Introduction

Adaptation to the impacts of climate change is happening now. No-one asked for the opportunity to adapt – clearly it is a set of actions in a situation caused by past and present human-induced change and hence a manifestation of past inequitable use of the earth's resources (Adger et al., 2006). But adaptation is a central part of the changing landscape of human security and insecurity brought about by a changing climate.

Justice in the context of adapting to this new set of risks does not, therefore, simply involve a set of decisions on intertemporal and intergenerational equity involving trade-offs between unrepresented future agents and present actors and their interests. Rather, present day adaptation to climate change itself involves those justice dilemmas inherent in implementing sustainable and equitable development. The actions to maintain security are structured by present and historic inequalities in the distribution of access to resources and to power and decision making. There is now incontrovertible evidence of observed warming and trends in climate variability, and on the impacts of these trends on plants, animals, water, glaciers and ice is already apparent (Rosenzweig et al., 2007). These impacts are consistent with projected future climate change, though the possibility of significant and even catastrophic impacts outside the assessed range is also real (Schellnhuber et al., 2006). But the key point is that adaptation is already underway (Adger et al., 2007).

Introduction: governance and adaptation to climate change

The emergent and growing literature on climate change and adaptation seems to have laid aside the effort to define a standardized, universally accepted set of concepts and theoretical frameworks and now acknowledges the coexistence of context-specific vulnerability and adaptation models (Eakin and Luers, 2006; Füssel and Klein, 2006). In effect, the hazard-based, economic-based and climate-based approaches resemble variations in linguistic dialect – similar enough to be mutually intelligible but different enough to create highly nuanced ‘theory communities’. The reality is, however, that hazards (and risk), poverty and global climate change are intimately intermingled in both theory and practice (Halsnaes and Verhagen, 2007; Vogel et al., 2007) – and so must be the models that explain the related dimensions of vulnerability and adaptation. This chapter seeks to contribute to both the scholarly understanding and the praxis of vulnerability and adaptation in specific socio-economic, physical and political contexts by demonstrating how systems of governance act to integrate these variant dimensions of adaptation. The specific context of a drought-affected state in north-east Brazil provides the empirical basis for our argument.

There are four underlying themes present in the variant models of vulnerability and adaptation that seem critical to how the praxis of adaptation unfolds in the face of climate variability and change. The first of these is that the process of adaptation necessarily entails the articulation of different levels of scale.

Introduction

As policy-makers struggle to define the policy agenda to address the challenge of climate change, three distinct influential approaches to climate policy are emerging in the climate change literature: implementing climate change adaptation; reducing social vulnerability; and managing ecosystem resilience. Each of these approaches has been developed in specific policy contexts associated respectively with natural hazard mitigation, poverty and social welfare investment, and natural resource management. In these contexts each approach has met with varying levels of past success. The fact that climate change is characterized by a high probability of surprise events; significant scientific uncertainty; and a need for long-term planning horizons only makes policy development more difficult.

In this chapter we argue that each of the three approaches involves implicit trade-offs in both the process of policy formation and in policy outcomes. These trade-offs are rarely considered in the evaluation of policy options, yet may have important implications for social welfare and sustainability. Through the analysis of case studies of adaptation to climate variability and change, we illustrate how the different ways of approaching the process of adjusting to future change can inadvertently lead to, for example, the privileging of efficiency over equitable distribution of resources (for example, risk-based adaptation approach), equity at the expense of cost (for example, social vulnerability approach), or intergenerational equity over political legitimacy (resilience approach).

In the next section, we first create caricatures of the three approaches to climate policy: risk-based adaptation, vulnerability and resilience.

Our nature: adaptable

In geological terms, the human presence on the Earth has been exceptionally brief. Yet during that time, biological evolution and cultural innovations have permitted us to colonize most of the Earth's terrestrial regions. We are found in a wide diversity of physical environments and thrive under a range of climate characteristics. If we use the spread of humans as an adaptation metric, we must be considered a successful species. If we increase the focal length of our analytical lens by a couple of magnitudes, however, we begin to see some details that undermine assumptions of overall success. Entire societies disappear. If we increase the focal length even more, we can see that even within societies there are successes and failures across space and through time. Undoubtedly, we are an adaptable species, but adaptation is not synonymous with smooth transition or change. When we consider different scales of analysis we are forced to consider closely the process of adaptation and the consequences of actions and inactions. Our ability to inhabit diverse and changing environments comes at a price – to individuals and entire societies.

Much research in climate adaptation has focused on policy, strategies, technologies and the capacities required to facilitate their successful deployment. While our current level of adaptedness relative to climate and the environment is clearly a product of purposeful action, it certainly is also co-produced by autonomous actions. Autonomous actions occur in response to change, irrespective of policy directives and without external assistance.