Policy making under scarcity: reflections for designing socially just climate adaptation policy

Abstract

Limited information and insufficient resources are inherent challenges for climate policy, and policy makers must grapple with how to design and implement adaptation policies under conditions of scarcity. Drawing on empirical evidence from Honduras, Ethiopia, Haiti, and Puerto Rico, and analysis of the global landscape of adaptation finance, this perspective identifies ways that designing policy under conditions of scarcity can inadvertently lead to adaptation policies that reinforce inequality and fail to address underlying social vulnerabilities. It reflects on two sources of scarcity that impact adaptation policy—lack of data and lack of finance—and acknowledges that despite the non-ideal conditions this scarcity creates, adaptation policy will be designed under these conditions. The perspective highlights issues to be aware of when designing adaptation policy and calls for greater attention to the social justice implications in the policy design process. Limited information and insufficient resources are inherent challenges for climate policy, and policy makers must grapple with how to design and implement adaptation policies under conditions of scarcity. Drawing on empirical evidence from Honduras, Ethiopia, Haiti, and Puerto Rico, and analysis of the global landscape of adaptation finance, this perspective identifies ways that designing policy under conditions of scarcity can inadvertently lead to adaptation policies that reinforce inequality and fail to address underlying social vulnerabilities. It reflects on two sources of scarcity that impact adaptation policy—lack of data and lack of finance—and acknowledges that despite the non-ideal conditions this scarcity creates, adaptation policy will be designed under these conditions. The perspective highlights issues to be aware of when designing adaptation policy and calls for greater attention to the social justice implications in the policy design process. Limited information and insufficient resources are inherent challenges for climate policy, and policy makers must grapple with how to design and implement adaptation policies under conditions of scarcity. These challenges are particularly acute for developing countries with weak historical climate data and where resources to implement adaptation policies must compete with other urgent priorities. However, it is widely acknowledged that developing countries will be the most impacted by climate change and urgently need adaptation policies to reduce vulnerability and increase resilience. This creates a particular challenge, as the very conditions that hamper the policy-making process contribute to the urgency of adaptation policy in these contexts. However, adaptation policy also provides an opportunity to address social justice priorities, as adaptation policy can be designed to reduce structural vulnerability and inequality. Despite the challenges scarcity creates, ensuring that adaptation policy prioritizes social justice should not be compromised. The goal of this perspective is to reflect on two key sources of scarcity that can impact adaptation policy: lack of information and lack of finance, and how this scarcity creates challenges for designing and implementing socially just adaptation policy. The term “adaptation policy” refers to the diverse strategies that institutions, particularly government institutions, use to address the impacts of climate change, including climate variability and extremes, and includes a mix of policies and measures.1Mimura N. Pulwarty R.S. Elshinnawy I. Redsteer M.H. Huang H.Q. Nkem J.N. Rodriguez R.A.S. Moss R. Vergara W. Darby L.S. Kato S. Adaptation planning and implementation.in: Climate Change 2014 Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability: Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Cambridge University Press, 2014: 869-898Google Scholar I argue that scarcity of data and finance not only makes adaptation policy making more challenging overall, but specifically make it more difficult to ensure that adaptation policies are socially just. By socially just adaptation policy, I refer to the process of policy design, the beneficiaries of adaptation policy, and the outcomes of adaptation policy. A socially just adaptation policy is inclusive in its design process, targets the most vulnerable, and includes adaptation approaches that address underlying vulnerabilities and inequalities, rather than relying solely on technical fixes to climate impacts. Due to the incentives created by scarcity, and the ways that scarcity, real or perceived, influence the policy process, policy making under conditions of scarcity is less likely to result in socially just policies, unless explicit measures are taken to ensure inclusive adaptation processes that address underlying vulnerabilities and inequality. Ten years after the world agreed that mitigation and adaptation should be equal priorities in Cancun, the field is now sufficiently advanced to reflect on the dynamics of scarcity and strategies to advance adaptation policy despite a continued lack of data and finance. Gone are the days in which adaptation was viewed as the “ugly stepchild” of climate policy; when an articulation of the need for adaptation was viewed as an admission of failure on mitigation.2Khan M.R. Roberts T. Adaptation and international climate policy.Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Change. 2013; 4: 171-189Crossref Scopus (80) Google Scholar Despite significant progress, however, a pervasive “adaptation gap” remains.3Fankhauser S. McDermott T.K. Understanding the adaptation deficit: why are poor countries more vulnerable to climate events than rich countries?.Glob. Environ. Change. 2014; 27: 9-18Crossref Scopus (96) Google Scholar,4UNEPThe Adaptation Gap Report 2018. UNEP, 2018Google Scholar Together, a lack of information and finance present formidable barriers for adaptation policy. While the ways that scarcity of information and finance serve as barriers to adaptation are widely discussed in the literature, this perspective acknowledges that, given the urgency of climate change, these are conditions under which adaptation policy will be designed. I identify ways that designing policy under these conditions can inadvertently lead to adaptation policies that reinforce inequality and fail to address underlying social vulnerabilities unless countered by a commitment to social justice principles, and call for greater attention to the social justice implications in the policy design process. Rather than a comprehensive review of barriers to adaptation policy (see Biesbroek et al.5Biesbroek G.R. Klostermann J.E. Termeer C.J. Kabat P. On the nature of barriers to climate change adaptation.Reg. Environ. Change. 2013; 13: 1119-1129Crossref Scopus (337) Google Scholar) this perspective focuses on the implications of insufficient data and finance on adaptation policy design at the national level. It is motivated by reflections from my empirical research in Honduras, Ethiopia, Haiti, and Puerto Rico, as well as analysis of the global adaptation finance landscape. Adaptation across scales is important,6Adger W.N. Arnell N.W. Tompkins E.L. Successful adaptation to climate change across scales.Glob. Environ. Change. 2005; 15: 77-86Crossref Scopus (1742) Google Scholar but the national level is particularly relevant, as national governments create the enabling conditions for local adaptation, serve as the primary intermediaries with the international system,1Mimura N. Pulwarty R.S. Elshinnawy I. Redsteer M.H. Huang H.Q. Nkem J.N. Rodriguez R.A.S. Moss R. Vergara W. Darby L.S. Kato S. Adaptation planning and implementation.in: Climate Change 2014 Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability: Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Cambridge University Press, 2014: 869-898Google Scholar and are particularly well suited to address systemic issues of structural vulnerabilities and equity. A lack of data or information is often the first barrier identified for adaptation policy development.1Mimura N. Pulwarty R.S. Elshinnawy I. Redsteer M.H. Huang H.Q. Nkem J.N. Rodriguez R.A.S. Moss R. Vergara W. Darby L.S. Kato S. 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Res. 2011; 47: 5-12Crossref Scopus (29) Google Scholar Data of numerous kinds are scarce in developing countries, but of particular importance for adaptation policy is climate data: both historical climate data and projections of future climate. Vulnerability assessments that integrate climate data with socioeconomic data are also important data sources for adaptation policy.11Miller F. Bowen K. Questioning the assumptions: the role of vulnerability assessments in climate change adaptation.Impact Assess. Project Appraisal. 2013; 31: 190-197Crossref Scopus (21) Google Scholar Lack of information contributes to policy uncertainty: the directionality and scale of climate impacts and projected changes can be highly uncertain. Lack of evidence regarding the effectiveness of different adaptation strategies and how to choose among them create additional uncertainty. This section examines: (1) the role of data in policy making in data scarce contexts and (2) what, beyond data, influence adaptation decision making and how this impacts the types of adaptation strategies that get prioritized. Significant efforts are in place to increase access to data for adaptation decision making, which will improve the capacity of developing countries to design evidence-based policies, but policy continues to be made under conditions of data scarcity, with important implications for vulnerability reduction and social justice. In guidance to policy makers, data are presented as the essential foundation for policy making. The adaptation policy process is frequently described as a series of steps, beginning with the identification of hazards or risks, continuing with a vulnerability assessment, moving to a comparison of policy options, often involving quantitative approaches, such as cost-benefit analysis or multi-criteria analysis, which leads to the selection of a policy. Monitoring and evaluation to assess the effectiveness of policy and inform future policy is also frequently included (Figure 1). For example, the Adaptation Database and Planning Tool (ADAPT), a widely promoted Excel-based tool by ICLEI, takes potential project activities, integrates hazard maps, and climate projections, resulting in a climate risk assessment that ranks activities according to their sensitivity, and produces a color-coded list of adaptation options.12ICLEIAdaptation Database and Planning Tool: ADAPT.iclei.usa.org/tools/adaptDate: 2019Google Scholar The Adaptation Support Tool, designed by Climate-ADAPT to support adaptation across Europe, includes six steps: (1) preparing the ground for adaptation, (2) assessing risks and vulnerabilities to climate change, (3) identifying adaptation options, (4) assessing adaptation options, (5) implementation, and (6) monitoring and evaluation.13Climate-ADAPT “The adaptation support tool” climate-ADAPT: sharing adaptation information across Europe.https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/knowledge/tools/adaptation-support-toolDate: 2020Google Scholar This process is highly data dependent. Many developing countries do not have rich data on climate impacts, risks, or vulnerabilities upon which to base their policies, nor sufficient capacity to analyze complex data and employ it in policy design.14Rogers D.P. Tsirkunov V.V. Weather and Climate Resilience: Effective Preparedness through National Meteorological and Hydrological Services. The World Bank, 2013Crossref Google Scholar,15Ryan D. Bustos E. Knowledge gaps and climate adaptation policy: a comparative analysis of six Latin American countries.Clim. Policy. 2019; 19: 1297-1309Crossref Scopus (7) Google Scholar As a result, one of the first things many countries invest in is climate information (CI) systems. CI systems can be defined as the data derived from climate observations in addition to mechanisms that track and analyze the data and a system for converting data into usable products.16Trenberth K.E. Marquis M. Zebiak S. The vital need for a climate information system.Nat. Clim. 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Countries may want to build capacity to utilize existing data, including CI, and explore partnerships to increase access to data, but policy makers should recognize that investments in CI may come at the expense of other adaptation investments.21Millner A. Climate prediction for adaptation: who needs what?.Clim. Change. 2012; 110: 143-167Crossref Scopus (15) Google Scholar The long-term benefits of CI may justify the costs, but other investments may have more immediate adaptation benefits. For example, design standards in most developing countries are insufficient to handle the current climate; investments to reduce current vulnerability would go a long way to addressing future vulnerability and do not necessarily require sophisticated data.22Heltberg R. Siegel P.B. Jorgensen S.L. Addressing human vulnerability to climate change: toward a ‘no-regrets’ approach.Glob. Environ. 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The limits of poverty reduction in support of climate change adaptation.Environ. Res. Lett. 2016; 11: 094011Crossref Scopus (20) Google Scholar Adaptation strategies that target broad adaptive capacity rather than specific climate impacts can have development co-benefits. Identifying synergies with other development priorities, as well as working to ensure policy coherence, may enhance the political salience of adaptation policy, increase the efficiency with which limited resources can be invested, and have greater social justice benefits.27Atteridge A. Verkuijl C. Dzebo A. Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) as instruments for promoting national development agendas? An analysis of small island developing states (SIDS).Clim. Policy. 2019; : 1-14https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2019.1605331Crossref Scopus (13) Google Scholar, 28Di Gregorio M. Nurrochmat D.R. Paavola J. Sari I.M. Fatorelli L. Pramova E. Locatelli B. Brockhaus M. Kusumadewi S.D. 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In the absence of data, specifically climate projections, decisions are based on heuristics that may or may not be appropriate under climate change. Decision makers may rely on their past experiences, of, for example, past disasters to inform their policy making, even if the conditions that led to those disasters has changed, and even if the historical experiences do not align with the projected climate impacts in the region. This can have a profound impact on the design of adaptation policy. This impact is potentially positive but, if the path dependency of these past experiences remains unconscious, opportunities to enhance socially just adaptation options may be missed. Despite the fact that historical experiences do not necessarily reflect future climate realities, they still play an important role in motivating climate policy. Focusing events: sudden, rare, harmful events that bring attention to an issue, are well known to drive policy.30Birkland T.A. 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Macmillan, 2007Google Scholar concept of disaster capitalism illustrates, not all opportunities that arise from disaster advance social justice priorities. Two examples, based on fieldwork in Ethiopia and Honduras, illustrate the importance of disasters and the path dependency of adaptation policy. In both cases, disasters are indelibly marked in the memories of individuals across the country. While these events caused trauma, they also paved the path for adaptation efforts underway today. Because of the different historical situations, the adaptation strategies that evolved are quite distinct. In Ethiopia in the 1980s, significant rainfall shortages, along with domestic and international policies, led to food insecurity and famine estimated to have caused between 400,000 and 1 million deaths and left millions more destitute.33Webb P. Von Braun J. Yohannes Y. Famine in Ethiopia: policy implications of coping failure at national and household levels.Food Nutr. 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A system of emergency committees, from the national level down to the village level, exists to coordinate disaster response and has resulted in efficient management of subsequent events, although this system was severely tested by two hurricanes in 2020, Eta and Iota, that have been compared with Hurricane Mitch. However, this emphasis on disaster preparedness and response has dominated adaptation strategies at the potential expense of investments in strategies to build broader adaptive capacity. In both cases, the genesis of adaptation policy in the historical experience of disaster has led to an emphasis in adaptation strategies on the prevention of that specific disaster, and not on building broader adaptive capacity or empowerment. Stakeholders in both contexts have reflected on the missed opportunities and challenges for expanding conceptions of adaptation policy beyond these initial experiences. Historical disasters can not only shape narratives, but also influence the data that inform adaptation policy. Although often presented as objective, data are never neutral. The choices of what data are collected, how they are presented, and how they inform policy are political. Vulnerability indicators, in particular, are deeply connected to issues of power. Nations are not passive recipients of vulnerability rankings and can and do mobilize rankings to their advantage. For example, some countries resist being upgraded from least-developed countries status because this status provides access to certain funding. Countries can use vulnerability rankings to demand higher financial flows from donor countries, and natural disasters have been shown to influence international aid allocation in the short term,40Becerra O. Cavallo E. Noy I. Foreign aid in the aftermath of large natural disasters.Rev. Dev. 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