Dear Prof. Sovacool,
I am at the same time a scholar of sustainable development and a
practitioner of development cooperation. I read with much interest your
article. I think however that the focus of your research question is
misplaced. Your research findings have little to do with adaptation to
climate change. Most of them are common throughout development cooperation.
The fact that there is a lot of funding available for projects on adaptation
to climate change compared to other environmental issues exacerbates
well-known problems with development cooperation.
I am afraid that your article and its press release send a very wrong and
dangerous message. Adaptation to climate change and in general resilience to
exogenous shocks is very important in vulnerable countries like Bangladesh.
The problem is not adaptation to climate change but development cooperation,
which needs radical improvement.
I would like to thank Professor Takei for sharing your work.
Kind regards,
J.M.Church
--
Jon Marco CHURCH
Associate Professor
University of Reims
IATEUR - BP 30 - 57 rue Pierre Taittinger - 51571 Reims Cedex - France
Tel. : +33 (0)3 26 91 37 45 - www.univ-reims.fr
New publication : < Soft power of Tajikistan on the water agenda >,
in Water Resources in Central Asia, S.S. Zhiltsov et al. (ed.), Cham,
Springer.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ecopolitics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Milton Takei
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2018 2:57 AM
To: Ecopolitics <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [Ecopolitics] When Climate Change Adaptation Goes Wrong
To ecopolitics subscribers:
The following is from:
[log in to unmask]
--Milton Takei
Good morning from Europe everyone,
As many of you know, much work in the community focuses on climate change
mitigation, namely technologies, practices, and policies that can prevent
emissions from escaping into the atmosphere. But equally important is
adaptation, building resilience to the impacts of climate change. In that
vein, drawing from two sets of interviews in Bangladesh, I was able to get
the attached study into World Development by connecting it to concepts in
political geography, political ecology, justice, and development studies:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X17303285
Sovacool, BK. "Bamboo beating bandits: Conflict, inequality, and
vulnerability in the political ecology of climate change adaptation in
Bangladesh," World Development 102 (February, 2018), pp. 183-194.
It's a bit dense and theoretical, but also troubling in its findings. To
help try and spread some of its lessons, we've translated some of its
findings into the blog below. Hopefully planners will start to design more
equitable adaptation programs and policies going forward.
Feedback most welcome on the conceptual framework as future work is applying
it to disaster recovery, renewable energy, and low-carbon transitions.
Benjamin
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/newsandevents/2017/findings/bangladesh
[http://www.sussex.ac.uk/wcm/assets/media/25/banner/51585.jpg]
When Climate Change Adaptation Goes Wrong in Bangladesh
New research by Prof Benjamin Sovacool highlights the urgent need for
climate change adaption policies in Bangladesh to be rethought.
Bangladesh contributes little to global greenhouse gas emissions, yet is one
of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world, prone to a multitude
of climate-related disasters such as floods, droughts, tropical cyclones and
storm surges, which are being worsened due to global warming.
In addition to this, Bangladesh also has an extremely high population
density with one of the worst rates of poverty in the world.
Since May 2010, international donors have spent more than US$170m on climate
change adaption efforts such as altering infrastructure, institutions and
ecosystems in Bangladesh, bringing some success environmentally. Yet,
research by Prof Sovacool <http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/373957> examines
and highlights how on the flip side of these efforts, existing social and
political injustices within Bangladesh have been re-affirmed and
exacerbated.
In his paper 'Bamboo Beating Bandits: Conflict, Inequality, and
Vulnerability in the Political Ecology of Climate Change Adaptation in
Bangladesh'<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X173032
85>
Prof Sovacool reveals that climate change policies implemented under the
country's National Adaptation Program of Action have ended up enabling
elites to capture land through public servants, the military, and even gangs
carrying bamboo sticks. Climate protection measures have also encroached
upon village property, char (public) land, forests, farms, and other public
commons. More shockingly, community coping strategies for climate change
have actually entrenched class and ethnic hierarchies in some communities,
trapping the poor, powerless and displaced in a patronage system, leading to
increased human insecurity and intensified violent conflict.
Using a mix of original interviews and a literature review, Prof Sovacool
examined the processes of:
* Enclosure - when adaptation projects transfer public assets into
private hands or expand the roles of private actors into the public sphere
* Exclusion - when adaptation projects limit access to resources or
marginalize particular stakeholders in decision-making activities
* Encroachment - when adaptation projects intrude on biodiversity
areas or contribute to other forms of environmental degradation
* Entrenchment - when adaptation projects aggravate the disempowerment
of women and minorities, or worsen concentrations of wealth and income
inequality within a community
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