IPCC_Managing Risks of Extreme Events.pdf - Climate Access

Toward a Sustainable and Resilient FutureChapter 8to financial and other resources (Christoplos et al., 2009). Top-downsustainability initiatives are often preoccupied with input metrics, such ascriteria for partner selection and justifications (often based on relativelydetailed quantitative analyses of such attributes as ‘additionality’),rather than on outcome metrics, such as whether the results make ademonstrable contribution to sustainability (regarding metrics, seeNRC, 2005).To manage tradeoffs and conflicts in an open, efficient, and transparentway, institutional and legal arrangements are extremely important. Theexisting literature on legislation for adaptation at the state level is notcomprehensive, but those countries studied lack many of the institutionalmechanisms and legal frameworks that are important for coordinationat the state level (Richardson et al., 2009). This has been found to be thecase for Vietnam, Laos, and China (Lin, 2009). In the South Pacific, highexposure to climate change risk has yet to translate into legislativeframeworks to support adaptation – with only Fiji, Papua New Guinea,and Western Samoa formulating national climate change regulatoryframeworks (Kwa, 2009). Without a supporting and implementednational legislative structure, achieving local disaster reduction andclimate change adaptation planning can be complicated (La Trobe andDavis, 2005; Pelling and Holloway, 2006; see also Section 6.4). Still,where local leadership is determined, skillful planning is possible, evenwithout legislation. This has been the experience of EthekwiniMunicipality (the local government responsible for the city of Durban,South Africa), which has developed a Municipal Climate ProtectionProgramme with a strong and early focus on adaptation without nationallevelpolicy or legal frameworks to guide adaptation planning at thelocal level (Roberts, 2008, 2010).One way around the challenges of tradeoffs is to ‘bundle’ multipleobjectives through broader participation in strategy development andaction planning, both to identify multiple objectives and to encourageattention to mutual co-benefits. In this sense, both the pathway andoutcomes of development planning have scope to shape future socialcapacity and disaster risk management. Policies and actions to achievemultiple objectives include stakeholder participation, participatorygovernance (IRGC, 2009), capacity building, and adaptive organizations,including both private and public institutions where there is a considerableknowledge base reflecting both research and practice to use as a startingpoint (e.g., NRC, 2008). Multi-hazard risk management approachesprovide opportunities to reduce complex and compound hazards, bothin rural and urban contexts.8.3. Integration of Short- and Long-TermResponses to ExtremesWhen considering the linkages between disaster management, climatechange adaptation, and development, time scales play an important role.Disaster management increasingly emphasizes vulnerability reduction inaddition to the more traditional emergency response and relief measures.This requires addressing underlying exposure and sensitivity in thecontext of hazards with different frequencies and return periods. Asdiscussed in Chapter 2, there is now a converging focus on vulnerabilityreduction in the context of disaster risk management and adaptation toclimate change (Sperling and Szekely, 2005).Cross-scale (spatial and temporal) interactions between responsesfocusing on the short term and those required for long-term adjustmentcan potentially create both synergies and contradictions among disasterrisk reduction, climate change adaptation, and development. This sectionassesses the literature regarding synergies and tradeoffs between shortandlong-term adjustments. First, we consider the implications of presentdayresponses for future well-being. The barriers to reconciling shortandlong-term goals are then assessed. Insights from research on theresilience of social-ecological systems are then considered as a potentialmeans of addressing integration in a long-term perspective.8.3.1. Implications of Present-Day Responsesfor Future Well-BeingThe implications of present-day responses to both disaster risk andclimate change can be either positive or negative for human securityand well-being in the long term. Positive implications can includeincreased resilience, capacity building, broad social benefits fromextensive participation in risk management and resilience planning, andthe value of multi-hazard planning (see Sections 5.4 and 6.5). Negativeimplications can include threats to sustainability if the well-being offuture generations is not considered; issues related to the economicdiscounting of future benefits; ‘silo effects’ of optimizing responses forone system or sector without considering interaction effects with others(see Burby et al., 2001); equity issues regarding who benefits and whopays; and the ‘levee effect,’ where the adaptive solution to a current riskmanagement problem builds confidence that the problem has beensolved, blinding populations to the possibility that conditions maychange and make the present adaptation inadequate (Burby, 2006;Burby et al., 2006).The terms ‘coping’ and ‘adaptation’ reflect strategies for adjustments tochanging climatic and environmental conditions. In the case of a set ofpolicy choices, both coping and adaptation denote forms of conductthat aim and indeed may achieve modifications in the ways in whichsociety relates to nature, and nature to society (Stehr and von Storch,2005). As discussed in Section 2.4, coping actions are those that takeplace when trying to alleviate the impacts or to live with the costs of aspecific event. They are usually found during the unfolding of disasterimpacts, which can continue for some time after an event – for example,if somebody loses their job or is traumatized. Coping strategies can helpto alleviate the immediate impact of a hazard, but may also increasevulnerabilities over the medium to longer term (Swift, 1989; Davies,1993; Sperling et al., 2008). The different time frames for coping andadaptation can present challenges for risk management. Focusing onshort-term responses and coping strategies can limit the scope foradaptation in the long term. For example, drought can force agriculturalists450