IPCC_Managing Risks of Extreme Events.pdf - Climate Access

Chapter 8Toward a Sustainable and Resilient Futurechanges (Section 8.6.2). These increasingly ambitious changes include theuse of analysis and modeling tools to improve disaster risk managementand adaptation (Section 8.6.2.1), the implementation of new institutionaltools (Section 8.6.2.2), and transformational strategies to reach multipleobjectives (Section 8.6.2.3). Such transformational changes can befacilitated using a combination of approaches (Section 8.6.3), includingadaptive management (Section 8.6.3.1), learning (Section 8.6.3.2),innovation (Section 8.6.3.3), and leadership (Section 8.6.3.4). The chapterconcludes (Section 8.7) by discussing synergies between disaster riskreduction and climate change adaptation to achieve a resilient andsustainable future.8.2. Disaster Risk Management as Adaptation:Relationship to Sustainable DevelopmentPlanningEarlier chapters discussed the concepts of and relationship betweendisaster risk management (including disaster risk reduction) and climatechange adaptation. The two concepts and practices overlap considerablyand are strongly complementary. Disaster risk management considershazards other than those that are climate-derived, such as earthquakesand volcanoes, while climate change adaptation considers and addressesvulnerabilities related to phenomena that would not normally beclassified as discrete disasters, such as gradual changes in precipitation,temperature, or sea level. Examples of hazards that are addressed byboth communities include flooding, droughts, and heat waves.Disaster risk management is increasingly considered as one of the‘frontlines’ of adaptation, and perhaps one of the most promisingarenas for mainstreaming or integrating climate change adaptation intosustainable development planning (Sperling and Szekely, 2005; G. O’Brienet al., 2006; Schipper and Pelling, 2006; Schipper, 2009). However, itrequires modifying development policies, mechanisms, and tools, andidentifying and responding to those who gain and lose from living withand creating risk. Contested notions of development and hence differingperspectives on sustainable development planning lead to differentconclusions about how disaster risk reduction can contribute to adaptation.This section reviews the definitions of some of the key concepts used inthis chapter, and considers the roles that ecosystems services, valuesand perceptions, technologies, and tradeoffs in decisionmaking can playin influencing sustainable development planning and outcomes. It alsoconsiders the tradeoffs that are involved in decisionmaking.8.2.1. Concepts of Adaptation, Disaster Risk Reduction,and Sustainable Development and how they areRelatedAdaptation can be defined as the process of adjustment to actual orexpected climate and its effects in order to moderate harm or exploitbeneficial opportunities (see Section 1.1.2). Adaptation actions may beundertaken by public or private actors, and can be anticipatory orreactive, and incremental or transformative (Adger et al., 2007; StaffordSmith et al., 2011). In both principle and practice, adaptation is morethan a set of discrete measures designed to address climate change; itis an ongoing process that encompasses responses to many factors,including evolving experiences with both vulnerabilities and vulnerabilityreduction planning and actions, as well as risk perception (Tschakertand Dietrich, 2010; Weber, 2010; Wolf, 2011).Adaptive capacity underlies action and is defined in this report as thecombination of strengths, attributes, and resources available to anindividual, community, society, or organization that can be used toprepare for and undertake adaptation. Adaptive capacity can also bedescribed as the capability for innovation and anticipation (Armitage,2005), the ability to learn from mistakes (Adger, 2003), and the capacityto generate experience in dealing with change (Berkes et al., 2003).Enhancing adaptive capacity under climate change entails payingattention to learning about past, present, and future climate threats,accumulated memory of adaptive strategies, and anticipatory action toprepare for surprises and discontinuities in the climate system (Nelsonet al., 2007).Adaptive capacity is uneven across and within sectors, regions, andcountries (K. O’Brien et al., 2006). Although wealthy countries andregions have more resources to direct to adaptation, the availability offinancial resources is only one factor determining adaptive capacity (Mosset al., 2010; Ford and Ford, 2011). Other factors include the ability torecognize the importance of the problem in the context of multiplestresses, to identify vulnerable sectors and communities, to translatescientific knowledge into action, and to implement projects and programs(Moser and Ekstrom, 2010). The capacity to adapt is in fact dynamicand influenced by economic and natural resources, social networks,entitlements, institutions and governance, human resources, andtechnology (Parry et al., 2007). It is particularly important to understandthat places with greater wealth are not necessarily less vulnerable toclimate impacts and that a socioeconomic system might be as vulnerableas its weakest link (K. O’Brien et al., 2006; Tol and Yohe, 2007). Therefore,even wealthy locations can be severely impacted by extreme events,socially as well as economically, as Europeans experienced during the2003 heat wave (Salagnac, 2007; see also Case Study 9.2.1).Current adaptation planning in many countries, regions, and localitiesinvolves identification of a wide range of options, although the availableknowledge of their costs, benefits, wider consequences, potentials, andlimitations is still incomplete (NRC, 2010; see Section 4.5). In many cases,the most attractive adaptation actions are those that offer developmentbenefits in the relatively near term, as well as reductions of vulnerabilitiesin the longer term (Agrawala, 2005; Klein et al., 2007; McGray et al., 2007;Hallegatte, 2008a; NRC, 2010). This is a lesson already noted, though notalways practiced, in disaster preparedness and risk reduction (IFRC,2002; Pelling, 2010b). An emerging literature discusses adaptationthrough the lens of sustainability, recognizing that not all adaptationresponses are necessarily benign; there are tradeoffs, potentials fornegative outcomes, competing interests, different types of knowledge,443