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Communities at the frontlines of climate changes want to lead the way in developing their adaptive strategies.
According to a WSU paper, whether or not humanity rises up to the challenges of a warming world may depend on it. Nature Climate Change.
Anne Pisor, assistant professor in anthropology, and a team of international researchers propose a bottom up approach to climate change adaptation, where communities on the frontlines play a leading part in the decision-making process.
“Currently most governments and other organizations involved in addressing climate change prefer to fund initiatives where decisions are made about what to do at a higher level and then these decisions are passed down to local communities, like towns or neighborhoods, to implement,” Pisor said. “The issue with this is that what seems like a good strategy to these organizations may not actually work on the ground.”
Instead, the authors argue that communities — which are often rural, Indigenous, and/or poor — should be enabled to choose their own responses to climate change because they have often been doing it for a long time.
Per co-author Kristina Douglass’s work in Southwest Madagascar for example, mobility, social connections, and diversified methods of food production were key to responding to climate change over the last 2000 years. These strategies are evident in oral histories, archaeological data, as well as satellite data that show patterns of past settlement.
Tlingit communities in Alaska, Canada and Western Canada have used their own adaptations for decades to deal with sea level rise, rapid glacier movement and ice-dam flooding. Tlingit leaders are highlighting the importance of these adaptations in today’s changing climate.
“Some folks make the argument that when given a climate emergency, we have to reinvent the wheel,” Pisor said. “We’re making the argument that that’s a little hasty. Although we know that time is precious, local communities have been involved in climate risk management for a while. So, what we would really like to see are people in governments and other organizations including communities in decision-making more.”
The authors highlight that solutions that are quick to implement, maximize benefits, and minimize costs are often used to address the climate crisis.
These approaches may not be easy to adopt or maintained over time by members of the community. If this happens, both the speed and financial efficiency of these approaches are lost.
Organizations and researchers should instead offer support to communities as they develop or adopt solutions and test them, changing as needed. Communities can also try other solutions if one fails to work.
One important point made in the paper is that organizations can support communities by reducing constraints that keep them from experimenting with potential solutions – like rules and bureaucracy – and perhaps returning rights to land or to resources.
Organizations can also provide “insurance” to communities so they can experiment with solutions without bearing the brunt of failure. Communities can take part in risk pooling where they put money in and receive funds back if the adaptation fails due to a climate change. Another option is to consider universal basic income. This will buffer risk and encourage experimentation.
The study authors also argue that funding should be provided for the adaptations chosen by community members. Taken together, these steps can increase the effectiveness of climate change adaptations — how good they are at reducing risk and how long they last – as well as equity in who gets to decide how communities respond.
“Climate change remains perhaps the longest term and highest stakes crisis we’re facing,” Pisor said. “The message of the recently released IPPC report is hurry up: we really need to fix this now. But that sense of urgency shouldn’t come at the expense of community voices and community involvement because solutions will not stick if the people who have to implement them are not involved.”
