Distributing Responsibilities for Climate Adaptation: Examples from the Water Domain

Abstract

It is often assumed that climate adaptation policy asks for new responsibility arrangements between central government and citizens, with citizens getting a more prominent role. This prompts the question under which conditions these new responsibility arrangements can be justified as they may raise serious ethical concerns. Without paying due attention to these ethical concerns, climate adaptation policy may be unsuccessful and even be considered illegitimate. This paper aims to address this topic by exploring some examples of climate adaptation responses and their associated ethical challenges. The examples from the water domain differ in terms of their primary beneficiaries and the extent to which they are prone to collective action problems. Discussion of the examples shows that any shift of responsibilities towards citizens should be accompanied by a governmental responsibility to make sure that citizens are indeed able to assume these responsibilities and a responsibility to see to it that the greater involvement of responsibilities does not create disproportional inequalities.

Unpacking notions of residents' responsibility in flood risk governance

“…Ideally, such a comparison would consist of empirical data on perceptions of responsibility from stakeholders in flood risk governance. Future research can determine whether the conceptualisation of responsibility as presented here is also applicable to broader climate change adaptation processes as the debates on residents' responsibility are also applicable to climate issues like heat stress or drought (Doorn et al, 2012; Mees, Driessen & Runhaar, 2015; Mees, 2017).…”

“…All in all, these three countries are coping with the moral considerations based on capacity and role factors (see Table 3). By delegating responsibility to residents, governments are increasing the possibility of inequality within society (Doorn et al, 2012). Morally, the ideal solution would be that the residents who, for example, possess more financial capacity also take on more of the moral responsibility in flood risk governance.…”

A Healthy Metaphor? The North Sea Consultation and the Power of Words

“…The notion of climate adaptation reduces this enormous plurality and heterogeneity of measures and events within a single term, enabling governments to effectively develop and legitimize policies. Moreover, 'climate adaptation' invokes a long list of similar metaphors such as 'resilience', 'systems', or 'vulnerability', which are all terms that help us to make sense of a wide variety of phenomena while predefining our scope of action [11]. For instance, in the IPCC's definition of resilience, at least half the terms are metaphorical, i.e., "The ability of a system and its component parts to anticipate, absorb, accommodate, or recover from the effects of a hazardous event in a timely and efficient manner" [12] (our italics added).…”

The Good Life and Climate Adaptation

“…However, these measures also raise ethical questions. Think for instance of the people that need to be dislocated, or that are confronted with new projects like dams or storm surge barriers, or think about those people that have to pay for such adaptation measures [2,3]. In all of these cases, certain people are disadvantaged by these measures and projects, which are issues that inevitably raise questions about the justice and fairness of the distribution between benefits and advantages [4].…”