Mobilising transformative community-based climate change adaptation

Abstract

Under-resourced and marginalised communities often have limited government support, and therefore, must decide by themselves if and how they adapt to the uncertainties of climate change. Community-based climate change adaptation (CbA) forms a plausible approach here. In practice, however, CbA projects often fail to address the underlying causes of vulnerability like power relations and sociocultural structures that influence adaptation measures adopted and outcomes. In response, this perspective paper explores the concept of transformative community-based climate change adaption (TCbA), a reflexive approach that focuses on empowering communities by reframing the decision-making context. It discusses pathways of mobilising this shift to transformative CbA in three steps: (1) specifying the characteristics of a TCbA; (2) exploring the leverage points to mobilise it, and (3) recommending a set of actions and processes that facilitate co-decided interventions at the identified leverage points. These leverage points include "the structure of information flow", "rules of the system" and “power to change system structure or self-organise". The paper concludes by emphasising that the shift to transformative CbA begins when facilitators and members of the community undertaking a CbA project are reflexive about how the societal context of decision processes, like power relations, influence community adaptation decision-making, planning and implementation.