Who should define ‘good’ adaptation

PICs are some of the most vulnerable to climate change in the world (Nurse et al 2014), with impacts far reaching, and threatening basic livelihood assets including food, water, and land security (McCubbin, Smit, and Pearce 2015). As such, targeting adaptation in an effort to assist local communities at the forefront of climate impacts is both agreeable and necessary. This is especially pertinent in a Pacific Island context, as despite being some of the lowest emitting countries, they are amongst those most affected by climate change (Althor, Watson and Fuller 2016). This inequity in the distribution of contribution and affect regarding climate change has given rise to international discussions of climate justice, responsibility, and loss and damage.

Of note is the Paris agreement, the most significant international climate agreement to date, where onus has been placed on developed nations to assist those in the Global South (including PICs) in efforts to mobilie climate finance and assist in adaptation efforts (United Nations 2015).

There is significant and unquestioned importance of the role climate change adaptation can and should play to address challenges in Kiribati and other PICs. This is especially considering the impacts of climate change present challenges that can push socio-environments beyond what has been previously experienced. Yet, without consideration and value placed on the experiences, perspectives and values of those who are at the centre of such change,

meaningful community level adaptation appears unlikely. Rather than focusing solely on what objective challenges exist regarding climate change, more fundamental questions must be asked as a starting point to develop planned adaptation at the community level such as: what do communities’ themselves value in terms of adaptation? And how can local experiences, aspirations, and perceptions help shape the design and direction of planned adaptations?

Looking at the problem from this perspective involves the need to account for how vulnerability to climate change is experienced in place, and across different sectors of society, as what people value and experience can determine what adaptation pathways people perceive as most valuable and important to them. Such an approach can further help gain an understanding of the worldviews, values and beliefs of those that an adaptation is set to help, as a starting point for developing adaptation (Ensor et al 2018; O’Brien, Eriksen, Inderberg and Sygna 2015).

Owing to the often-unsuccessful outcomes of adaptation, integral questions have been raised regarding the position donors, governments, and practitioners hold and who is defining what

‘good’ adaptation is. As seen in this case study, what was objectively seen as good adaptation through improving food security, while not necessarily being misguided or inaccurate, does not allow for a nuanced understanding of the complex systems at play at the local scale where adaptation is implemented, and the importance placed on such by local people. For example, while food security is an overarching concern for communities on Abaiang Island, more immediate livelihood needs such as income and employment opportunities, were overlooked.

This is exacerbated, as the community was not given an option to design or influence the project direction in any way, but rather were used as a means to achieve the overall defined project goals for this regional project. This diminishes the experiences and perspectives of local people and does not recognise or utilise individual or community agency, local and traditional knowledge, or internal adaptive capacities.

While adaptation to climate change is imperative in the current changing world, as the impacts from climate change are already being felt and will continue to accelerate into the future, a more critical perspective must be placed on how planned adaptation is being designed and implemented. This is especially important and relevant, as studies continue to show the downfalls of donor driven objectives in adaptation in PICs (Dean, Green and Nunn 2016;

Piggott-McKellar et al 2020), and the continued dismissal of local people in the process of developing adaptation directions (Few, Brown and Tompkins 2007). Examples detailing the benefits of projects driven by communities with added support to funding and resources by external parties as opposed to being implemented or instructed upon them (Jamero et al 2018;

Murtinho, Eakin, López-Carr, and Hayes 2013) could help shed some light on future pathways for adaptation in PICs.

5.7 Conclusion and future directions

Adaptation is an essential strategy for dealing with the increasing impacts from climate change, especially considering mitigation measures are not sufficient to maintain a safe level for future climatic change. Due to the current reliance on external funding for development and adaptation by many PICs, the pervading discourse of vulnerability in the region, and the onus on developed countries to assist those most vulnerable in adaptation efforts, it appears likely that donor funded and driven adaptation will remain an ongoing and important component in the adaptation sphere for PICs. As such, the importance of ensuring that adaptation projects and programmes implemented through such avenues are providing effective and sustainable solutions for targeted groups is clear.

To better understand the impact of community level adaptation requires more project evaluations, especially from those whom projects are implemented to assist. This research showed that in the case of a food security project on Abaiang Island in Kiribati, the project was largely unsuccessful, with limited outcomes of the project sustained. Reasons for this were that the underlying vulnerability context, preferences, expectations, and desires within the community were not accounted for in project goals and objectives, meaning that the communities did not feel sufficient ‘ownership’ of the intervention to support and sustain it.

This framework of external funding from developed countries where project goals are generated without in-depth participation with the local community is questioned, with a call for greater exploration of new frameworks to implement planned adaptation in PICs in a bid to rethink who is defining ‘good’ adaptation goals and subsequent outcomes. As such, further research into the success of alternative frameworks for community level adaptation would be a useful ongoing contribution to the literature. Further, research detailing what adaptation might look like from local community perspectives in PICs and how these views might differ

across space and time would help strengthen an understanding of what ‘good’ adaptation can look like. Additionally, there is the overarching issue of who has the right to intervene and to decide the nature of intervention. For example, are communities justified in refusing adaptive interventions because they reject their scientific bases? And should donors who underwrite the costs of such interventions have the right to refuse to fund short-term solutions that address the temporary symptoms of larger problems that clearly require transformative solutions? It seems likely to us that these kinds of questions will be asked increasingly over the next few decades as the visibility and profundity of climate-change challenges in places like Kiribati increase.