{"id":574,"date":"2021-06-09T14:31:08","date_gmt":"2021-06-09T14:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.uvm.edu\/ieds\/?p=574"},"modified":"2021-06-10T16:46:38","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T16:46:38","slug":"climate-policy-needs-a-new-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.uvm.edu\/ieds\/?p=574","title":{"rendered":"Climate policy needs a new vision"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Asim Zia, Caitlin Waddick<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Policies that split mitigation and adaptation don\u2019t work. It\u2019s time for a shift, say Asim Zia and Caitlin Waddick.<\/strong>

The climate change policy endorsed by the UN\u2019s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and adopted by member countries tends to split into two approaches: mitigation (cutting emissions or \u2018soaking up\u2019 carbon pollution) and adaptation (coping with climate change). This holds true across sectors from forest management and agriculture<\/a> to energy<\/a>, transportation and city planning. And it makes allocating scarce resources for sustainable and resilient community development much harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When governments divide policies  between mitigation and adaptation\u2014 and then add them on to existing bilateral and multi-lateral development funds, without integration \u2014 precious resources get wasted as they trickle down to local communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cConversely, adaptation projects may build roads and bridges in light of increasing flood risks \u2014 but more roads and bridges also increase greenhouse gas emissions, undermining mitigation targets.\u201d<\/p>-Asim Zia and Caitlin Waddick<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Mitigation is a global problem but adaptation a local issue\u2019 is a statement often repeated like a mantra in the annual UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings. It is literally true. But, in practice, splitting efforts along those lines often works at cross-purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, bio-fuel plantations may meet global mitigation goals \u2014 but if they replace temperate and tropical forests used by indigenous <\/a>communities, those communities struggle to adapt to food and water security challenges that would have been better met by conserving old-growth forests. Similarly, mega hydropower dams meet mitigation goals but moving communities from familiar environments undermines their capacity to adapt to climate change<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conversely, adaptation projects may build roads and bridges in light of increasing flood risks \u2014 but more roads and bridges also increase greenhouse gas emissions, undermining mitigation targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Policy that backfires<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To catalyse action for both mitigation and adaptation, countries need a sharper focus on \u2018integrative and regenerative community development\u2019. This means they need to value the ecosystem services their environments provide, grow these using the principles of ecological design, and coordinate policy so it fits with natural, ecological and community boundaries (bioregions)<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This will require shifting narrowly conceived \u2018sectoral\u2019 policies so they integrate better with people and places. And it will require any treaty agreed at the 21st<\/sup> UNFCCC COP in December to a focus on development that works for different bioregions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the forestry sector, for example, the leading international agencies such as UNFCCC and UNEP want to tackle emissions with schemes that pay for the ecosystem services forests provide. The REDD+ mechanism (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation: the \u2018plus\u2019 refers to conservation, sustainable management and enhancing carbon stocks)<\/a>  stimulates payments from rich industrialised countries to tropical developing countries that store carbon by conserving forests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Western vision of economic development through globalisation, international trade and conventional aid needs to be replaced with a place-based vision that emphasises care for people, the Earth, and the future.\u201d<\/p>-Asim Zia and Caitlin Waddick<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But it does little to stem the deforestation caused by large-scale development projects that support trade \u2014 contrary to conventional thinking, this is causing the most deforestation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crucially, because many poor local communities do not have clearly defined land-tenure rights, states \u2014 not local people \u2014 are most likely to benefit from REDD+ payments<\/a>. [1] And such schemes can push deforestation pressures into adjacent communities and countries without REDD+ payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the energy sector, the Kyoto Protocol\u2019s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and other emission trading schemes may promote energy efficiency in some areas, but their net effect can be to increase overall emissions<\/a>. [2] This is because some CDM beneficiaries, such as companies generating power or producing cement in developing countries, may artificially increase their carbon emissions for the Mechanism\u2019s baseline period and then bring them back to business-as-usual for the project period. Or greenhouse gas emissions may be displaced within or across countries, and so be missed in the CDM calculation used for issuing \u2018certified emission reduction credits\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when it comes to disaster management, sponsoring early warning systems with adaptation funds may induce expensive investments in weather and climate monitoring but without the means to communicate early warnings and risks to vulnerable people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Refocus on local resources<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Fundamentally, our adaptation and mitigation policies fail to challenge the \u2018Western\u2019 model of economic development that fuels climate change. Instead, they sustain inequitable globalisation and disrupt communities by, in fact, increasing exposure to floods, droughts and other climate change impacts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem with Western development is that it ignores local ecologies and cultures, and so it fails to allow for home-grown adaptation and innovation<\/a>. It recommends the same building style and agricultural approach for every ecosystem \u2014 a worrying precedent for climate policies which, to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions in the 21st century, will require fundamental changes in how we do things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be truly effective, international climate policy needs a radical shift: it needs to encourage enterprises and ventures that grow local resources, use ecological design principles and meet local and regional needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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