Equity and justice as central components of climate change adaptation

Abstract

Climate change and inequity are deeply intertwined. In this issue of One Earth, Araos et al. assess how social equity and justice are applied in global climate adaptation responses. Here, I highlight how evaluation can help the adaptation community address root causes of unequal vulnerability to climate change. Climate change and inequity are deeply intertwined. In this issue of One Earth, Araos et al. assess how social equity and justice are applied in global climate adaptation responses. Here, I highlight how evaluation can help the adaptation community address root causes of unequal vulnerability to climate change. Climate change is a global issue that affects everyone, but it does not affect everyone equally. Some communities and individuals disproportionately experience impacts from climate-change-related disasters, such as wildfire, flooding, extreme heat, and deep freezes. Simultaneously, some communities and individuals encounter economic, political, and other systemic barriers that inhibit them from adequately responding to, avoiding, or preventing these impacts. The societal factors that produce inequity and differential vulnerability to climate change are interwoven. Addressing unequal impacts and removing systemic barriers must be prioritized in both climate change planning and action. In this issue of One Earth, Malcolm Araos and a team of co-authors explore how social equity is and is not documented in empirical climate adaptation research.1Araos M. Jagannathan K. Shukla R. Ajibade I. Coughlan de Perez E. Davis K. Ford J.D. Galappaththi E.K. Grady C. Hudson A.J. Equity in human adaptation-related responses: A systematic global review.One Earth. 2021; 4: 1454-1467https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.09.001Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (4) Google Scholar Although many adaptation researchers and professionals acknowledge the need for equity and justice in adaptation responses, this study shows that centering these principles is not commonly practiced. Araos et al. offer two metrics, each representing a key component of justice, that provide baseline measures of equity across global climate adaptation responses. The authors identify eight social categories of people who are more likely to experience disproportionate impacts of climate change. One metric indicates whether people from one or more of these categories are involved in planning the adaptation response. The other metric indicates whether people from one of these eight categories are identified as beneficiaries of the adaptation response. This study illuminates two underlying and related issues that have plagued the adaptation community for several years. The first issue points to the need for evaluation to better assess the effectiveness of adaptation responses in reducing vulnerability to climate change.2Ford J.D. Berrang-Ford L. Lesnikowski A. Barrera M. Heymann S.J. How to track adaptation to climate change: A typology of approaches for national-level application.Ecol. Soc. 2013; 18: 40-53https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-05732-180340Crossref Scopus (111) Google Scholar The second issue calls attention to the root causes of marginalization and differential vulnerability to climate change, such as racism, capitalism, patriarchy, and colonization.3Thomas K. Hardy R.D. Lazrus H. Mendez M. Orlove B. Rivera-Collazo I. Roberts J.T. Rockman M. Warner B.P. Winthrop R. Explaining differential vulnerability to climate change: A social science review.Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Change. 2019; 10: e565https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.565Crossref PubMed Scopus (154) Google Scholar The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has acknowledged the need for monitoring and evaluation of adaptation responses,4IPCCSummary for policymakers.in: Field C.B. Barros V.R. Dokken D.J. Mach K.J. Mastrandrea M.D. Bilir T.E. Chatterjee M. Ebi K.L. Estrada Y.O. Genova R.C. Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2014: 1-32Google Scholar,5de Coninck H. Revi A. Babiker M. Bertoldi P. Buckeridge M. Cartwright A. Dong W. Ford J. Fuss S. Hourcade J.C. et al.Strengthening and Implementing the Global Response.in: Masson-Delmotte V. Zhai P. Pörtner H.O. Roberts D. Skea J. Shukla P.R. Pirani A. Moufouma-Okia W. Péan C. Pidcock R. Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty. World Meteorological Organization, 2018: 313-443Google Scholar and several frameworks and metrics have been put forward. However, evaluation has not yet been adopted as standard practice. A major challenge to its implementation involves creating a sustainable protocol to track large quantities of case studies over time. Drawing on the Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative (GAMI), Araos et al. systematically review 1,682 case studies from around the world.1Araos M. Jagannathan K. Shukla R. Ajibade I. Coughlan de Perez E. Davis K. Ford J.D. Galappaththi E.K. Grady C. Hudson A.J. Equity in human adaptation-related responses: A systematic global review.One Earth. 2021; 4: 1454-1467https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.09.001Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (4) Google Scholar Their use of machine learning combined with a team of manual reviewers offers an innovation in protocol for conducting large-scale global monitoring. This protocol could be applied to track progress in adaptation moving forward. Another challenge to implementing evaluation is that adaptation encompasses an extensive range of activities that aim to address an extensive range of climate impacts. The variety in activities, objectives, and impacts makes it difficult to establish frameworks and metrics that speak to diverse global responses.6Arnott J.C. Moser S.C. Goodrich K.A. Evaluation that counts: A review of climate change adaptation indicators & metrics using lessons from effective evaluation and science-practice interaction.Environ. Sci. Policy. 2016; 66: 383-392https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2016.06.017Crossref Scopus (37) Google Scholar To look across their large sample of case studies, Araos et al. mobilize social equity as binary variables that are present or not present in adaptation responses.1Araos M. Jagannathan K. Shukla R. Ajibade I. Coughlan de Perez E. Davis K. Ford J.D. Galappaththi E.K. Grady C. Hudson A.J. Equity in human adaptation-related responses: A systematic global review.One Earth. 2021; 4: 1454-1467https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.09.001Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (4) Google Scholar Although these metrics are not perfect, they do offer a starting point. The authors acknowledge the shortcomings of using binary variables to represent the complexities of procedural and distributional dimensions of justice. A complementary qualitative approach provides more context and detail about the actual extent to which prioritized social groups participate in and benefit from adaptation processes. Adaptation responses should center equity; likewise, monitoring and evaluating these responses should also center equity. Due to the urgency of climate-related threats to human and environmental systems, adaptation responses and evaluation metrics should prioritize the values, objectives, and needs of the people and systems at highest risk. Evaluation that combines qualitative and quantitative approaches can be used to track global trends, as well as metrics that have meaning for communities who are disproportionately impacted by climate change. Quantitative indicators can document trends at multiple scales and across economic sectors, agencies, and research initiatives. Qualitative indicators can help contextualize these trends within the realms of well-being, fundamental human rights, agency, and power. Araos et al. explore the challenges of centering equity in adaptation practice.1Araos M. Jagannathan K. Shukla R. Ajibade I. Coughlan de Perez E. Davis K. Ford J.D. Galappaththi E.K. Grady C. Hudson A.J. Equity in human adaptation-related responses: A systematic global review.One Earth. 2021; 4: 1454-1467https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.09.001Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (4) Google Scholar To authentically center equity and justice, adaptation responses must address not only the symptoms of vulnerability but also the systemic and structural causes of marginalization and disproportionate vulnerability. Composed of multiple dimensions of biophysical and socioeconomic exposure to risk, vulnerability is not a static condition, nor is it inherent to any particular social group.7Bohle H.G. Downing T.E. Watts M.J. Climate change and social vulnerability: Toward a sociology and geography of food insecurity.Glob. Environ. Change. 1994; 4: 37-48https://doi.org/10.1016/0959-3780(94)90020-5Crossref Scopus (555) Google Scholar The current conditions of disproportionate vulnerability to climate change have been actively created by past and current political, economic, environmental, and social processes.8Dooling S. Simon G. Cities, Nature, and Development: The Politics and Production of Urban Vulnerabilities. Ashgate Publishing Company, 2012Google Scholar If responses only address symptoms of vulnerability (e.g., exposure to climate impacts) without also addressing underlying systemic issues, these responses will never be effective or equitable. This understanding of systemic vulnerability maps to recognition justice, a third dimension of justice mentioned by Araos et al. Although the authors do not offer a metric for recognition justice, they define it as acknowledgment of “historical injustices and colonial legacies that put particular vulnerable groups and individuals at greater risk … and contributes to the unequal power relations that predate contemporary adaptation plans.”1Araos M. Jagannathan K. Shukla R. Ajibade I. Coughlan de Perez E. Davis K. Ford J.D. Galappaththi E.K. Grady C. Hudson A.J. Equity in human adaptation-related responses: A systematic global review.One Earth. 2021; 4: 1454-1467https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.09.001Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (4) Google Scholar The ways that social, economic, and political systems have created differential vulnerability must be understood so that they are not replicated in the process of developing adaptation responses. Indicators that systemic issues are being addressed might include the following: changing patterns of inclusion and exclusion from positions of leadership or decision-making; dismantling imbalanced power dynamics in funding, research, and governance structures associated with adaptation responses; increasing social connectivity and building relationships that are grounded in trust; honoring local ownership of resources, data, and other outputs; providing more inclusive communication and accessibility of information; and prioritizing local knowledge and experience in developing adaptation responses.9Owen G. What makes climate change adaptation effective? A systematic review of the Literature.Glob. Environ. Change. 2020; 62: 102071https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102071Crossref Scopus (55) Google Scholar Collectively, human society has the resources, skills, knowledge, and technology to mitigate carbon emissions and adapt to the rise in global temperatures that has already materialized. However, the cascading impacts of climate change—especially when combined with a pandemic and economic instability—are currently outpacing society’s capacity to adapt. The diversity of ideas and techniques regarding how to address these overlapping crises should be embraced in the development of well-informed and strategic adaptation responses. Evaluation can help prioritize the needs and objectives of the communities at the highest risk. Tracking quantitative and qualitative metrics of social equity will provide opportunities to course correct over time. The metrics, systematic review protocol, and findings put forward by Araos et al. and the GAMI team offer a path toward centering equity in global adaptation responses to climate change. Equity in human adaptation-related responses: A systematic global reviewAraos et al.One EarthSeptember 23, 2021In BriefThis paper presents the first large-n global assessment of how equity is integrated in planning and implementation of adaptation responses. By examining 1,682 peer-reviewed articles reporting on adaptation responses across the world, we find that attention to equity is not equal across geographic regions, topical sectors, or marginalized groups. Our paper calls on the adaptation community to foreground considerations of social equity and document social equity in empirical studies of adaptation responses in order to advance progress on social justice. Full-Text PDF