Supporting local climate adaptation planning and implementation through local governance and decentralised finance provision

Policies developed at national levels can be unresponsive to local needs. Often they do not provide the rural poor with access to the assets and services they need to allow them to innovate and adapt to the ways that increased climate variability and change exacerbate challenges to basic securities – food, water, energy, and well-being. In development deficit circumstances, common pool resources are important for climate adaptation purposes. In order for climate adaptation actions to deliver resilience, local perspectives and knowledge need to be recognised and given due priority in formal planning systems. Basing formal adaptive development planning on local strategies can support and strengthen measures that people have been tested and know to work. Local climate adaptation through collective action can address current increases in climate variability, future incremental changes, and the need to transform existing systems to deal with qualitative shifts in climate. These types of adaptation can work in cumulative ways. The results of local adaptation collective action that have benefits of low rivalry between users while being highly inclusive can be considered “local public goods”. Evidence is beginning to emerge that when local governance systems facilitate high levels of participation in planning collective action for climate adaptation, and direct access to resources for implementing local plans, “local public goods” can be created and common pool resources better managed.     

Environment and climate mainstreaming: challenges and successes

This paper examines mainstreaming environment and climate change into development policy, planning, and budgeting. It looks at why we should integrate environment and climate and outlines challenges and successes. One result is that governments’ progress pro-poor and equitable development. Governance gains are important too: co-benefits include more transparent decision making and better cross-government working. Ultimately, the impact of mainstreaming has increased awareness, changed perceptions, and improved the way inter-sectoral decisions are made, especially in climate adaptation. This supports countries to achieve their sustainable development ambitions – lessons which could be applied to a post-2015 development agenda.     

Managing rural landscapes in the context of a changing climate

Global competition for natural resources is intense and the supply of those resources is increasingly more constrained by climate variability and change. Governments and international development agencies have the dual responsibility to meet the socio-economic needs of the poorest and most vulnerable people while preserving and enhancing their natural capital. These responsibilities often are at odds with each other and different stakeholder groups have prioritised one over the other. This paper suggests that the landscape approach provides a solution for stakeholders to achieve climate change mitigation, adaptation, and poverty reduction goals, though not without some trade-offs.     

Transnational Networks and Global Environmental Governance: The Cities for Climate Protection Program

The past decade has witnessed a growing interest among scholars of international relations, and global environmental governance in particular, in the role of transnational networks within the international arena. While the existence and potential significance of such networks has been documented, many questions concerning the nature of governance conducted by such networks and their impact remain. We contribute to these debates by examining how such networks are created and maintained and the extent to which they can foster policy learning and change. We focus on the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program, a network of some 550 local governments concerned with promoting local initiatives for the mitigation of climate change. It is frequently asserted that the importance of such networks lies in their ability to exchange knowledge and information, and to forge norms about the nature and terms of particular issues. However, we find that those local governments most effectively engaged with the network are mobilized more by the financial and political resources it offers, and the legitimacy conferred to particular norms about climate protection, than by access to information. Moreover, processes of policy learning within the CCP program take place in discursive struggles as different actors seek legitimacy for their interpretations of what local climate protection policies should mean. In conclusion, we reflect upon the implications of these findings for understanding the role of transnational networks in global environmental governance.     

Institutionalising mechanisms for building urban climate resilience: experiences from India

This paper examines how mainstreaming of urban climate change resilience – a crucial consideration in an increasingly urbanised world – is occurring at both the city and national scale, using the case of an internationally-funded resilience-building initiative in India. Surat city's newly-established Climate Change Trust illustrates the importance of an institutionalised mechanism for coordinating and sustaining climate initiatives. Concurrently, climate resilience is being mainstreamed into the national urban development agenda, through a network of Indian institutions. These two nascent mechanisms offer avenues for local city-level experiences to inform national directives, driving and sustaining the urban climate adaptation agenda across India.     

Sustainable rural livelihoods approach for climate change adaptation in Western Odisha,Eastern India

The economy of Odisha is primarily agrarian. Over 80% of the population of Odisha live in rural areas, where levels of poverty are higher than in the state's towns and cities. They depend for their livelihoods on farming and collecting forest products. During the dry season, many migrate elsewhere in Odisha and nearby states in search of temporary work as labourers. Odisha has the highest proportion of inhabitants from scheduled tribes and scheduled castes of all the states in India (39.9% compared to 24% nationally). These groups are marginalised and experience high rates of poverty, low levels of education and poor health. They are highly vulnerable to climate change, due to poverty and dependence on climate-sensitive livelihoods in a vulnerable region. The Western Odisha Rural Livelihoods Project sought to reduce poverty by improving communities' water resources, agriculture, and incomes. Communities were involved throughout and are now better able to respond to climate variability (both droughts and heavy rains). The Government of Odisha took full ownership of the project and state and national governments subsequently adopted approaches used by WORLP.     

Lessons from urban risk assessments in Latin American and Caribbean cities

This paper draws on the results from a recent World Bank-funded project designed to inform policy-making and climate change adaptation planning in small and medium-sized cities in Latin America and the Caribbean. The focus was on floods and landslides, which are the two most common climate-related risks in cities across the region. The project allowed the application of the Urban Risk Assessment (URA) tool developed by the World Bank and the drawing of valuable lessons which may also be applicable to the many methods and tools available for climate change adaptation planning in the rapidly urbanising cities of developing countries.     

Elite Domination of Public Doubts About Climate Change (Not Evolution)

This article examines the sources of ideological skepticism about two issues where there is a scientific consensus: climate change and evolution. The results indicate that self-identified conservatives doubt global warming in large part because of elite rhetoric, but that evolution beliefs are unrelated to reception of political discourse. News reception is perhaps the strongest predictor of conservatives’ climate change skepticism, but has no influence on their aversion to evolution. Moreover, the article leverages three sources of variation in elite discourse on climate change—temporal, cross-national, and experimental—to show that changes in the prevalence of ideological cues strongly affect public opinion about global warming. Politically attentive conservatives, in fact, were more likely to believe scientists about global warming than liberals were in the 1990s before the media depicted climate change as a partisan issue. The United States is also the only nation where political interest significantly predicts both conservatives’ skepticism about, and liberals’ belief in, climate change. Finally, evidence from a national survey experiment suggests that Americans would be less skeptical of manmade global warming if more Republicans in Congress believed in it, but a growing Congressional consensus about evolution would not diminish doubts about its existence.     

The roles of community seed banks in climate change adaption

Although community level seed-saving initiatives have been around for about 30 years, until recently they have received little attention in the scientific literature on climate change adaptation and plant genetic resources. Based on research experiences from various countries, this article argues that community seed banks can enhance the resilience of farmers, in particular of communities and households most affected by climate change. Community seed banks can secure improved access to, and availability of, diverse, locally adapted crops and varieties, and enhance related indigenous knowledge and skills in plant management, including seed selection, treatment, storage, multiplication, and distribution.     

Changing arenas for agricultural climate change adaptation in Vietnam

Great changes are underway in how climate and agricultural risks are managed in Vietnam. Uncertainties are emerging regarding the role of the state in managing these risks and what this implies for assumptions regarding hoped-for climate change transformations. Local government control is waning in relation to the expanding roles of the private sector and the growing autonomy of farmers themselves. This article presents cases that illustrate the ways that farmers, private investors, and local authorities are responding to climate risk within roles relating to the other risks involving markets, food security, and pressures on common property resources.     

Climate resilient planning in Bangladesh: a review of progress and early experiences of moving from planning to implementation

Bangladesh is one of the first least developed countries (LDCs) to develop a long-term climate change strategy, the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP). Two funds were set up after developing the BCCSAP, one using government resources (BCCTF) and the other using donor resources (BCCRF). This paper uses the “building blocks” framework to analyse changes that occur when progressing from planning to finance and implementation by comparing the BCCRF and BCCTF. This analysis reveals how governance enablers are influenced by political economy dynamics that steer funding decisions and implementation outcomes, and provides lessons for countries pursuing climate resilience.     

Domestic Institutions,Trade Disputes,and the Monitoring and Enforcement of International Law

Why do some governments participate more actively in the enforcement of international law than others? In the context of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)/World Trade Organization (WTO), I argue that domestic institutions – and, specifically, the electoral rule – can account for these differences. Interest groups are frequently harmed when foreign governments violate international law and have compliance information, but they lack access to formal enforcement mechanisms, such as dispute settlement bodies. I identify two complementary effects of domestic institutions. Where domestic institutions increase the government’s responsiveness to interest groups, the government is more likely to enforce international law on their behalf. In turn, because they expect that rule violations are more likely to be enforced, interest groups are more willing to contribute to the monitoring of international law. Hence, interest groups are more likely to provide the information necessary for enforcement, and governments are more likely to be aware of rule violations and to provide enforcement. Empirical evidence from the GATT/WTO is consistent with these propositions.     

From discourse to policy: US policy communities’ perceptions of and approaches to climate change and security

ABSTRACT

Increasingly, a diverse set of policy communities, including those with defence, development and environmental mandates, frame climate change as a security threat. Most often this discursive formation labels climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’. This framing, however, is vague, linear and leaves many questions unanswered regarding how institutions can develop and implement policy that addresses the joint challenges of climate change, conflict and security. Utilising a mixed-methods approach, and grounding data collection in US policy communities, this article examines how policy actors and institutions integrate climate-security discourses into policy processes. The objective of this research is to provide direct insight into how the discourses and technical understandings of climate-security transition into policy priorities and implementation realities. This research identified three common approaches to climate-security: (1) A challenge of adaptation and resilience; (2) A potent political argument; and (3) An issue of limited importance and feasibility. These approaches, however, are inconsistent across sectors and within organisations, suggesting a lack of cohesion and considerable challenges in identifying and responding to climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’.     

A recurring anarchy? The emergence of climate change as a threat to international peace and security

Robert Kaplan's 1994 article, ‘The Coming Anarchy’ was a milestone in the literature on the links between environmental change and security. The article predicted that disease, corruption, overpopulation, scarce resources and climate change would plunge West Africa into pervasive conflict. Nearly a decade and a half—and several civil wars—later this article returns to West Africa to see to what extent Kaplan's predictions have come to pass. While West Africa may not have followed exactly the trajectory that Kaplan foresaw, he did correctly predict that climate change would be recognised as a threat to international security. This paper reviews in greater detail the development of conceptualisations of environment and security that influence current discussions over the potential impacts of climate change on security, paying particular attention to the ways in which West Africa is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.     

Who Can Reform the Labor Market? IMF Conditionality,Partisanship, and Labor Unions

Labor market reforms are critical for economic growth. Yet, they are politically contentious, and governments, more often than not, are faced with strong opposition from interest groups. Scholarly work shows that governments often rely on external intervention to implement politically difficult reforms. This is the case with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that typically conditions its financing on the implementation of required reforms. Do borrowing governments benefit from IMF programs to overcome domestic opposition to reform by organized interests? Utilizing a unique new data set on IMF conditionality, I show that partisan and electoral concerns and domestic alliances strongly affect the implementation of labor market reforms, even when the IMF imposes them. When faced with increasing number of strikes, left-wing governments are more likely to implement labor market reforms than center/right-wing governments. However, the left is less likely than the center/right to fulfill its international commitments during election years when labor groups are militant. These findings highlight the left’s unique ability to form pro-reform coalitions and the IMF’s conditional role in removing domestic political opposition to reform. Counter-intuitively, right-wing governments still struggle to reform the labor market, even during economic crises and under IMF programs.     

Assessing the credibility of how climate adaptation aid projects are categorised

This article presents the findings of a re-evaluation of all 5,200 aid projects that OECD donors reported for 2012 as “climate change adaptation”-related, based on the “Rio marker” classification system. The findings confirm those from the academic and grey literature that the absence of independent quality control makes the adaptation Rio marker data almost entirely unreliable. This lack of credibility impedes meaningful assessments of progress toward the mainstreaming of adaptation in development cooperation activities. It also erodes trust in international climate negotiations, given that these data are frequently used in the financial reporting of developed countries to the UNFCCC.     

Presence to Press: How Campaigns EarnLocal Media

Today’s campaigns have ample resources with which to influence the media, while plummeting revenue, readership, and reporting staffs make local newspapers more vulnerable than ever. This imbalance raises an important question: if a campaign invests more resources in an area, can it earn positive media coverage? In this article, I propose a strategic relationship between campaigns and local media. Newspapers offer campaigns credibility and exposure, while campaigns offer local newspapers easy-to-report stories that will appeal to their readers. Campaign messages are more impactful when communicated through the local press, so campaigns will try to influence local news coverage (when they have the resources to do so) by establishing a local presence. When newspapers are vulnerable, they should be more likely to accept campaign prompting and provide campaigns with positive earned media. I employ an original data set of newspaper content and campaign investment from the 2004 and 2008 elections. I utilize a within-state matched-pairs design of newspapers from the state of Florida and a detailed content analysis of stories from 21 randomly selected days from each election cycle. I find that regional campaign presence generates positive earned media, but only in smaller newspapers. This article contributes to the fields of campaign and media effects by demonstrating how campaigns’ calculated decisions influence the construction of local political news. It is the first study to describe the connection between the voter contact and campaigns’ earned local media strategy.     

Applying an ecological model to orphans and vulnerable children programming

Research has shown that programmes that take a holistic approach to addressing the challenges of orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) are more likely to achieve sustainable outcomes. However, OVC programme staff can feel overwhelmed by the challenge of designing holistic approaches due to realities on the ground. The paper introduces an adaptation of Bronfenbrenner's ecological model of development. The framework is designed specifically to assist programme staff in constructing more holistic and integrated OVC responses by translating an established theoretical background into an approachable way to better conceptualise and support OVC intervention(s) across multiple systems and multiple sectors.     

Roles and contributions of community seed banks in climate adaptation in Nepal

Community seed banks are an effective local institution to conserve quality seeds, to strengthen farmers’ accessibility to social seed networks, and improve agrobiodiversity and food security. This article analyses the prospects and challenges of community seed banks in climate change contexts. It finds that community seed banks serve as sources of climate-resilient seeds to withstand in local climates and improve community resilience. Community seed banks provide landraces for participatory crop improvement to develop resistant varieties to improve quality and productivity. They also strengthen participatory seed exchange to cope with climate adversity. However, there are challenges with defining specific and common goals, functions, approaches, and governance.     

Economic Competitiveness and Social Policy in Open Economies

While many studies have shown that greater trade openness affects the overall size of social spending, this study emphasizes that it also affects types of social policies that a government prioritizes. When faced with deepening trade competition, governments tend to use different policy measures to address the opportunities and challenges stemming from their economic competitiveness in the international market. Policy makers in countries with high relative labor costs are likely to privilege social insurances and income transfer. This is because as high labor costs make their workers more vulnerable in the trade competition, governments seek to protect skilled labor in order to maintain their economic advantage in advanced industries. In contrast, when relative labor costs are low, human capital investment programs are likely to be emphasized to enhance productivity and the quality of labor to capitalize the cost competitiveness of a country’s workers. The findings from empirical analyzes of 26 OECD economies from 1991 to 2012 support these arguments.