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Adaptation vs. Development Debate

Adaptation involves adjustments to reduce vulnerability to climate stresses and is not fundamentally different from development. Adaptation can vary in timing, scope, purposefulness, and adapting agent. While there is overlap between adaptation and development, explicit adaptation activities are also needed to address climate change impacts directly, such as measures to reduce exposure to risks from glacial lake outburst floods and glacier retreat. Adaptation requires both bottom-up and top-down approaches across multiple scales with consideration of institutional setting, financing, and measuring efficiency.

Adaptation is not fundamentally different from development activities aiming at reducing vulnerability of people to current stresses (CIFOR 2009)
Adaptation reduces the impacts of climate stresses on human and natural systems and consists of a multitude of behavioural, structural and technological adjustments. Adaptation measures can vary in:  Timing (anticipatory vs. reactive; ex ante vs. ex post)  Scope (short-term vs. long-term; localised vs. regional)  Purposefulness (autonomous vs. planned; passive vs. active)  Adapting agent (private vs. public; societies vs. natural systems)
The need to adapt to changing environmental and climatic conditions is not a new one. Societies throughout history have had to adapt to variations or changes in their climate through a variety of strategies and by using knowledge accumulated through experience of past climatic events. Is past experience with adaptation sufficient for dealing with the impacts of climate change?
Overlaps do exist between “business-as-usual” development strategies and adaptation. Decisions taken as part of development activities can have considerable bearing on the vulnerability of societies to the potential impacts of climate change. Better developed societies possess more adaptive capacity than less developed societies and therefore have lower vulnerability to climate change.
While there are overlaps between adaptation and development, activities with an explicit focus on adaptation and climate change will also be required… Example: In the Nepal Himalayas, infrastructure and livelihoods could be catastrophically affected by glacial lake outburst floods and glacier retreat resulting from rising temperatures (Agrawala et al., 2004). In this case, adaptation would require more direct measures to reduce exposure to such risks, going beyond baseline poverty reduction and economic development !!!
Business-as-usual development does not include activities that specifically aim to address climate change and reduce its impacts or take advantage of any new opportunities. For such action, explicit adaptation activities need to be developed. (OECD 2009)
DEVELOPMENT Bottom-up/process-oriented and top-down/outcome-oriented approaches Scales: National, regional, local Institutional setting Financing mechanisms Measuring efficiency ADAPTATION
Process-based rather than static view of adaptive capacity !!! Socio-institutional process rather than the outcome of scenarios of vulnerability with some anticipated adjustment.