Enhancing Resilience and Justice in Climate Adaptation Laws

Wenta, Joseph; McDonald, Jan; McGee, Jeffrey

doi:10.1017/s2047102518000286

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 99 publications

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“…From the perspective of distributive environmental justice, the affected communities in the landscape have been disadvantaged [147]. Distributive justice captures the sharing of benefits (resources and services) and burdens (harm and risks) the populace endures [147][148][149][150]. Allen et al [151] find that environmental justice is one of the prerequisites of achieving resilience of SESs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing Rather Than Avoiding “Difficulties” in Building Landscape Resilience

Meng

Pittock

et al. 2021

Sustainability

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Building landscape resilience inspires the cultivation of the landscape’s capacity to recover from disruption and live with changes and uncertainties. However, integrating ecosystem and society within such a unified lens—that is, socio–ecological system (SES) resilience—clashes with many cornerstone concepts in social science, such as power, democracy, rights, and culture. In short, a landscape cannot provide the same values to everyone. However, can building landscape resilience be an effective and just environmental management strategy? Research on this question is limited. A scoping literature review was conducted first to synthesise and map landscape management change based on 111,653 records. Then, we used the Nuozhadu (NZD) catchment as a case study to validate our findings from the literature. We summarised current critiques and created a framework including seven normative categories, or common difficulties, namely resilience for “whom”, “what”, “when”, “where”, “why”, as well as “can” and “how” we apply resilience normatively. We found that these difficulties are overlooked and avoided despite their instructive roles to achieve just landscape management more transparently. Without clear targets and boundaries in building resilience, we found that some groups consume resources and services at the expense of others. The NZD case demonstrates that a strategy of building the NZD’s resilience has improved the conservation of the NZD’s forest ecosystems but overlooked trade-offs between sustaining people and the environment, and between sustainable development for people at different scales. Future researchers, managers, and decision-makers are thereby needed to think resilience more normatively and address the questions in the “seven difficulties” framework before intervening to build landscape resilience.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing Rather Than Avoiding “Difficulties” in Building Landscape Resilience

Meng

Pittock

et al. 2021

Sustainability

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“…The growing adaptation gap will inevitably result in more political pressure to improve the loss and damage provisions of the international regime, and a blurring of adaptation efforts with loss and damage in domestic law making. Beyond the climate regime, the convergence of DRR, sustainable development, human displacement and broader justice (Lyster, 2016; Stillings, 2014; Wenta et al, 2019), and rights‐based agendas (e.g., Hall & Weiss, 2012) might render the task of adaptation law‐making more complex, but the resulting laws have the potential to effect fundamental structural change.…”

Section: Trends In the Role Of Lawmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking the role of law in adapting to climate change

McDonald

McCormack

2021

WIREs Climate Change

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The article evaluates the role of law in adaptation over the past decade. We track the emergence of international adaptation law within the climate and non‐climate regime, alongside increasingly dire extreme events and strident scientific consensus. Examining the growth in national and subnational laws for adaptation, we reflect on the role of framework legislation and legal mechanisms used in sectoral laws. Based on progress over the past decade, we outline how the role of law can be enhanced and accelerated in the decade ahead. We identify important trends in adaptation law and consider the potential for these innovations to drive future adaptation: the sheer growth in priority and volume of laws directed towards adaptation; the intersection of adaptation with other policy domains, especially disaster risk reduction; the need for improved architecture for funding adaptation; and the important role of strategic litigation. Largely absent from the past decade of adaptation law reform is evaluation of effectiveness, or examples of systemic reform that addresses underlying causes of vulnerability. With slow progress in implementing transformational adaptation law reform, we identify five design principles for adaptation laws. The design of laws must (1) be responsive to change; (2) address equity dimensions of climate change; (3) implement innovative solutions; (4) maximize co‐benefits; and (5) establish processes for managing trade‐offs. This article is categorized under: Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Institutions for Adaptation

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“…36 The analysis by Wenta, McDonald and McGee shows that, while law is central to adaptation, some legal concepts can restrict and even undermine adaptation efforts and environmental justice aims. 37 Their proposed design principles for climate adaptation laws provide that the possibility of change and the distributive effects of climate change must be acknowledged and considered in legal drafting. Moreover, participation in the adaptation process is to be promoted.…”

Section: Justice Resilience and Empowerment In Global And Local Contmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…53 Nevertheless, the local fisheries' initiatives studied by Penca have been able to thrive partially as a result of the presence of strong governance structures in Europe and North America. 54 Returning to the theme of adaptability and resilience as raised by Wenta, McDonald and McGee, 55 the development of transnational lawand a broader conception of what constitutes 'law'therefore depends at least in part on the ability of existing legal frameworks to adapt to changing legal and social environments. As Penca rightly points out, transnational law provides a starting point for theorizing these new developments, 56 but empirical studies such as hers provide essential feedback in the process of creating a more complete theory.…”

Section: Justice Resilience and Empowerment In Global And Local Contmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protecting the Tangible and Intangible Values of Transnational Environmental Spaces

Etty¹,

Heyvaert²,

Carlarne

et al. 2019

TEL

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Environmental policy and law walk a tightrope between preserving present and future environmental resources while allowing for their exploitation in the interest of socioeconomic development. This raises fundamental and complex questions regarding the weight to be given to current and future economic gain, environmental protection, and the interests of different peoples affected by this interplay. At the transnational level, these challenges are compounded by the absence of clear and targeted political accountability for any trade-offs struck by an increasingly diversified range of decision makers operating at different scales of government. Depending on one's views regarding the balance between environmental exploitation and protection, this may be considered a very positive development; the rise of new actors within transnational environmental law means greater possibility for inclusion, representation and legitimacy. Moreover, it provides alternatives to processes that may have stalled as a result of political inertia or stand-offs at the national or international level. However, accommodating these processes within the existing legal and political framework presents its own difficulties. As transnational environmental law matures, our thoughts on these issues, and the processes that accompany them, continue to evolve accordingly. In this issue of TEL, two different ways of thinking about, and addressing, this changing reality and its challenges for the protection of the environment are presented. The first three articles by

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Enhancing Resilience and Justice in Climate Adaptation Laws

Cited by 21 publications

References 99 publications

Managing Rather Than Avoiding “Difficulties” in Building Landscape Resilience

Managing Rather Than Avoiding “Difficulties” in Building Landscape Resilience

Rethinking the role of law in adapting to climate change

Protecting the Tangible and Intangible Values of Transnational Environmental Spaces

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