Conclusions: Linking Sustainable Development, Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Change Adaptation, and Migration—Policy Implications and Outlook

Author(s):  
Karen Sudmeier-Rieux ◽  
Manuela Fernández ◽  
J. C. Gaillard ◽  
Michel Jaboyedoff ◽  
Ivanna M. Penna
2021 ◽  
pp. 45-64
Author(s):  
Dug Cubie ◽  
Tommaso Natoli

AbstractInternational law can play an important role in promoting national, regional and international actions to tackle the human impacts of climate change and disasters. Of note, 2015 saw the adoption of three interconnected normative frameworks: the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, the Paris Agreement under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One may therefore be tempted to view this body of international norms, rules and standards as a comprehensive and unified system. Yet the increasing complexity and specialisation of different international legal regimes has led to concerns regarding a confusing fragmentation of international law. This chapter will therefore examine the relationship between the three topics of sustainable development, climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) from a legal perspective. The chapter will commence with a discussion of the legal status of different international instruments, before providing a textual analysis of the language used by states, the UN, NGOs and other actors in the relevant documents. We then propose an ‘hourglass’ model of the legal relationships between these three different international frameworks based on: systemic coherence at the international level; vertical alignment between the international, regional and national levels; and horizontal integration of international norms at the domestic level. To support this proposal, examples will be provided from the Pacific Island Countries (PICs), drawing on research undertaken through the IRC-MSCA CAROLINE project ‘Leave No One Behind: Developing Climate-Smart/Disaster Risk Management Laws that Protect People in Vulnerable Situations for a Comprehensive Implementation of the UN Agenda 2030.’


2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy D. Lewis

AbstractThe UN General Assembly has just adopted the post 2015 Sustainable Development Agenda articulated in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Achieving the SDGs will be furthered by the closer integration of the climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) agendas. Gender provides us a valuable portal for considering this integration. Acknowledging that gender relaters to both women and men and that men and women experience climate variability and disasters differently, in this paper the role of women in both CCA and DRR is explored, shifting the focus from women as vulnerable victims to women as critical agents for change with respect to climate change mitigation and adaptation and reduction of disaster risks. Appropriately targeted interventions can also empower women and contribute to more just and inclusive sustainable development.


2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen I. Sudmeier-Rieux

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore whether “resilience” offers any positive inputs to international discourse in the field of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation and if so, what recommendations can be made for further research on the topic. Design/methodology/approach – In addition to an in-depth literature review, observations on resilience were made based on interdisciplinary research conducted in Nepal 2008-2011 with landslide affected communities, to map local understandings of resilience in contrast to issues of risk and vulnerability. Findings – Resilience has the potential to offer a more systemic and cross-cutting approach to disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and the humanitarian sector. However, it needs to be assessed critically as one attribute of sustainable development, not as a lesser substitute. Originality/value – This paper provides new insights to the emerging contrast between proponents and critics of the resilience paradigm with recommendations for avoiding potential dangers that this paradigm brings.


Author(s):  
Tom R. Burns ◽  
Nora Machado

This article considers the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development in relation to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. We conceptualize sustainability from a social systemic perspective, that is, from a perspective that encompasses the multiple functionalities of a social system and their interrelationships in particular environmental contexts. The systems perspective is applied in our consideration and analysis of disaster risk reduction (DRR), climate change adaptation (CCA), and sustainable development (SD). Section 1 introduces briefly sustainability and sustainable development, followed by a brief presentation of the theory of complex social systems (Section 2). The theory conceptualizes interdependent subsystems, their multiple functionalities, and the agential and systemic responses to internal and external stressors on a social system. Section 3 considers disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA), emerging in response to one or more systemic stressors. It illustrates these with disaster risk reduction in the cases of food and chemical security regulation in the EU. CCA is illustrated by initiatives and developments on the island of Gotland, Sweden and in the Gothenburg Metropolitan area, which go beyond a limited CCA perspective, taking into account long-term sustainability issues. Section 4 discusses the limitations of DRR and CCA, not only their technical limitations but economic, socio-cultural, and political limitations, as informed from a sustainability perspective. It is argued that DRRs are only partial subsystems and must be considered and assessed in the context of a more encompassing systemic perspective. Part of the discussion is focused on the distinction between sustainable and non-sustainable DRRs and CCAs. Section 5 presents a few concluding remarks about the importance of a systemic perspective in analyzing DRR and CCA as well as other similar subsystems in terms of sustainable development.


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