Tipping Toward Transformation: Progress, Patterns and Potential for Climate Change Adaptation in the Global South

Abstract

In response to observed and projected climate change impacts, major donors are funding an abundance of climate change research in the global South. The product of these funding schemes is often an abundance of cases with little attention paid to capturing the broader trends and patterns across cases. Furthermore, calls are increasingly being made for both adaptation and mitigation policies that are transformative: strategies that tackle the roots of vulnerability and high carbon development pathways to create a more fundamental shift towards sustainability. In this paper, we assess 54 cases of donor-funded adaptation research in the global South to paint a detailed picture of the types of adaptation options being proposed and implemented, their scope and the intended beneficiaries. We consider these data through the lens of transformation: to what extent do these cases illustrate adaptation actions that might push the social-ecological system over a tipping point towards a more desirable, sustainable state? Ultimately, we find that the adaptation options in these cases focus on educational or behavioral campaigns rather than deeper governance, legislative, or economic shifts. Similarly, the scale of action most often targets communities, rather than ecosystems, watershed, or regional/national scales. Even so, the emergence of resilience thinking in some projects, and the potential for a values shift triggered by these projects may sow the seeds of a longer-term transformation, if more attention is paid to synergies between development objectives and climate change actions.

Data, concepts and methods for large‐n comparative climate change adaptation policy research: A systematic literature review

“…This is compounded by a limited push from the adaptation research community to fund datadriven research as the community itself is still characterized by small-n qualitative research. Research institutions and national funding agencies invest primarily in short-term research projects that are context specific and deliver immediate results such as tools, guidebooks and context specific recommendations even though the effects of these efforts are not always convincing (Burch et al, 2017;Clar & Steurer, 2018).…”

“…Government documents tend to over report government-driven and planned adaptation, leaving less room for private and autonomous adaptation, thus portraying a skewed picture of the type of adaptation taking place (Fleig, Schmidt, & Tosun, 2017). Burch, Mitchell, Berbes-Blazquez, and Wandel (2017) note that reports in the IDRC database were of significantly varying quality which made analysis and comparison difficult. Moreover, studies note the potential for "greenwashing," or governments relabelling existing policies as new adaptation initiatives, between reporting periods (Lesnikowski et al, 2016).…”

Climate change induced socio-economic tipping points: review and stakeholder consultation for policy relevant research

“…The mechanisms that could cause a shift towards a 'fundamentally improved state' (Burch et al 2017) are diverse (Farmer et al 2019). In the mitigation domain, these could include policy instruments or market forces (EC 2018, Mercure et al 2018) as well as financial thresholds for competing technologies (IRENA 2018).…”

Social, Ecological, and Technological Strategies for Climate Adaptation

“…We developed the SETS codebook that helps us identify SETS components of governance strategies based on Denton et al (2014, Burch et al (2017), andIwaniec et al (2020). The SETS codebook (Table 3.4) is developed in an inductive process by encompassing a pool of sample strategies and incorporating previous studies on systems governance analysis.…”