Lecture 3 - Climate change adaptation in Southeast Asia

Lecture: Climate change adaptation in Southeast Asia
Bernadette Resurreccion
Asian Institute of Technology

Article: Climate adaptation in Asia: Knowledge gaps and research issues in South East Asia
Bernadette Resurreccion, Edsel E. Sajor, Elizabeth Fajber

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The lecture was a report about research for the article, in effect a report about research about what to research. To the über-critical it might be considered as reflecting one of the major shortcomings of the world response to climate change; many meetings (e.g. Rio de Janeiro, Kyoto Bali, Copenhagen), much talk, but limited concrete action.

Key concepts presented in the lecture were adaptation and vulnerability. The former describes how communities react, or adapt, to climate changes, and the latter the degree to which communities are exposed to climate changes to which they are unable to, or find it difficult to, adapt.

The lecturer’s key thesis was that vulnerability should be the focus and starting point in climate change debate, and consequently it is a development issue rather than purely an environment issue. I would agree with this standpoint. However, the social, political and economic implications then become enormous – vulnerability is a result of being socially and economically disadvantaged, implying that the whole current economic and political system needs changing; hardly a position likely to endear people to the current political elite. The research ascertained ‘hotspots of vulnerability,’ which broadly matched economic and social development. On a national level, the SEA nations least vulnerable are the wealthiest on the UN Human Development Index. At a local level, it is the poorest who suffer most – a rich man can move to a house on a hill to avoid flooding, a rich woman can ensure that her home is constructed properly and able to withstand hurricane-force winds.

When considering the response to climate change, attention was drawn to the question of at what level planning for climate change should occur; local, meso, or national. It was claimed that the hierarchical, paternalistic, and patronage-based political systems of many SEA nations hindered concrete actions and local responses. The political system certainly affects climate change response in SEA – expensive technical fixes, e.g. dams and seawalls, allow opportunities for lucrative kickbacks, and make for good photo opportunities. NGO-based activities can easily be seen as a threat to political elites; someone else is taking charge. An aspect of NGO work not mentioned is that many NGOs in the field are western-based or western-inspired, consequently open to being criticized as neo-colonialism through the back door, or white-men telling brown-men what to do. If NGOs want to help they need to work through the current political system not in competition with it. In Malaysia and Indonesia the mutual aid concept of gotong royong could be used for concrete actions, allowing local political leaders to feel that climate change responses are a natural part of their culture and allowing them to be seen publicly as men/women of action and close to the people. To some extent this is already happening with clean-up actions in urban areas, or canal and river-cleaning programmes.

It was stated in the lecture that there was broad consensus on the likely effects of climate change, i.e. changing rainfall patterns, salt-water intrusion, storm surges, and stronger cyclones. Adaptation strategies to such changes can be divided into a number of areas; technical, societal-community, and individual. The technical strategies basically encompass infrastructural changes and increased knowledge. When considering infrastructural changes, one important question is who will pay. In view of the massive investment needed, some way of harnessing the profit-motive needs to be found. SEA governments cannot afford all the necessary infrastructural changes (reinforcing bridges, seawalls and flood barriers, moving vulnerable communities to different areas, building improved irrigation systems, developing effective sewage- and waste-management etc) and western development aid budgets are not even in the same league. Investment in research, i.e. increased knowledge, is one important area. In my opinion development of salt-tolerant rice strains should be a priority. In the area of societal-community adaptation strategies, knowledge dissemination and concrete, small-scale actions are key. At the individual adaptation strategies scale many strategies were noted, varying from late sowing of crops to temporary migration to urban areas, from diversification of livelihood sources to buying insurance. Poverty is a great incentive for creativity; Nobel-prize winner Muhammad Yunus’s insight leading to the micro-credit movement was that the poor do not lack the ability to adapt and develop, they merely lack the means.

In both the article and lecture there was one element that in my opinion was under-emphasized, namely that the majority of environmental problems are caused not by climate change but what may be termed environment abuse. This takes many forms: uncontrolled logging, illegal sand dredging, building on unstable slopes (often with terrible consequences like the Bukit Antarabangsa tragedy in December 2008), fly dumping of industrial waste, failure to meet pollution norms (a problem easily solved with duit kopi – ‘coffee money’), embezzlement of road and infrastructure monies (leading to substandard construction), uncontrolled urban expansion (leading to a greater risk of flash floods), mono-cropping (e.g. gigantic oil palm plantations), and many more. In the light of such localized, current and concrete problems, the risks of anthropogenic climate change take on a much lower priority.