This week the International Institute for Sustainable Development continues its invaluable service of providing summaries of international meetings and negotiations by providing a summary of the “UNFCCC dialogue on long-term cooperative action.” Here are a few reactions to that summary, focused mainly on issues of adaptation. The IISD summary suggests that serious problems remain with consideration of adaptation under the FCCC and that some developing countries are not satisfied:

ADAPTATION: Tanzania and the Philippines said adaptation should have the same status as mitigation, expressing concerns that it had not yet been seriously addressed. Tuvalu underscored adaptation as a crucial issue, and called for urgent action rather than studies or pilot projects, implementation of UNFCCC Article 4.4 (developed country support for adaptation for vulnerable developing countries) and a process to ensure a rapid response to help countries suffering damage. The Philippines highlighted the need for innovative ways of financing. Egypt noted that mitigation efforts in developing countries are receiving more support than adaptation measures through the CDM.

We have discussed this subject frequently. The FCCC has a built-in bias against adaptation and characterizes it as being in opposition to mitigation. Bizarrely, under the FCCC adaptation has costs but not benefits (and the IPCC follows this cooking of the cost-benefit books), because under its view of the world adaptation would be unnecessary if climate change could be prevented. Under this way of thinking, adaptation projects reflect costs that would be avoided with mitigation, hence, preventing adaptation represents a benefit of mitigation. Think about that for a minute, and ask yourself, how can adaptation and mitigation really be complements under the FCCC if the case for the latter depends in no small part on preventing the former?

Under the FCCC adaptation to climate change means something very specific, it does not mean adaptation to climate, but only to those marginal effects of climate changes directly attributable to greenhouse gas emissions. If this strikes you as unrealistic and confusing, you’d be right. The reality is that in many, if not most, places in developed and developing countries adaptation to climate (broadly, not just the marginal effects of GHGs on climate) makes good sense as societal is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate, whatever the underlying causes. As we have stated here many times, it is scientifically untenable to tease out the GHG contribution to human disasters like Katrina. It is nonsensical to try to implement policies that address only those marginal impacts of GHGs, rather than the root causes of disasters themselves, which lie primarily in societal vulnerability.

We discussed this sort of nonsense following COP-10 in December, 2004 based on another IISD report which included the following telling explanation of why it is that developing countries have difficulty receiving funding for adaptation projects:

. . . adaptation projects are generally built on, or embedded in, larger national or local development projects and, therefore, the funding by the GEF would only cover a portion of the costs. In other words, if a country seeks funding for a project on flood prevention, the GEF would only be able to finance a portion proportional to the additional harm that floods have caused or will cause as a result of climate change, and the rest would have to be co-financed by some other body. The plea from LDCs, particularly the SIDS, lies precisely on this paradox, in that even if funds are available in the LDC Fund, their difficulty of finding adequate co-financing, and the costly and cumbersome calculation of the additional costs, renders the financial resources in the LDC Fund, in practice, almost inaccessible.

At this weeks meeting a comment by the UK summarized by the IISD suggests that little has changed in this regard:

The UK identified some cross-cutting themes, including financing and scientific uncertainty, which is particularly problematic for adaptation.

Why is scientific uncertainty problematic for adaptation? Because unless there is a way to attribute the impacts of GHG-caused climate change on developing countries, under the FCCC there is no vehicle for action, as the FCCC is not an all-purpose framework for reducing vulnerabilities to the effects of climate. How ironic is this? Adaptation is all about decision making under uncertainty and preparing for a future that is unknown. So in the face of uncertainties adaptation should make good sense, because its benefits are broad. Yet, under the FCCC the arbitrary rules have been set up in such a way as to mostly exclude adaptation as a policy response.

Of course, this gets back to the fact that the FCCC has been and continues to be a vehicle for changes to global energy policies and considerations of adaptation simply get in the way. Approaching climate change in this fashion makes about as much sense as telling someone that because we don’t know when they will be struck by heart disease we can provide little assistance helping them to adopt of a healthy lifestyle.

To be fair, I have many friends and colleagues who are far more sanguine about the prospects for adaptation under the FCCC, and are willing to debate this point strenuously with me when I raise comments like those above. They use words like “mainstreaming” and “sustainable development” to make their case, and cite Article 4.4 of the FCCC, among others. I respect their views and perhaps our differences in views have a bit of glass half full/half empty about them. But even so I have been convinced for some time now that the FCCC is much more of an obstacle to effective action on adaptation than a facilitator. Much of its efforts on adaptation seem to be an effort to provide a fig leaf of competence in order gloss over what increasingly appears to be a fatal flaw in the framework. The recent report from the IISD provides no reason for me to change my views.

Until the very core of the FCCC is opened up for discussion (and by core I mean Article 2 and its gerrymandered definition of climate change), the bias against adaptation is likely to persist, and adaptation policies will continue to be presented as counter to the goals of mitigation and will continue to be considered in that manner in formal negotiations (statements to the contrary notwithstanding). If this is anywhere close to the mark then people will suffer and die more than they might otherwise because of the words used to frame the climate debate as an issue of energy policy, and energy policy only.

For further reading:

A short essay:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 2004. What is Climate Change?, Issues in Science and Technology, Summer, 1-4. (PDF)

Peer-reviewed studies with lots of detail:

Pielke, Jr., R.A., 2005. Misdefining “climate change”: consequences for science and action, Environmental Science & Policy, Vol. 8, pp. 548-561. (PDF)

Pielke, Jr., R. A., 1998. Rethinking the Role of Adaptation in Climate Policy. Global Environmental Change, 8(2), 159-170. (PDF)