How to Adapt to Climate Change, and How Not to Adapt
Accra beach, Ghana. The construction of a seawall like the one here may hold back the water for a while, but it has a downside: It draws people to areas that are still highly vulnerable to climate change. (Ghana Yaw Afrim Gyebi/SLYCAN Trust)
With the growing impact of climate change around the world, efforts to adapt human infrastructure and practices seem like a purely good thing. But there is one thing that doesn’t fit. Just like drugs have side effects, some adaptations end up doing more harm than good, or at least enough harm that negative effects must be weighed against positive effects.
a new paper in the diary natural climate change studied this question and established methods for assessing adaptation activities. A bottom-line result: In general, infrastructure projects pose the greatest risk of maladaptation, while transitions involving dietary changes and restoration of natural areas pose the least risk.
The paper cites examples such as seawalls. Such structures are likely to work, at least for a while, but could eventually draw people to regions still at risk from rising sea levels, the report said. They also act as dams, trapping floodwaters in rivers that have swelled due to heavy rains.
Likewise, irrigation systems in poor, dry regions may only benefit farmers who can afford them. This could lead to the concentration of land in a few hands, or to farmers abandoning subsistence crops to specialize in single cash crops, reducing their resilience to future climate shocks.
Mentions of maladaptation began to appear in the academic literature. mid 2010s.From 2020, the term already used more often. However, it is often seen as the opposite of adaptation, with activities described as adaptive or maladaptive.
This dichotomy is Impact and Adaptation Report 2022 from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.the report uses the term “continuum”, Show that no action is entirely good or bad. It may seem nitpicking to distinguish between dichotomy and continuum, but the difference is significant. Modern medicine recognizes that no drug is safe or dangerous; instead, the risks and benefits of side effects must be carefully weighed. Societies must also assess the risks posed by adaptation activities.
The lead author of the new study, Diana Reckien at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, and her co-authors, including myself, constructed a method for locating adaptive activity on a continuum. We looked at six factors.
The third is system-level characteristics: whether an activity will have a positive or negative impact on the ecosystem; whether it will increase or decrease the concentration of greenhouse gases; and whether it may lead to changes in social systems.
The other three are equity-related considerations: whether adaptation benefits, has no impact, or worsens the situation of marginalized groups (low-income people, women and girls, and marginalized ethnic groups). The average score across these six dimensions provides the activity’s position on the continuum.
To provide some empirical insight into these conceptual and methodological frameworks, the study selected eight sectors facing significant climate impacts, including coastal areas, human health and food security. It analyzed 3 established adaptation responses for each condition, for a total of 24 responses. None of the results lie at one end of the continuum or the other, but are spread across most of its width.
The greatest potential for successful adaptation lies in responses based on social and behavioral systems. These include dietary shifts and reducing food waste, as well as increasing social safety nets. Also included are nature and ecosystem-focused options, such as improving farm and fishing practices and restoring natural areas.
There is a higher risk of maladaptation in infrastructure, such as unexpected flooding. In some cases, negative outcomes can also occur when insurance programs exclude marginalized groups or limit the potential for social transformation by reinforcing the status quo.
The study emphasizes that responses are not permanently fixed at one point or another on the continuum, and suggests that the continuum framework can be used to guide adaptive activity away from maladaptive poles. Insurance and coastal projects, for example, can be steered in positive directions if designers consider possible negative ecosystem or equity consequences.
We hope that this framework will provide the first “Global InventoryProgress on climate action at this year’s COP28″, which will assess global adaptation goals arranged in Paris agreement 2015. It is hoped that it will contribute to adaptation planning in local, national and international settings around the world.
