Adaptation to Climate Change: From Resilience to Transformation by Pelling Mark

Author:Pelling, Mark [Pelling, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Development Studies

Conclusion

The aim of this chapter has been to make a claim for transformation as a legitimate element of adaptation theory and practice. In doing so the challenges of escaping the fragmentation of modernity (Beck, 1992), the alienating loss of power to the global (Castells, 1997) and need to re-assert human rights and basic needs in an increasingly unequal world (Gasper, 2005) have been revealed as arguably the most fundamental challenges facing development and the social relations that underpin capacities to adapt to climate change risk.

The extent to which adaptation to climate change can embrace transformation will depend on the framing of the climate change problem. Where vulnerability is attributed to proximate causes of unsafe buildings, inappropriate land use and fragile demographics adaptation will be framed as a local concern. This is more amenable to resilience and transitional forms of adaptation. However, if vulnerability is framed as an outcome of wider social processes shaping how people see themselves and others, their relationship with the environment and role in political processes, then adaptation becomes a much broader problem. It is here that transformation becomes relevant.

How vulnerability and adaptation are framed have clear implications for apportioning blame and the locus of adaptation and its costs. Where vulnerability is an outcome of local context then it is local actors at risk who will likely carry the costs of adapting (for example, through transactions and opportunity costs incurred through changing livelihood practices). Where vulnerability is seen as an outcome of wider social causes then responsibility for change becomes broader, possibly more diffuse and less easy to manage and certainly more likely to touch those in power. These two approaches to the framing of vulnerability and subsequent adaptation are akin to the distinction between treating the symptoms and causes of illness.

Transformation does not come without its own risks, inherent in any project of change is uncertainty. History is replete with examples of transformation social change being captured by vested interested or new elites. As noted with regard to human security, both the poor and powerful are aware of the costs of change and prefer the known even if it is a generator of risk. As climate change proceeds and mitigation policy fails the potential for dangerous climate change increases. This forces us to reappraise the potential costs of transformation set against business as usual. Handmer and Dovers (1996) warned against the sudden collapse of

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