Adapting to our quickly changing climate is a wicked problem faced by countries and communities across the globe. Extreme weather events are increasing in intensity and frequency, and many are beginning to recognize that the adaptation and mitigation policies currently in place are ineffective, slow, or just not equipped to handle the magnitude of the issue that is anthropogenic climate change. As such, many communities and individuals have taken it upon themselves to adapt to the changing climate in their particular areas. This can include anything from plastic-bag bans to zero-waste grocery shopping, establishing community gardens, eating a more plant-based diet, or building out bike lanes. I would argue, of course, that this phenomenon exists primarily in the global north and in communities where disposable income is high. 

The narrative is repeated over and over again: ‘Bike more! Drive less! Save the environment!’ As it has been for decades now. The onus has been placed on the consumer to change our habits, rather than on governments and industry to respond to what scientists have been telling us for years, that anthropogenic climate change has caused irreparable and irreversible damage to our ecosystems and that if we don’t act quickly, the results will be catastrophic (IPCC, 2021). These incremental changes we have been making are well-intentioned, however, as the IPCC reports, human-induced climate change is already affecting climate extremes around the globe, and, to quote Erin Remblance in her article for Illuminem, the time for incrementalism is over. 

In their article titled Transformative adaptation to climate change for sustainable social-ecological systems, Fedele et al. discuss the many ways people and societies have been responding to climate change in incremental ways. They point out that, while helpful, incremental adaptation does not solve the crux of the problem: that climate emergencies and extreme weather events are happening and will continue to happen at greater frequencies. They posit that we must “aim to reduce the root causes of vulnerabilities to climate change, such as social, cultural, economic, environmental and power relations by transforming them into more just, sustainable, or resilient states (Fedele et al., 2019).

 

Throughout the MACAL program, we have been faced with the wicked problem not only of climate change itself, but also of how to get communities, government, or industry to invest in adaptation strategies that engage transformative adaptation. Transformative adaptation takes time, it takes money, and it takes a willingness to uproot the status quo. As Fedele et al. state, “there is a tendency to adapt through incremental adaptation or business-as-usual strategies that do not challenge the status-quo of the current system…because dominant actors who benefit from the status-quo may be in a position to block such changes.” 

According to Pelling et al. in their article Adaptation and transformation, transformative adaptation is often only considered as a last resort, “either forced by systems failure or chosen in anticipation of collapse and movement to a novel social-ecological systems state (2015).” However, if we fail to build transformative adaptation into our climate action plans now, we risk looking back on years of incremental adaptation that was ineffective, unethical, and likely more expensive (both financially and in terms of lives) in the long run. 

While incremental adaptation is a key step along the path to essential climate action, its ultimate reach and effectiveness is limited. It’s time to “raise the stakes” and bring the ethical and procedural questions that drive transformative action into focus (Pelling et al., 2915). This will require a fundamental systemic change, not only in how we approach climate action, but also in our ecological and societal systems (Fedele et al., 2019). 

Incremental adaptation is important, and it has paved the way for much of the climate action work done thus far. However, it lacks the power to drive fundamental change in the way we need if we are going to tackle the climate crisis in any meaningful way. This will require a complete restructuring of our systems; a holistic approach to transformation that integrates multiple disciplinary perspectives (Fedele et al., 2019).  The time for coping with and accommodating a changing climate with business as usual techniques has passed. It’s time to bring meaningful, just, ethical, and sustainable systems changes to the forefront by embracing transformative adaptation in climate action policy. 

References:

Fedele, G., Donatti, C., Harvey, C., Hannah, L., Hole, D. (2019). Transformative adaptation to climate change for sustainable social-ecological systems. Environmental Science & Policy, 101, 116-125. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2019.07.001

IPCC. (2021). Headline Statements from the Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Retrieved from https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Headline_Statements.pdf

Pelling, M., O’Brien, K. & Matyas, D. (2015). Adaptation and transformation. Climatic Change 133, 113–127. doi: 10.1007/s10584-014-1303-0

Remblance, E. (2022, April 27). Climate: The time for incrementalism is over. Illuminem. Retrieved from https://illuminem.com/energyvoices/80df1713-3292-4626-911f-48decadc37ae