Reframing strategic, managed retreat for transformative climate adaptation

Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 372 (6548) ◽  
pp. 1294-1299
Author(s):  
Katharine J. Mach ◽  
A. R. Siders
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
Societal Values ◽  
Damages And Losses ◽  
Integrate Research ◽  
Climate Damages

Human societies will transform to address climate change and other stressors. How they choose to transform will depend on what societal values they prioritize. Managed retreat can play a powerful role in expanding the range of possible futures that transformation could achieve and in articulating the values that shape those futures. Consideration of retreat raises tensions about what losses are unacceptable and what aspects of societies are maintained, purposefully altered, or allowed to change unaided. Here we integrate research on retreat, transformational adaptation, climate damages and losses, and design and decision support to chart a roadmap for strategic, managed retreat. At its core, this roadmap requires a fundamental reconceptualization of what it means for retreat to be strategic and managed. The questions raised are relevant to adaptation science and societies far beyond the remit of retreat.

Heat Waves, Climate Change, and Economic Output

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Miller ◽  
Kenn Chua ◽  
Jay Coggins ◽  
Hamid Mohtadi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Extreme Events ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Economic Output ◽  
Hot Days ◽  
Order Of Magnitude ◽  
Empirical Approaches ◽  
Climate Damages

Abstract Climate change is likely to affect economies not only through warming, but also via an increase in prolonged extreme events like heat waves. However, the impacts of heat waves on economic output are not well captured by standard empirical approaches that ignore when hot days occur. Using a global dataset spanning 1979–2016, we show agricultural losses from past heat waves are up to an order of magnitude larger than suggested by standard approaches. Combining these estimates with a suite of climate models implies that by the end of the century, climate damages in agriculture may be 5–10 times larger than is predicted by a focus on mean temperature shifts alone. These findings have important implications for targeting and evaluating climate adaptation efforts.

scholarly journals Assessing South Africa’s Potential to Address Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation in the Fisheries Sector

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Ortega-Cisneros ◽  
Kevern L. Cochrane ◽  
Nina Rivers ◽  
Warwick H. H. Sauer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Fisheries Management ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Marine Fisheries ◽  
Address Climate Change

The marine fisheries sector is one of the most important income sectors in South Africa and plays an important role in food security for small-scale and subsistence fishers. Climate-driven impacts have resulted in distribution shifts and declines in abundance of important fisheries targets, with negative consequences to the users dependent on these resources. The sustainability of the sector depends on its readiness to adapt to climate change. The inclusion of climate change impacts and adaptation in fisheries management documents in South Africa is essential to ensure adequate climate adaptation responses are implemented at the short- and long-term. This study aims to 1) determine if the relevant fisheries national management documents address climate change and adaptation, 2) determine if the relevant national climate change documents address climate change and adaptation in the fisheries sector and 3) evaluate the extent to which fisheries management documents address climate change and adaptation. A content analysis of fisheries management and climate change documents was carried out to determine if they incorporated information on climate change impacts and adaptation and marine fisheries respectively. Fisheries management documents were then screened against nine pre-determined criteria (or themes) based on climate change adaptation to determine the level of inclusion of best practice for climate change adaptation. Results indicate that climate change impacts and adaptation are rarely incorporated in the main fisheries management documents, except for the Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Plan for the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors. However, this document is still waiting to be adopted. The only direct reference identified in all the fisheries documents that supports climate change adaptation was ‘conservation and sustainable management of biodiversity’. With regards to indirect references to climate change adaptation, ‘equity,’ ‘participatory management,’ and ‘capacity building’ were most frequently incorporated in fisheries management documents. There is a need to explicitly incorporate information on climate change impacts and adaptation in South African fisheries management documents and increase the human and financial capacity at national institutions to ensure that the fisheries sector can adequately adapt to climate change.

scholarly journals Turning back the rising sea: Theory performativity in the shift from climate science to popular authority

2021 ◽  
pp. 017084062110245
Author(s):  
Vanessa Bowden ◽  
Jean-Pascal Gond ◽  
Daniel Nyberg ◽  
Christopher Wright
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Qualitative Case Study ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
Property Prices ◽  
Vested Interests ◽  
The Relationship

Action on climate change continues to be hampered by vested interests seeding doubt about science and the need to reduce carbon emissions. Using a qualitative case study of local climate adaptation to sea level rise, we show how climate change science is translated into a self-referential theory focussed on property prices. Our analysis develops two mechanisms – enablement and theorization – to explain the relationship between theory performativity and power within a process of translation. This contributes to i) the performativity debate by showing how the constitution of power relations shapes theory performativity; ii) theories of power, by tracing the ways in which certain actors are able to enrol others and impact the authority of particular theories, and; iii) processes of translation by developing mechanisms for following the ways in which power and theory performativity interact. We conclude by arguing that a performative understanding of how power shapes beliefs is central to combat the failure to address climate change.

scholarly journals Challenges to address climate adaptation actions in coastal New England – insights from a web survey

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (61E) ◽  
pp. 39-55
Author(s):  
Ana Mesquita-Emlinger
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New England ◽  
Rhode Island ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Coastal Communities ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Web Survey ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Policies

Coastal communities all over the world are experiencing unprecedented alterations from climate change. Unlike what most people would guess, coastal communities have not advanced much in their preparedness for a climate that is changing fast, despite their extensive exposure to climate hazards. If not true worldwide, at least that is what is happening in the majority of small and medium communities in the coast of New England, in the Northeast of US. This article explores data collected in a web survey conducted with city officials of coastal communities in the states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine, aiming to verify barriers to address climate change adaptation at the local level. The results of the survey showed many similarities between the challenges experienced by these small coastal communities. We suggest that, in presenting the main themes of the research, including special attention to the barriers encountered, this knowledge can contribute to the creation of a more climate-friendly region, thus helping to design and implement future climate change policies at the local level.

Speaking of Psychology: Psychologists Address Climate Change

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaitlin Luna ◽  
Kim Mills ◽  
Brian Dixon ◽  
Marcel de Sousa ◽  
Christine Roland Levy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Address Climate Change

scholarly journals What Stymies Action on Climate Change? Religious Institutions, Marginalization, and Efficacy in Kenya

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Lauren Honig ◽  
Amy Erica Smith ◽  
Jaimie Bleck
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Vulnerability To Climate Change ◽  
History Of ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
Critical Link

Addressing climate change requires coordinated policy responses that incorporate the needs of the most impacted populations. Yet even communities that are greatly concerned about climate change may remain on the sidelines. We examine what stymies some citizens’ mobilization in Kenya, a country with a long history of environmental activism and high vulnerability to climate change. We foreground efficacy—a belief that one’s actions can create change—as a critical link transforming concern into action. However, that link is often missing for marginalized ethnic, socioeconomic, and religious groups. Analyzing interviews, focus groups, and survey data, we find that Muslims express much lower efficacy to address climate change than other religious groups; the gap cannot be explained by differences in science beliefs, issue concern, ethnicity, or demographics. Instead, we attribute it to understandings of marginalization vis-à-vis the Kenyan state—understandings socialized within the local institutions of Muslim communities affected by state repression.

scholarly journals Understanding institutional barriers in the climate change adaptation planning process of the city of Beirut: vicious cycles and opportunities

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Zea-Reyes ◽  
Veronica Olivotto ◽  
Sylvia I. Bergh
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Adaptation ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
Institutional Barriers ◽  
Political Interference ◽  
Poor Individual ◽  
Competing Priorities

AbstractCities around the world are confronted with the need to put in place climate adaptation policies to protect citizens and properties from climate change impacts. This article applies components of the framework developed by Moser and Ekström (2010) onto empirical qualitative data to diagnose institutional barriers to climate change adaptation in the Municipality of Beirut, Lebanon. Our approach reveals the presence of two vicious cycles influencing each other. In the first cycle, the root cause barrier is major political interference generating competing priorities and poor individual interest in climate change. A second vicious cycle is derived from feedbacks caused by the first and leading to the absence of a dedicated department where sector specific climate risk information is gathered and shared with other departments, limited knowledge and scientific understanding, as well as a distorted framing or vision, where climate change is considered unrelated to other issues and is to be dealt with at higher levels of government. The article also highlights the need to analyze interlinkages between barriers in order to suggest how to overcome them. The most common way to overcome barriers according to interviewees is through national and international support followed by the creation of a data bank. These opportunities could be explored by national and international policy-makers to break the deadlock in Beirut.

scholarly journals Interrogating Climate Adaptation Financing in Zimbabwe: Proposed Direction

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6517
Author(s):  
Innocent Chirisa ◽  
Trynos Gumbo ◽  
Veronica N. Gundu-Jakarasi ◽  
Washington Zhakata ◽  
Thomas Karakadzai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Infrastructure Development ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Coastal Zones ◽  
Resource Base

Reducing vulnerability to climate change and enhancing the long-term coping capacities of rural or urban settlements to negative climate change impacts have become urgent issues in developing countries. Developing countries do not have the means to cope with climate hazards and their economies are highly dependent on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, water, and coastal zones. Like most countries in Southern Africa, Zimbabwe suffers from climate-induced disasters. Therefore, this study maps critical aspects required for setting up a strong financial foundation for sustainable climate adaptation in Zimbabwe. It discusses the frameworks required for sustainable climate adaptation finance and suggests the direction for success in leveraging global climate financing towards building a low-carbon and climate-resilient Zimbabwe. The study involved a document review and analysis and stakeholder consultation methodological approach. The findings revealed that Zimbabwe has been significantly dependent on global finance mechanisms to mitigate the effects of climate change as its domestic finance mechanisms have not been fully explored. Results revealed the importance of partnership models between the state, individuals, civil society organisations, and agencies. Local financing institutions such as the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ) have been set up. This operates a Climate Finance Facility (GFF), providing a domestic financial resource base. A climate change bill is also under formulation through government efforts. However, numerous barriers limit the adoption of adaptation practices, services, and technologies at the scale required. The absence of finance increases the vulnerability of local settlements (rural or urban) to extreme weather events leading to loss of life and property and compromised adaptive capacity. Therefore, the study recommends an adaptation financing framework aligned to different sectoral policies that can leverage diverse opportunities such as blended climate financing. The framework must foster synergies for improved impact and implementation of climate change adaptation initiatives for the country.

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