The Political Economy of Climate Change Adaptation

237 Pages·2016·2.26 MB·English

by  Benjamin K. Sovacool

The Political Economy of Climate Change Adaptation
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The Political Economy
of Climate Change
Adaptation
Benjamin K. Sovacool
Professor of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark
Professor of Energy Policy, Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex,
United Kingdom
and
Björn-Ola Linnér
Professor of Environmental Change, Linköping University, Sweden
Associate Fellow, Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, Oxford University,
United Kingdom
© Benjamin K. Sovacool and Björn-Ola Linnér 2016
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-49672-0
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First published 2016 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-57724-8 ISBN 978-1-137-49673-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137496737
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sovacool, Benjamin K., author.
The political economy of climate change adaptation / Benjamin K. Sovacool,
Björn-Ola Linnér.
pages cm
1. Climatic changes – Political aspects. 2. United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (1992 May 9) 3. Climatic changes –
Government policy. I. Linnér, Björn-Ola, author. II. Title.
QC903.S627 2015
363.738(cid:2)74—dc23 2015021813
Contents
List of Figures v i
List of Tables v ii
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
1 Introduction to the Political Economy of Climate
Change Adaptation 1
2 Bamboo Thumping Bandits: The Political Economy of
Climate Adaptation in Bangladesh 33
3 Degraded Seascapes: The Political Economy of the
Dutch Delta Works 54
4 Bloated Bodies: The Political Economy of Hurricane
Katrina Recovery 81
5 The Perils of Climate Diplomacy: The Political
Economy of the UNFCCC 110
6 Principles and Best Practices for Climate Change Adaptation 1 36
7 Insights from Political Economy for Adaptation
Policy and Practice 162
Notes 180
Index 219
v
List of Figures
1.1 Historical and expected global sea levels, 1800–2100 1 3
2.1 The river systems and geographic location of Bangladesh 3 4
2.2 Extent of above-normal flooding in Bangladesh, 1950–2009 3 8
3.1 Dike breaches and inundated areas of southwest
Netherlands, February 1, 1953 58
3.2 The ship that saved the central parts of Holland from
the 1953 flood 59
3.3 The Eastern Scheldt Storm Surge Barrier 62
3.4 Map of the southwestern Netherlands after the completion
of the Delta Works 63
3.5 Closure, construction, and foundation options for
the Eastern Scheldt Storm Surge Barrier 72
3.6 Three planned Dutch “calamity polders” 7 7
4.1 Hurricane Katrina flooding of Interstate 10 and
Interstate 610 in New Orleans, August 29, 2005 8 8
4.2 A bloated body in the floodwaters near the
New Orleans Superdome, September 2005 91
4.3 Communities affected by Hurricane Katrina flood and
storm surges 92
4.4 A US Navy helicopter drops sandbags on a broken levee in
New Orleans, September 7, 2005 100
5.1 Process flowchart for a UNFCCC adaptation project 1 21
5.2 Announcement board for side events at COP 20 in Lima,
Peru 125
5.3 Bhutanese volunteers draining Thorthormi Lake in 2010 1 26
5.4 Workers erect a housing unit on the reclaimed island of
Hulhumalé in the Maldives, June 2010 1 27
vi
List of Tables
1.1 Conceptual typology of enclosure, exclusion,
encroachment, and entrenchment 3
1.2 Eight definitions of climate change “adaptation” 6
1.3 Types and examples of adaptation pathways 7
1.4 Example of water and agricultural adaptation efforts by
type in Bangladesh 8
1.5 Continuum of vulnerability and disaster risk 9
1.6 Interconnection of climate vulnerability, adaptation,
resilience, and adaptive capacity 11
1.7 Summary of the processes and sub-processes of enclosure,
exclusion, encroachment, and entrenchment 21
1.8 “Soft” and “hard” pathways for climate change adaptation 25
1.9 Summary of four political economy of adaptation
case studies 28
2.1 Impacts of major floods in Bangladesh, 1984–2007 37
2.2 Areas and sectors vulnerable to climate change in
Bangladesh 39
2.3 The multi-scalar nature of the political economy of
adaptation in Bangladesh 52
3.1 Project components of the Dutch Delta Works, 1958–1997 6 1
3.2 S torm surge barriers built or modified after the Dutch Delta
Works, 1987–2014 66
3.3 Numbers of avian waders in winter after construction of
the Eastern Scheldt Storm Surge Barrier 75
3.4 The multi-scalar nature of the political economy of
the Dutch Delta Works 79
4.1 Chronological timeline of Hurricane Katrina,
August 23 to September 5, 2005 86
4.2 Arsenic concentrations at sample schools and playgrounds
post-Katrina recovery 102
4.3 Assessment of risk and reliability improvements to
New Orleans post-Katrina, 2007 105
4.4 The multi-scalar nature of the political economy of
Katrina disaster recovery 106
vii
viii List of Tables
5.1 Funds disbursed to date from UNFCCC adaptation funds
(in millions of US dollars) 129
5.2 The multi-scalar nature of the political economy of
adaptation in the UNFCCC 134
6.1 Characteristics of a GDR framework based on
responsibility and capacity, 2010 151
7.1 Summary of political economy of adaptation case studies 164
7.2 The global connections to the political economy of
adaptation 171
7.3 Summary of adaptation design principles and best practices 1 76
Preface and Acknowledgments
Writing in 1886 about the scientific method, G.K. Gilbert once argued
that “In the testing of hypotheses lies the prime difference between
the investigator and the theorist. The one seeks diligently for the facts
which may overthrow his or her tentative theory, the other closes his
or her eyes to these and searches only for those which will sustain it.”1
This book was particularly difficult to research and to write because our
project blended the roles of investigator and theorist together. That is,
we did start with a theory of the political economy of adaptation in
mind (what we’ve called “the 4Es” of enclosure, exclusion, encroach-
ment, and entrenchment) and sought as many examples that we could
find to support it. However, unlike a truly zealous theorist, we did not
discount or ignore contravening evidence; we only tried to deepen our
analysis to explain and contextualize it. We thus believe that our theo-
retical framework, although it was deductive rather than inductive, was
empirically driven.
Nor, of course, did this project spring from a vacuum. We have both
been working on the topic of climate adaptation for years, though
not always using a political economy framework. We sensed the lack
of a political economy discourse in adaptation projects as we came to
learn more about how adaptation was being implemented around the
world. Most notably, in The Political Economy of Climate Adaptation,
a commentary published in Nature Climate Change in July 2015 (doi:
10.1038/nclimate26655), we identified specific political economy
elements – enclosure, exclusion, encroachment and entrenchment
(4Es) – in a series of case studies including the Wonthaggi desalination
plant in Australia, disaster recovery in Honduras, coastal protection
in Norway, sea barriers in Alaska, marine protected areas in Tanzania,
climate-proofing infrastructure in the Maldives, livelihood diversifica-
tion in Burkina Faso, and disaster relief in Kenya. Feeling that the topic
deserved more in-depth treatment, we expanded that work in this book
to look at instances where the 4Es occur not as singular, isolated events
but in synergy and simultaneously, in a sort of feedback loop. To this
end, we explore here four different case studies: the displacement of char
communities in Bangladesh, the Dutch Delta Works in the Netherlands,
Hurricane Katrina reconstruction efforts in the United States, and the
ix