Search

Climate Change research plays a pivotal role in Africa’s sustainable development by providing the required scientific evidence to inform the design of Africa’s development priorities. The need for enhanced climate research is heightened by the fact that Africa is one of the regions likely to be most affected by the impacts of global warming and climate change. This paper highlights some key lessons learnt from the provision of climate research support in Africa under the Climate Impact Research Capacity Leadership Enhancement (CIRCLE) project implemented by the African Academy of Sciences and the Association of Commonwealth Universities in partnership with the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, Vitae, and the University of Greenwich’s Natural Resources Institute. The paper discusses the early-career research support landscape in Africa, the place of institutional strengthening in climate research programming, and the need for a well-coordinated community and public engagement in the climate research projects. Lessons from the CIRCLE programme provide useful insights for future climate research programme design and early-career research support initiatives in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adapting to climate change is becoming a routine and necessary component of planning at all levels. In the case of small island developing states (SIDS), the successful development, implementation and evaluation of national-level adaptation policies are especially important because of their disproportionate vulnerability. The status of adaptation policies in these countries, however, is poorly understood and documented, particularly for the Atlantic, Indian Oceans, Mediterranean and South China Seas (AIMS) region. This is so largely because of minimal mainstream research interest in these small nations. This paper helps fill this gap. It develops an Adaptation Policy Assessment Framework that facilitates a rapid qualitative assessment of countries' national adaptation policies. It applies the framework to seven representative policies across six of the nine SIDS in the AIMS region—Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Maldives, São Tomé and Príncipe, Seychelles and Singapore. It finds that countries are mostly successful in identifying climate and climate-related vulnerabilities and linking associated risks to other national development priorities such as poverty reduction. Countries, however, struggle with establishing and maintaining systems to review and improve adaptation interventions, which is not entirely unique to them or their circumstances. This paper's findings provide critical points of reflection for countries preparing and revising their National Adaptation Plans in the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. They also contribute to a broader understanding of the complexities of climate policy development in small jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reality of global climate change demands novel approaches to science that are reflective of the scales at which changes are likely to occur, and of the new forms of knowledge required to positively influence policy to support vulnerable populations. We examine some of the opportunities and challenges presented by a collaborative, transdisciplinary research project on climate change adaptation in Africa and Asia that utilized a hotspot approach. A large-scale effort to develop appropriate baselines was a key challenge at the outset of the program, as was the need to develop innovative methodologies to enable researchers to work at appropriate spatial scales. Efforts to match research to the biophysical scales at which change occurs need to be aware of the mismatch that can develop between these regional scales and the governance scales at which decisions are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agriculture is the leading sector that is responsible for global climate change through its significant contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Intriguingly, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is experiencing higher temperatures and lesser rainfall due to climate change enhanced by anthropogenic GHG emissions. Agriculture and energy use in the SSA predominantly influence the anthropogenic GHG leading to global warming. Therefore, reducing agricultural GHG emissions (such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane) plays a significant role in climate change adaptation. This paper reviews the potential implication of agriculture and energy use on climate change and its implications on environmental sustainability in SSA. Herewith, we explored various GHGs emitted through agriculture-energy use, their effects on climate change, as well as several climate change adaptation mechanisms, and gaps in existing knowledge that necessitate more research, were also explored. We found that agriculture had negative implications on climate change impacts in the SSA countries and that a more focused strategy that is both economically and technically feasible in terms of preferences for land use, effective energy use, and food supply would aid in GHG emission reduction and environmental sustainability. Adapting to the projected changes in the short term while investing in long-term mitigation strategies might be the only way toward a sustainable environment in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considerable barriers can emerge in developing and implementing climate change adaptation strategies. Understanding the nature of barriers to adaptation is important so as to find strategic ways of dealing with them. However, our current understanding is limited and highly fragmented across the academic community. This paper aims to bring some conceptual convergence in these debates by applying a systematic review method to assess the current state of knowledge on barriers to adaptation in the peer-reviewed literature. The review results show that: (1) Barriers to adaptation have hardly been defined in the literature and no clear indicators exist so as to identify and assess them systematically. (2) An impressive number of barriers have been reported, but the list of possible barriers is seemingly endless. (3) The most frequently reported barriers relate to the institutional and social dimensions of adaptation. (4) Barriers are identified as configurations of climate and non-climate factors and conditions that emerge from the actor, the governance system, or the system of concern. (5) Barriers are mainly studied in developed countries with a strong focus on water-related domains. (6) The majority of studies on barriers use small-n inductive case approaches while comparative studies across different contexts are limited. (7) Although interventions to overcome barriers are recommended by most studies, empirical studies on interventions are scarce. We present further conceptual clarification and a more precise definition of barriers to adaptation. We conclude that future research should go beyond asking the questions 'if' and 'which' barriers to adaptation exist and begin asking 'how' and 'why' barriers emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constraints and limits to adaptation are critical to understanding the extent to which human and natural systems can successfully adapt to climate change. We conduct a systematic review of 1,682 academic studies on human adaptation responses to identify patterns in constraints and limits to adaptation for different regions, sectors, hazards, adaptation response types, and actors. Using definitions of constraints and limits provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we find that most literature identifies constraints to adaptation but that there is limited literature focused on limits to adaptation. Central and South America and Small Islands generally report greater constraints and both hard and soft limits to adaptation. Technological, infrastructural, and ecosystem-based adaptation suggest more evidence of constraints and hard limits than other types of responses. Individuals and households face economic and socio-cultural constraints which also inhibit behavioral adaptation responses and may lead to limits. Finance, governance, institutional, and policy constraints are most prevalent globally. These findings provide early signposts for boundaries of human adaptation and are of high relevance for guiding proactive adaptation financing and governance from local to global scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in farming systems are dominated by changes in global climate and local environment, apart from the non-climatic drivers. Given the challenges in partitioning the contribution of climatic and non-climatic factors to the changes in farming systems, this paper aims to assess the types and changes of coastal farming systems, the farmer perceptions of the causes of the changes in farming systems, and the relationship between the influencing factors and perceptions. A structured interview schedule was used to collect data from 381 randomly selected coastal households during September–October 2018. The random forest classification model was applied to estimate the relative importance of the farmers’ characteristics on their perception of causes of changes in farming systems. This study reveals that the coastal farmers had mostly semi-subsistence type of mixed farming systems, which were going through dynamic changes in terms of their sizes and number of farmers. In general, the participation in rice, vegetables, and livestock farming was decreasing but increasing in fisheries, forestry, and fruit farming. Most (95.5%) of the farmers had to change at least one of the farming enterprises over the past decade (2009–2018) compared with the previous decade (1999–2008). About two-thirds of the farmers perceived that climate change had caused changes in their farming systems. Compared with the eastern coasts, the farmers in the western coasts tended to blame climate change to a higher extent for the effect on their agricultural activities. The random forest model outputs imply that the farmers who are younger in age and with less formal education, larger family, and smaller farmland should be supported with scientific knowledge on causes of changes in farming systems. This could help them more aware of climate change issues related to agriculture and increase their enthusiasm to take part in adaptive changes in farming systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most climate change literature tends to downplay the gendered nature of vulnerability. At best, gender is discussed in terms of the male-female binary, seen as opposing forces rather than in varying relations of interdependency. Such construction can result in the adoption of maladaptive culturally unfit gender-blind policy and interventions. In Egypt, which is highly vulnerable to climate change, gender analysis of vulnerability is almost non-existent. This paper addresses this important research gap by asking and drawing on a rural Egyptian context 'How do the gendered relational aspects of men's and women's livelihoods in the household and community influence vulnerability to climate change?'. To answer this question, I draw on gender analysis of social relations, framed within an understanding of sustainable livelihoods. During 16 months of fieldwork, I used multiple ethnographic methods to collect data from two culturally and ethnically diverse low-income villages in Egypt. My main argument is that experiences of climate change are closely intertwined with gender and wider social relations in the household and community. These are shaped by local gendered ideologies and cultures that are embedded in conjugal relations, kinship and relationship to the environment, as compared across the two villages. In this paper, I strongly argue that vulnerability to climate change is highly gendered and therefore gender analysis should be at the heart of climate change discourses, policy and interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small island developing states (SIDS) are among the most vulnerable in the world to the impacts of climate change. SIDS have prioritised adaptation to climate change as it is widely accepted that some climate change is inevitable. Given the high cost of adaptation and the financial constraints faced by SIDS, many have pursued international adaptation financing to meet adaptation costs and ease domestic constraints. This paper analyses international adaptation financing commitments to SIDS across multiple regions between 2010 and 2014. It has three aims. First, it identifies trends in this financing from Members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to SIDS. Second, using a multivariate regression model, it identifies the determinants of this financing to SIDS, compared to other developing countries. Third, it elicits the perspectives of policy-makers in SIDS on their experience with international adaptation financing to date. This study finds that (1) the allocation of funding and donor commitments to SIDS is highly skewed, (2) whether a country is classified as a SIDS is a determinant of the amount of adaptation financing it can expect to receive-other determinants include population, per capita income, governance quality and vulnerability, depending on how it is conceptualised and measured, and (3) SIDS are dissatisfied with the current levels of international adaptation financing and their experience with accessing it. This paper concludes that, while international adaptation flows have not been sufficient, SIDS have not been disadvantaged in their access to such financing over the period, compared to other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing evidence of global warming calls on all states to enhance their adaptive capacity to deal with climate change. This paper compares the adaptive capacity of two Canadian provinces, the province of Mendoza, Argentina and the administrative region of Coquimbo, Chile in relation to the vulnerability of farmers to droughts and floods by applying the adaptive capacity wheel (ACW). It concludes that Saskatchewan and Alberta, Canada are particularly weak in terms of double- and triple-loop learning and in developing adaptive capacity in an equitable manner, probably attributable to strong climate scepticism in society and the weak economy. In the developing countries of Chile and Argentina, resources to assist with adaptation are often lacking; in Coquimbo, future learning is precarious because of information deficits in relation to data, memory, trust, and responsiveness; in Mendoza, institutions lack variety (redundancy of programs), resources, and governance processes are inadequately responsive. The paper makes contributions at the regional level by recommending that specific institutional weaknesses and lack of responsiveness be remedied by adopting appropriate missing instruments (perhaps, for example, water transfer provisions in Mendoza). New findings are made in relation to the dimensions of fair governance and learning capacity in the ACW. While learning capacity was closely linked to the dimension of leadership, the deficit of equity was closely linked to other indicators of fair governance (legitimacy, responsiveness, and accountability). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study how economic, conflict, and environmental drivers of migration influence immigration acceptance in a receiving country. We carried out an online survey experiment in autumn 2015 with 686 student participants from the University of Innsbruck in Austria. In the survey experiment, respondents state their acceptance for a fictitious migrant from Chad where we vary the following causes of the migration decision: (1) violent conflicts, (2) environmental degradation due to global climate change, (3) environmental degradation due to local overuse, and (4) better economic prospects. We find that respondents support migrants who move because of climate change as much as conflict migrants. Acceptance is lowest for migrants who decide to leave for economic reasons, while it is slightly higher in the case of environmental degradation due to local overuse. Strikingly, a sizable share of respondents (25%) would even reject conflict migrants. Respondents who perceive a negative correlation between welfare, crime rates and job opportunities, and the presence of immigrants display lower immigration acceptance for all motives underlying the migration decision. In addition, we find heterogeneous effects depending on the respondents’ gender and political affiliation. Respondents with right-wing party preferences disclose lower acceptance levels for all causes except conflict. Female respondents are more accepting of climate migrants and less of economic migrants than men. This paper informs the debate around the ongoing political and societal polarization in Europe and elsewhere on the acceptance of different types of migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intensification of the hydrological cycle resulting from climate change in West Africa poses significant risks for the region’s rapidly urbanising cities, but limited research on flood risk has been undertaken at the urban domain scale. Furthermore, conventional climate models are unable to realistically represent the type of intense storms which dominate the West African monsoon. This paper presents a decision-first framing of climate research in co-production of a climate-hydrology-flooding modelling chain, linking scientists working on state-of-the-art regional climate science with decision-makers involved in city planning for future urban flood management in the city of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The realistic convection-permitting model over Africa (CP4A) is applied at the urban scale for the first time and data suggest significant intensification of high-impact weather events and demonstrate the importance of considering the spatio-temporal scales in CP4A. Hydrological modelling and hydraulic modelling indicate increases in peak flows and flood extents in Ouagadougou in response to climate change which will be further exacerbated by future urbanisation. Advances in decision-makers’ capability for using climate information within Ouagadougou were observed, and key recommendations applicable to other regional urban areas are made. This study provides proof of concept that a decision-first modelling-chain provides a methodology for co-producing climate information that can, to some extent, bridge the usability gap between what scientists think is useful and what decision-makers need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, unauthorized migration from Honduras to the USA has become a topic of pressing international concern and a major factor in the political and humanitarian crisis at the southern border of the USA that has been unfolding since 2014. Untangling the causes of recent Honduran migration requires attending to economic change, political instability, the impact of violence and crime, rapidly changing gender roles, among many other forces that shape migration patterns. Recently, scholars and policy-makers have analyzed the impact of drought in the so-called Dry Corridor of Central America as a major source of migration, particularly among coffee producers who have been hard hit by unprecedented heat and lack of rain in parts of Honduras. Drawing on ethnographic studies of Honduran coffee farmers, this paper will discuss how and if climatic factors can be isolated from other factors to explain recent Honduran migration behavior, in order to move towards a holistic explanation of climate-driven migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming of 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels and a commensurate increase in global greenhouse gas emissions pose an unprecedented danger to human settlements, livelihoods and the sustainable development of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), yet these challenges present tremendous opportunities to rethink development pathways. The paper has two objectives. One is to critically review present vulnerabilities and adaptation strategies employed by the state, private sector, non-governmental organisations, community-based organisations and households. The other is to discuss vulnerabilities and identify adaptation and resiliency strategies which are considered most applicable beyond the 1.5 °C limit. The Caribbean Region is the focus of the paper. A key finding of the paper is that temperature change above the 1.5 °C limit set by the Paris Conference of the Parties will make the natural and human systems of SIDS even more highly vulnerable than they are already. Another finding is that Caribbean states have implemented various innovative climate change adaptation strategies, but their relevance should the 1.5 °C target be exceeded, requires further exploration. The paper is useful to policymakers, decision-makers and finance agencies in search of practical solutions to avert the implications for Caribbean settlements, economies and ecosystems should the temperature warming exceed 1.5 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding popular attitudes to climate change can be important in developing effective climate adaptation responses. However, in the Pacific region, which is at the forefront of impacts of a changing climate, little attention has been given to popular perceptions of climate change. This paper presents the findings of a climate change module in the first Pacific Attitudes Survey (PAS), conducted in Samoa from December 2020 to January 2021. Drawing on a nationally representative sample of Samoans of voting age (n = 1319), the PAS gauges the views of ordinary Samoans towards climate change, including perceptions of the urgency of climate change action, perceptions of the effects of climate change in Samoa, and of individual or institutional capacity to act on climate change. Findings reveal that while most respondents believe that climate change was an urgent problem that needs to be addressed, a significant minority thought it will "never be necessary" to address climate change. This study also found level of education to be a significant factor in climate beliefs. Respondents who had higher education levels were more likely to rate climate change as an urgent problem. Those identifying climate change as an urgent problem that needs to be addressed were significantly more likely to agree that climate change was affecting Samoa in general and their own personal lives. We also found a significant association between perceptions that climate change was an "urgent problem that needs to be addressed", and willingness to permanently migrate for work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study identifies how the governance of the transition to sustainable agriculture in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta is constrained by a lack of leadership, coordination, and funding. The Vietnamese Mekong Delta region is an important agricultural region yet highly vulnerable to climate change. In 2017, the Government of Vietnam issued Resolution 120, which calls for a transition towards sustainable development and climate change resilient agriculture in the delta. We evaluated the governance of implementing this resolution using an established transition governance framework, based on policy document analysis, ethnographic observations and interviews with national government agencies and ten departments in the delta provinces An Giang and Ben Tre. The analysis indicates that delays are caused by fragmented central government leadership and that friction exists between top-down plans and bottom-up action taken by the provinces in the delta. The transition is further constrained by the absence of inter-provincial coordination and funding mechanisms. Overall, this study shows that the required governance structure exists on paper but highlights how an insufficient governance process constrains climate change adaptation in Vietnam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small island developing states (SIDS) are recognized as a special case for sustainable development due to the unique set of challenges and vulnerabilities they face. While SIDS are a diverse group of nations, most share characteristics of small size, limited land availability, insularity, susceptibility to natural disasters and deep integration into global markets that make them particularly vulnerable to global environmental and economic change processes. Although there has been considerable research into the impacts of global change processes on small island vulnerability, much less attention has been paid to their resilience, particularly at the intersection of environmental and economic change and the consequences for food security. This paper presents an overview of the social-ecological vulnerabilities that drive food and nutrition insecurity in different SIDS contexts and considers how policies and governance arrangements might better support more resilient and sustainable small island food systems drawing from the collection of papers in this Special Issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing sound evidence to inform decision-making that considers the needs of the most vulnerable to climate change will help both adaptation and development efforts. Such evidence is particularly important in climate change 'hot spots', where strong climate signal and high concentrations of vulnerable people are present. These hot spots include semiarid regions and deltas of Africa and Asia, and glacier- and snowpack-dependent river basins of South Asia. In advance of a major research effort focusing on these three hot spots, studies were commissioned to identify and characterize the current status of knowledge in each on biophysical impacts, social vulnerability, and adaptation policy and practice. The resulting seven papers are brought together in this special edition, with this editorial introduction providing background on these hot spots, the program through which the studies were commissioned, and an overview of the papers that follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptation to a changing climate is unavoidable. Mainstreaming climate adaptation objectives into existing policies, as opposed to developing dedicated adaptation policy, is widely advocated for public action. However, knowledge on what makes mainstreaming effective is scarce and fragmented. Against this background, this paper takes stock of peer-reviewed empirical analyses of climate adaptation mainstreaming, in order to assess current achievements and identify the critical factors that render mainstreaming effective. The results show that although in most cases adaptation policy outputs are identified, only in a minority of cases this translates into policy outcomes. This “implementation gap” is most strongly seen in developing countries. However, when it comes to the effectiveness of outcomes, we found no difference across countries. We conclude that more explicit definitions and unified frameworks for adaptation mainstreaming research are required to allow for future research syntheses and well-informed policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid increase in marine shipping activity in Inuit Nunangat (i.e. in settled land claim regions of Arctic Canada), propelled by climate change and international interest in Arctic maritime trade, has heightened concerns among Inuit communities about the risks that more ships could pose for sustainable and subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering (berries, plants, eggs, etc.) (referred to as harvesting in this article) activities considered vital for cultural well-being and local livelihoods. As part of the Arctic Corridors and Northern Voices project, () a series of workshops, focus groups, and interviews were conducted in and with 14 communities across Inuit Nunangat that involved 133 marine experts and 59 youth community researchers. In this paper, we present the concerns identified by Inuit and local marine users about the risks of increased shipping activity specifically with respect to harvesting activities and then identify governance needs that could support sustainability. Results of the study are organised by three major risk themes: (1) Marine ecosystem contamination and degradation; (2) Disruption to harvesters’ travel and safety; and (3) Interference and disturbance of wildlife. All of these risks negatively impact harvesting activities in Inuit Nunangat. Considering the region is expected to be ice-free in summer by the end of the twenty-first century and that subsistence harvesting is crucial to the well-being of Inuit and northern communities, it is vital that research on this topic be conducted and then considered within ongoing Arctic governance and co-governance efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vertical integration, which creates strategic linkages between national and sub-national levels, is being promoted as important for climate change adaptation. Decentralisation, which transfers authority and responsibility to lower levels of organisation, serves a similar purpose and has been in place for a number of decades. Based on four case studies in semi-arid regions in Africa and India, this paper argues that vertical integration for climate change adaptation should reflect on lessons from decentralisation related to governing natural resources, particularly in the water sector. The paper focuses on participation and flexibility, two central components of climate change adaptation, and considers how decentralisation has enhanced or undermined these. The findings suggest that vertical integration for adaptation will be strengthened if a number of lessons are considered, namely (i) actively seek equitable representation from marginal and diverse local groups drawing on both formal and informal participation structures, (ii) assess and address capacity deficits that undermine flexibility and adaptive responses, especially within lower levels of government, and (iii) use hybrid modes of governance that include government, intermediaries and diverse local actors through both formal and informal institutions to improve bottom-up engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a crucial dilemma behind the failure of climate politics: the "dehumanization" of the concept of climate, i.e., the emergence of a predominance of global perspectives, conceptions, and knowledge of climate, which do not translate into local knowledge, experience, and political action. On the one hand, twentieth-century climate science improved understanding of global climate change tremendously. On the other hand, it focused on reductionist quantification and modeling and emphasis on large spatial and temporal scales. This research direction produced large- and global-scale knowledge and can aptly be described as knowledge from above. Climatology in its original Humboldtian conception, in contrast, focused on detailed local information. The human dimension—the support of human affairs—was at the core of it. This understanding of climatology involved priority of local-scale knowledge and can be regarded a version of knowledge from below, which still predominated in the first half of the twentieth century. In my paper, I will explore the question how the understanding of climate was "dehumanized" by globalizing research approaches and scientific conceptions through the twentieth century. Scientific and political interests pushed a globalizing agenda and produced a conceptual and discursive detachment of climate knowledge from human scales. The paper argues that it is important to understand the historical and ideological foundation of knowledge from above and its epistemic and social authority, if we aim at re-establishing recognition of knowledge from below and the lost links between both types of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]