It’s June 4, 2023, the planet is at 424.72 ppm, and here I am, stuck at an intersection, in a metaphorical traffic jam. I’m studying Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and working in Disaster Risk Management (DRM).
I’ve been asked to make an argument for or against the question, what’s the better approach to adaptation, incremental or transformational? DRM is decidedly in the incremental sphere, which makes me wonder, if a practice area doesn’t have the vocabulary, then how does the practitioner make the switch? One of the assigned readings for this line of inquiry, Adaptation and transformation, provides some insight into this question with an argument for a need to “… ultimately co-construct a more dialectical approach to DRM/CCA…” (Pelling et al., 2015, P.124).
Typically, DRM is described as a cyclical process ranging from prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery (GRDC, ND). Historically, there’s been no language for transformation. DRM lacks the vocabulary for going beyond incremental adaptation. Some DRM practitioners might say that incremental adaptation is the stretch goal.
Although CCA and DRM practitioners operate in separate spheres, there are commonalities (Figure 1).
Pelling et al. (2015) provide a comparative example for this need to co-construct a more dialectical approach:
A DRM Advisor with incremental framing: working towards community risk reduction, is compared to a Climate Change policy advocate using transformational framing: setting GHG targets.
The latter is in support of an energy transition away from fossil fuels while the former is triaging the impacts of fossil fuel induced climate change hazards. Somewhere in the middle is the more typical CCA practitioner working on incremental changes such as protecting communities from the impacts of climate change, like sea level rise or increasing wildfire events. Each practitioner is interested in solving parts of the same problem, but they’re working in separate spheres.
Meanwhile, as practitioners on both sides of DRM and CCA continue to keep busy with calculating incremental adaptation measures to protect communities from increasingly frequent and severe climate change impacts, the world continues to become more polarized. The definition for polarization is broad, ranging from racial segregation, class divides, and political ideologies, to name a few (Rao, P., 2023). The common thread is increasing societal conflict.
With this increasing societal conflict, it’s hard to make space and time for transformative change, to create safe spaces for dialogue, to build community, to learn together. It’s easier to continue along in our asynchronous swim lanes, calculating the exact right formulas, based on our area of specialty, our world view, within our limited spheres of control.
How do we break away from the dominant power structures to become a leader capable of switching over to transformational adaptation? Is it even necessary or is incremental adaptation good enough? The authors of the second required reading, Fedele et al. (2019), argue that transformative adaptation to reduce the impacts of climate change is rare, facing many barriers, such as those with vested interest in particular outcomes. They also point to narrow mandates for institutions responsible for planning adaptive interventions, and which therefore lack political or social support for this type of change. They provide an agricultural example (Figure 3) showing a continuum, from coping to incremental adaptation, to transformative adaptation, illustrating possible responses to climate change impacts.
to climate change (Fedele et al., 2019, P.118)
It’s here the practitioner hits the roadblock as “transformation raises the stakes in adaptation decision-making, bringing into focus many ethical and procedural questions: who-or what processes – determine the dominant mode for adaptation, and selects objects for change?” (Pelling et al., 2015, P.115).
Faced with this challenge, situated within the social contract, with rights and responsibilities structured in hierarchical relationships, such as those in the workplace, raises a question. How do practitioners find paths away from incremental, business as usual processes, when they are co-dependent on the system’s success? One thought is through the development of transformational policy. However, adaptation pathways interact over time, in unplanned ways, and even when transformational policy is directed, it may still be undermined as it’s implemented locally (Pelling et al., 2015). Resistance is embedded in culture, economic processes, and land use systems (Pelling et al., 2015).
One example of the power of resistance to transformational change can be seen in responses to environmental migration, which is exacerbated by climate change. Forecasts of future migrations vary from between 25 million to 1 billion people by 2050, depending on which climate scenarios are realized (IOM, ND). As increasing political strife related to environmental migrations have shown us, there are no easy answers. There are, however, organizations and projects focused on bringing these two practices closer to working together, towards their shared goals.
PLAtform for Climate Adaptation and Risk reDuction (PLACARD), an intersectional project, has developed a visualization tool called the Connectivity Hub, which aims to help practitioners find information and organizations working at this important intersection. The project aims to counter fragmentation between domains and sets an example for co-constructing a dialectical approach to DRM and CCA. In this lies hope for pathways to co-constructed initiatives which might just help practitioners like me, stuck at the intersection, to forge pathways to a better future.
References
Fedele, G., Donatti, C. I., Harvey, C. A., Hannah, L., & Hole, D. G. (2019). Transformative adaptation to climate change for sustainable social-ecological systems. Environmental Science and Policy, 101, 116–125.
NIRAS. (2021, Mar.). Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Management Capability Statement. NIRAS. https://www.niras.com/media/nh1pggyp/cca-drm-capability-statement.pdf
Pelling, M., O’Brien, K. & Matyas, D. (2015). Adaptation and transformation. Climatic Change (133), 113–127. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-014-1303-0
Rao, P. (2023, Jan. 18). Which Countries are the Most Polarized. Visual Capitalist. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/polarization-across-28-countries/