Abstract
ABSTRACTBased on research into multiple types of climate change mitigation and adaptation (CCMA) projects and policies in Cambodia, this paper documents intersecting social and environmental conflicts that bear striking resemblance to well-documented issues in the history of development projects. Using data from three case studies, we highlight the ways that industrial development and CCMA initiatives are intertwined in both policy and project creation, and how this confluence is creating potentials for maladaptive outcomes. Each case study involves partnerships between international institutions and the national government, each deploys CCMA as either a primary or supporting legitimation, and each failed to adhere to institutional and/or internationally recognized standards of justice. In Cambodia, mismanaged projects are typically blamed on the kleptocratic and patrimonial governance system. We show how such blame obscures the collusion of international partners, who also sidestep their own safeguards, and ignores the potential for maladaptation at the project level and the adverse social and environmental impacts of the policies themselves.Key policy insightsInitiatives to mitigate or adapt to climate change look very much like the development projects that caused climate change: Extreme caution must be exercised to ensure policies and projects do not exacerbate the conditions driving climate change.Safeguards ‘on paper’ are insufficient to avoid negative impacts and strict accountability mechanisms must be put in place.Academic researchers can be part of that accountability mechanism through case study reports, policy briefs, technical facilitation to help ensure community needs are met and safeguards are executed as written.Impacts beyond the project scale must be assessed to avoid negative consequences for social and ecological systems at the landscape level.
Highlights
Climate change mitigation and adaptation (CCMA) policies often significantly reconfigure who is able to use land and in what ways (Hunsberger et al, 2017)
We present some of the processes that contribute to this risk in contemporary development and CCMA projects
We investigated projects related to the production of crops suitable for biofuels, industrial tree plantations, irrigation schemes, and hydropower projects as well as conservation and related Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) initiatives (Hunsberger et al, 2017)
Summary
Climate change mitigation and adaptation (CCMA) policies often significantly reconfigure who is able to use land and in what ways (Hunsberger et al, 2017). This study employs a critical environmental justice lens to investigate the deployment of CCMA narratives and the implementation of CCMA policies in landscapes of extractive development in Cambodia (see Anderson, Kusters, McCarthy, & Obidzinski, 2016) From this vantage point, we gather data about climate change policies and the projects they ignite in collaboration with civil society members and grassroots activists. We outline our key terms and discuss project level case studies This is followed by an analysis of the different types of conflicts and injustices, the non-compliance processes between national and international actors, and the social and ecological impacts of projects in a landscape perspective. In addition to primary data collection, the researchers undertook a comparison with other case studies in Cambodia and internationally, and investigated the laws and regulations relating to institutions in our study sites as well as international guidelines
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