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Institutionalsing
Adaptation
Agus P Sari
apsari@pelangi.or.id
It
may already be a cliché by now to say that developing countries will
lose the most when climate change occurs, due to their ecological
and geographical vulnerabilities, level of economic development, and
their lack of resources in dealing with the impacts of climate
change. But, one aspect that is often not addressed properly in any
discourse on climate impacts is the human and institutional aspect
of vulnerability.
Indeed, too much attention so far has been paid on the mitigation
side of the climate coin. COP 8 in Delhi last year managed to
increase the prominence of impacts, vulnerability, and the
adaptation side of the coin. But even so, much attention has still
been devoted to the physical and socio-economic impacts. In the
debate on adaptation to these impacts, strong interests lie in the
physical and technical measures and the costs. Understandably, the
debate on the Adaptation Fund—its amount and predictability—comes in
the forefront of the debate. COP 6 bis in Bonn (the extension of
COP6 in The Hague in 2000, since it failed to reach any agreement),
produced a series of contribution pledges from the industrialized
countries amounting to approximately $600 millions for all funds
related to climate change and not only for adaptation purposes. But,
this falls short of the $1 billion per year appeal by the COP 6
Chair Jan Pronk in his proposed negotiating text.
It is
also unfortunate that the issue of climate change impacts has been
hijacked by oil-exporting countries, who believe that climate change
responses will reduce the demand for oil.
The
following article focuses on this institutional debate, hoping that
COP 9 in Milan could solve this issue adequately.
The Institutional Aspect of Adaptation
It is
not difficult to agree that even $1 billion per year entirely for
adaptation purposes is far from adequate, given the costs that
developing countries can potentially pay for climate change-related
damages. It is also not difficult to predict that developing
countries themselves will have to bear most of the cost of
adaptation, given the small amount of willingness among the
industrialized countries to “compensate” for these damages,
regardless of how inequitable this possible outcome really is.
Beyond
money, we need to know how to adapt technically and
institutionally—including the organizational and legal means—so that
the money (if at all available) can be spent efficiently and reach
the right targets. So far, the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol has been the main
source of insight on the institutional aspect of adaptation. While
the negotiation on this has been compartmentalized in the
negotiation on Articles 4.8 and 4.9 of the Convention and Article
3.14 of the Protocol, M.J. Mace of the Foundation for International
Environmental Law and Development (FIELD) found that no single
Article in the UNFCCC deals comprehensively with adaptation. Still
largely absent from the UNFCCC’s adaptation framework, is an
institutionalized process for the prioritization of adaptation
activities both among, and within, countries vulnerable to the
impacts of climate change. Also lacking, is an adequate and
predictable stream of funding to address adaptation needs. No
funding is yet authorized for the implementation of project
activities.
As a
result of the COP negotiation process, especially for the least
developed countries (LDCs), the main vehicle to strategize national
resources is the National Action Plan for Adaptation (NAPA). Under
the auspices of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), some
millions of dollars are available for these countries to formulate
their adaptation strategies.
But so
far, existing adaptation response developments such as NAPA are
either formulated at the international or internationally-driven
national levels. This way, the approach to the problem inevitably
tends to become state-oriented, with limited inputs and involvement
from the civil society and, most importantly, from the potential
victims. This poses several problems. First, this traditional
management of internationally-driven action plan formulation will
bring some conditionality from the donors, such as a condition to
employ “international consultants” from the donor countries that can
easily absorb half of the budget. Second, in countries laden with
corruption and lack of accountability, there is very little capacity
to undergo adaptation exercises, achieve targets, and ensure the
effective use of resources and funds. In the end, only a fraction—a
quarter, if we are lucky—of these “adaptation funds” go to
developing countries and even less is used directly to increase
these countries’ resilience to climate change.
If we
observe closely, communities whose livelihoods depend largely on
climate and nature have a long history of self-adaptation. An
example of how adaptation works in the ancient era could be
witnessed through the farming practices along the banks of the Nile
River in Egypt in the era of the Pharaohs. The farmers skillfully
utilized the cycle of floods of the Nile River and made use of the
soil nutrition left after the floods by scheduling their farming
cycle to follow the flood cycle. At present, some farmers still
survive the changing climate by adapting their farming practices, as
well as the organization of the farming community. Unfortunately,
much of the changes are either too intense, too fast, or both, for
them to adapt organically.
These
adaptive practices and organizational capacities at the grassroots
level could shed some light on how larger national and international
institutional arrangements for adaptation to climate change should
evolve, as they provide real and direct benefits to communities in
terms of participatory adaptation strategies.
An Adaptation Protocol ?
The
original proposal submitted by India as Chair of COP 8 contained a
provision to negotiate an Adaptation Protocol. This came about as a
response to the current climate of the negotiation that had been
biased towards mitigation, and a view that the Kyoto Protocol, while
well-equipped for mitigation measures, is weak in terms of
addressing adaptation. I gave a speech at the Conference on
Adaptation organized by Development Alternatives several days prior
to COP 8 itself in New Delhi, where I suggested a more serious
thinking towards institutionalizing adaptation through an Adaptation
Protocol under the Convention. In this article, I suggest we
revisit this argument.
First,
this provision was strongly opposed in the negotiation, among others
by the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS), with a good
argument. Some of the opinions were against an Adaptation Protocol.
M.J. Mace of FIELD presented one example concerning the lengthy
process for negotiating the Adaptation Protocol while the Convention
has already provided sprinkled provisions for adaptation. The key
question is what would be contained in the Adaptation Protocol that
is not already contained in the existing instruments?
My
opinion has been further muddied by some variants in the discourse
on “future actions”, “future commitments” — or other guises,
essentially about the future of the climate regime “beyond 2012” —
in favour of either abolishing the Kyoto Protocol, creating an
entirely new regime that resembles everything but the Kyoto
Protocol, or an “orchestra of treaties”. In this arrangement, there
are several risks to face. An Adaptation Protocol can be seen as a
treaty in place of the Kyoto Protocol, or at least that undermines
it. Furthermore, the risk that countries may pick and choose the
treaties in which they want to participate may leave the Adaptation
Protocol with only developing countries as signatories. Considering
the current unwillingness by the industrialized countries to pick up
the tab of adaptation measures, this Adaptation Protocol may not be
sufficiently funded, which would make it a toothless treaty.
All
these debates show that there is a set of questions still underlying
the institutional aspects of adaptation. While the emerging
prominence of adaptation in the climate regime is widely welcomed,
the institutional matter is far from settled. The leadership of the
Indian government and Indian NGOs in pursuing adaptation should
include more intense work on these institutional aspects. q
The author is the Executive Director, Pelangi, an
environmental think-tank based in Jakarta, Indonesia.
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