Development and Adaptation Continuum

The rise of adaptation as a development issue (for example, a focus on equity and rights) has evolved together with the recognition of three points that have been mentioned earlier. In short that: (1) the negative impacts of climate change are not caused by physical and climatic factors alone, but are enhanced or alleviated by socio-economic, cultural, political and other factors as well (Bodley, 2001 in Schipper, 2004); (2) the poor in low- and middle-income nations are expected to be disproportionately at risk from climate change impacts; and (3) poverty is expected to be exacerbated as climate change impacts undermine development efforts (McGray, Hammil, & Bradley, 2007). As a result it is acknowledged that there is a need for adaptation to not only focus on physical infrastructure and specific climate change

responses, but to also incorporate and address the multiple and cross-sectoral factors of vulnerability.

This has led to a diversity of adaptation approaches that   range   from   ‘pure   development’   to   ‘explicit   climate   change   measures’   (Tanner & Mitchell, 2008).

McGray and others (2007) argue that it is impossible to represent these in one model and thus they frame the interrelationship between development and adaptation in a Development and Adaptation Continuum (see Figure 10). The continuum

“categorizes   adaptation   efforts   according   to   whether   vulnerability   or   impacts   are   emphasized  in  the  approach  taken” (McGray et al., 2007, p. 23). It places adaptive responses to specific climate change impacts on one end (the right) meanwhile placing responses that reduce vulnerability and deal with a range of impacts by building adaptive capacity on the other end (the left). This illustrates how on one extreme  adaptation  is  seen  distinctively  from  ‘normal  development’  and  on  the  other   extreme adaptation is understood to be synonymous to development as it addresses the underlying vulnerability issues, which make people at risk to climate change impacts.

Figure 10. The Development and Adaptation Continuum

Source: Tanner and Mitchell (2008, p. 2) adapted from McGray et al. (2007, p. 18)

The continuum can be divided into four zones of adaptation (from left to right): (1) addressing the drivers of vulnerability; (2) building response capacity; (3) climate risk management; and (4) confronting climate change. Activities under the first zone are primarily to strengthen and support human development therefore the foci of activities are poverty reduction and other causes of vulnerability (that may be climate related  or  not).    “Very  little  attention  to  specific  climate  change  is  paid  during these interventions”  and  any  benefits  for  adaptive  capacity  are  knock-on effects (McGray et al., 2007, p. 2). However because climate change effects are not purposefully taken into account, some interventions “run the risk of maladaptation”,   “may   fall   outside   the mandate of climate change policies”   – making it difficult to access funding for this type of adaptation, and can also “appear massive in scope” (Ibid., pp. 17, 18 and 19). The second zone of adaptation deals with high levels of uncertainty in the realm of climate change impacts and thus focuses on “building robust systems for problem solving. These capacity-building efforts lay the foundation for more targeted actions and frequently entail institution-building and technological approaches familiar to the development community... These activities may have many benefits other than adaptation to climate change, but they typically occur in sectors more directly relevant to climate change”  (McGray et al., 2007, p. 20). In this approach, climate change awareness means that it can be prioritized over other areas, but still interventions may be short-term and include resilience-building (Ibid.). The third zone of adaptation focuses purposefully on hazards and impacts and derives guidance from the concept of climate risk management (CRM) and  may  be  seen  as  ‘climate-proofing’.     McGray   and   others   state   that   CRM   “encourages   managing current climate-related risks as a basis for managing more complex, longer-term risks associated with climate change”   and   therefore   aims   to   incorporate climate information into development and planning decisions to reduce negative impacts (2007, p. 21). CRM also provides for the reality that future climate change impacts may not be easily distinguished from current climate variability. The fourth and final

zone of adaptation focuses on creating exclusive response mechanisms to specific impacts that are distinctly outside the realm of current and historic climate variability, for example sea-level rise. Few of these interventions have been seen to date because they are costly, highly technical and depend upon a relatively high level of certainty of  climate  change  impacts.  A  main  shortfall  of  this  is  that  it  neglects  addressing  “the   real  causes  of  vulnerability”  to  climate  change  (McGray et al., 2007, p. 17).

In terms of the practice and theory of CBA they may be perceived through the paradigm of ‘adaptation   as development’,   which acknowledges   that   “overall   development   is   an   effective   contribution   to   withstanding   future   climate   change”  

(Ayers & Forsyth, 2009, p. 25).    This  works  two  ways  so  that  “effective  development   planning process[es] …  take  climate  change into account and …  facilitate  adaptation   to   the   effects   of   climate   change”   meanwhile   “adaptation   will …   include   “regular”  

development interventions to ensure the sustainability and overall success of its results”   (McGray et al., 2007, p. 5). As such CBA may incorporate activities that span the three left-most responses in the continuum (represented by the grey shading in Figure 10) and  most  firmly  sits  under  ‘Building  response  capacity’. Therefore, as this research seeks to learn about CBA in the context of settlement development planning,   it   will   investigate   three   of   McGray   and   others’   four   possible forms of adaptation:  first,  ‘addressing  the  drivers  of  vulnerability’  (for example by providing safe and permanent housing, basic infrastructure and service provision, and secure land tenure);;  second,  ‘build response  capacity’  (such  as  building  robust institutional capacity and planning processes to support urban climate change adaptation); and third, ‘climate  risk  management’  (such  as  how  NGO’s  are  purposefully  incorporating   climate change adaptation into settlement development planning for the urban poor).

It  is  vital  to  see  CBA  through  the  ‘adaptation  as development’  paradigm;;  specifically,   to see where it fits along the Development and Adaptation continuum and to recognize that there is a spectrum of adaptation responses that span from addressing

specific climate change impacts to addressing social vulnerability issues that also comes under development initiatives. Without this, one risks judging all adaptation responses with the same criteria, and expecting all adaptation to address specific climate change impacts and to be an independent activity from development.