synergies between disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change lisa schipper 7 january...
TRANSCRIPT
SYNERGIES BETWEEN DISASTER RISK REDUCTION AND ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE
Lisa Schipper7 January 2010
Overview
Context
Similarities
Differences
Discussion questions
Context
Global environmental change and natural hazards not beyond our control, nor are their impacts
Sustainable development necessary to reduce vulnerability – development not always sustainable
Responding to climate change requires understanding how to manage risk: lessons from disaster risk reduction community (practitioners, experts)
Uncertainty about future change is not a limitation – most risk is caused by our exposure and sensitivity to a hazard, not the hazard itself
Evolution of Discourse?
El Salvador: 2001 Nicaragua: 2008
Adaptation
Process of adjusting to a changing climate, through explicit and planned interventions, or spontaneously as a consequence of inherent flexibility
Disaster risk reduction
Interventions, approaches and policy frameworks to avoid or minimise hazard impacts on societies and environment, focusing on reducing vulnerability to hazards
Expanded beyond ‘risk management’ to incorporate lessons into planning: focus on reducing risk, rather than only on reconstructing the previous conditions (‘disaster accumulation’)
Similarities
Adaptation about reducing vulnerability to climate hazards; disaster risk reduction about reducing vulnerability to all natural hazards. For both the emphasis is on vulnerability reduction
Both long-term processes and are not ‘quick-fix’ approaches
…but in reality both focused more on impacts and their consequences
Similarities
Development lies at the heart of both adaptation and disaster risk reduction
Community-based adaptation one of the only areas where adaptation is taking place on the ground with close links with similar disaster risk reduction efforts in communities (CBDRM)
Differences
Different actors and lack of communication
Adaptation can be a response to positive changes; DRR always a response to negative events
DRR local issue, whereas climate change is a regional and global issue. This implies differences in levels of intervention, responsibility, impact and relevance
Differences
Climate change seen as abstract, disasters seen as real. Most people cannot conceptualise climate change, but have experienced or witnessed at least one disaster
Uncertainty in climate change impacts makes understanding it difficult; imagining a disaster is easier
Differences
Difference between emergency operations and long-term outlook of adaptation: role of humanitarian relief in disaster operations not consistent with risk and vulnerability reduction approach, nor with long-term outlook of adaptation
Disaster risk reduction uses less ‘technical’ language than climate change science and policy.
Questions
Are the practical differences greater than the theoretical/conceptual differences?
How far should synergy-building go? Can people on the ground differentiate
between the types of risk? Does it matter?
How can coping strategies during disaster (eg. drought) be implemented to avoid depleting assets?
More questions
Why do governments and other actors not have stronger institutional linkages between adaptation and disaster risk reduction at the implementation level?
What are examples of on-the-ground projects that have successfully addressed both adaptation to climate change and disaster risk reduction?
