Challenges to adapt -Adaptation

These days, “Adaptation” has been a cliché around the discourse of climate change however adaptation is not a new phenomena for people. Over the period of time climate has been changed and it has shown its devastating nature as well. People and communities have been victims of such calamities and thus people know about it. Most importantly people have also adopted their existence and livelihoods accordingly. Communities over the period have cultivated their wisdoms on how to cope up with such problems. The real challenge to the new discourses of climate change and adaptation is to recognize community wisdoms and to localize the understanding and to take actions accordingly.

It is also the fact that communities, ethnic groups and indigenous people are the one who have always been closer to the nature. Everyone knows that real problems of climate change lies in hands of developed countries, massive industrialization, brokers of land and natural resources, and the war lovers however, history has proved that small farmers, fishers, women, children, poor and common people have always been the constant victims of these mega projects, big development initiatives, industries and so on. Especially the marginalized sections of society are the one to bear the hardest burden of climate change -be it in forms food insecurity, flood, health or what not.

And now when the world is talking about big talks of climate change, ‘the word adaptation’ has been created as a mirage from where the so called technical and intellectual experts have started to gain their climate change expertise and the communities and common people are put up in confusions as if adaptation is something completely new and common people have no knowledge and understanding about it. The entire problem with the development sector is its politics of knowledge, words, jargons, and technicalizing the issue which puts communities and common people in such a situation as if they know nothing about it and then the politics of development starts on that particular issue, so is happening on the issues of climate change.

The problem is not with the efforts to improve climate change impacts, problem is also not with technical ideas on how to better cope up with the context; the problem is creating an empire of technical knowledge and neglecting what already exists with communities and people. Thus, within the debate of climate change as the word adaptation has been an area of empire, if not checked with caution it will further put people in confusion within climate change issues. The real challenge is how to acknowledge community wisdom and how to bridge the gap between communities and the technical expertise if we are honest about the issues and if we really want to sustain our interventions. It will be sustained only at a point when people start to take ownership of the issues along with their existing practices; ultimately it is the people and communities to deal with these issues at the ground levels. The question is -are we ready to reflect on these important aspects. The challenge is how do we ease the communication aspects within the context of climate change and how do we bridge the gap between so called global and local knowledge and wisdom to complement each other.

On the other, Climate change, culture and nature are so well connected especially while discussing about communities, ethnic groups and indigenous people, unless the climate change discourses and development initiatives respect these factors, it will be difficult for the world to see the real changes in the lives of common people and also to sustain the development interventions. In the meantime, the challenge is also to transfer the current and updated adaptation knowledge to the communities.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states adaptation as the "adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities.” This formal and official definition has to be transformed into local contexts as it is about common people and their existence. Adaptation issues needs to be contextualized and detechnicalized so that communities can take ownership of the initiative. In this sense the Japanese ways of conceptualizing and taking action which they call “wise adaptation” seems to be comprehensive.

Within these issues, yet another striking issue is the cost of adaptation which has been a matter of debate. There are various studies done by various agencies for 2010-2015 and their cost calculation differs from each other such as, World Bank (2006) 9-41 Billion p.a., Oxfam (2007) 50, and UNDP (2007) 86-109. The UNFCCC report states total funding need for adaptation by 2030 could amount to $49 – 171 billion per annum globally, of which $27 – 66 billion would accrue in developing countries. There have been growing debates on whether these estimations are comprehensive and are representative and inclusive of all essential sectors. Even within these financial calculation and potential AID politics, it is extremely important for the agencies working on adaptation issues to ease the communication process so that there is wider accountability and collective actions which has power to connect both the global and local contexts.

From the Desk of Earth Concern Analyst