the more popular approaches of modelling and policy planning or linear extension of "climate smart" technologies.

Dea rafael: You might want to see the attachments and their follow up papers. best regards,

Dr. Aldo Brandani

[email protected]

You should certainly look at Simon Dalby's work:

http://www.balsillieschool.ca/people/simon-dalby

and Matthew Paterson's:

https://socialsciences.uottawa.ca/pol/professor-profile?id=123&pageID=2

For a social science critique about idea on adaptation have a look at:

Medema, W., B. S. McIntosh, and P. J. Jeffrey. 2008. From premise to practice: a critical assessment of integrated water resources management and adaptive management approaches in the water sector. Ecology and Society 13(2): 29. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol13/iss2/art29/

Smith, A., and A. Stirling. 2010. The politics of social-ecological resilience and sustainable socio-technical transitions. Ecology and Society 15(1): 11. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss1/ art11/

and

Voß, J., and B. Bornemann. 2011. The politics of reflexive governance: challenges for designing adaptive management and transition management. Ecology and Society 16(2): 9. [online] URL: http://www. ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss2/art9/

Hi,

I can recommend Geoff Cockfield's chapter in my latest book

Climate Change and Global Policy Regimes: Towards Institutional Legitimacy.

Geoff's Chapter is entitled: Governing Adaptation Policies and Programmes.

Geoff's conceptual abstract:

This chapter develops the argument that liberal-democratic states will struggle to accommodate the demands of those who want the major policy focus to be on climate change mitigation. As a consequence, adaptation will become increasingly important through some degree of planned state responses and/or the cumulative effects of adaptive decisions taken by non-state actors. The chapter starts with a review of the impediments to comprehensive mitigation policies, including considerations of international negotiations, the influence of interests favouring the status quo and the impact of climate change scepticism. As a result, state responses will include non-decision making, compromised mitigation programs, weak implementation and a lack of accountability in pursuing outcomes and targets. In the second part of the chapter, approaches to adaptation policy development and formulation will be categorised and discussed and then the limits and possible costs of relying more on adaptation will be considered.

Cheers,

Tim

http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=575329

With apologies for cross-posting...

The followind arrived in my inbox this morning and seems relevant to your query...

-------------------------------

Dear climate-l readers,

The discourse on Loss & Damage has so far revolved largely around aspects within the realm of adaptation and climate justice. New results from an experiment carried out in the context of the ERC project “Sources of legitimacy in global environmental governance” at ETH Zurich show that establishing a compensation mechanism for loss and damage could also contribute to the conclusion of an ambitious climate agreement in Paris 2015.

Check out a first summary of our findings in this blog post: https://www.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/zukunftsblog/archiv/2014/08/liability-mechanism-to-strike-an-ambitious-climate-agreement.html

Comments and feedback are highly welcome!

Kind regards

Robert Gampfer and Elisabeth Gsottbauer

--

ETH Zürich

Robert Gampfer

PhD, International Political Economy

Center for Comparative and International Studies (CIS)

Research Group International Political Economy

+41 44 632 4644

[email protected]

www.ib.ethz.ch