Environmental Science & Policy

This paper describes how an earlier study’s novel, meta-paradigmatic approach was used to answer two research questions of international significance: (1) How are small island developing states (SIDS) adapting to climate change at the national level? and (2) What are the factors that affect adaptation at the national level in SIDS? As acknowledged in the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, SIDS are distinct from other developing countries. They are 58 countries spread across three main geographic regions that are disproportionately vulnerable to the impacts of climate change; they require special attention and support from the international community. Previous studies using a single theory to understand adaptation in SIDS were limited and unable to fully grapple with the totality, enormity and complexity of the climate challenge. This paper argues for capitalising on the value of the distinctiveness of different theories and approaches without having to integrate them into one paradigm. It further catalogues the earlier study’s contributions to climate change adaptation scholarship and theory-building. It does not seek to rationalise the earlier study or justify any theoretical perspective. Instead, it seeks to serve as an incubator for new thinking on investigating climate adaptation in complex geographies. Additionally, it teases out lessons and insights for national governments and other actors that are designing and implementing climate change adaptation policies and programs in disproportionately vulnerable countries in the Global South.

The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement signifies the commitment of the international community to limit global temperature rise to 2°C above pre-industrial levels and further to 1.5°C. To prepare for increasing temperatures, climate adaptation actors are prioritizing climate resilience- and transformation-based activities. There is, however, limited understanding of actors’ knowledge of and attitudes and practices towards these global temperature targets and concepts. Using the case of Caribbean small island developing states, we qualitatively analyze in-depth interviews with 35 climate change donors and project implementers. We find that most actors are aware of the 2°C and 1.5°C targets but that all are pessimistic about their achievement. Project implementers do not have a clear way to incorporate these targets into their adaptation projects. We also find that there is no uniform understanding of ‘resilience’ and ‘transformation’, though actors commonly define ‘resilience’ as the ability to ‘bounce back’ from extreme events and note ‘transformation’ as requiring the disruption of current socio-economic and political systems. Actors are further pessimistic about achieving resilience goals within short programming and funding cycles. Our study highlights the need for the global temperature targets to be urgently translated into the design and implementation of adaptation projects. We also highlight that the concepts of resilience and transformation are top-down and donor-driven, and that there is a need for donors to facilitate the creation of a shared vision of these concepts across all stakeholders.

Governance across the land-sea interface is an emerging challenge. The propensity for, and intensity of social-ecological interactions across this interface (e.g., eutrophication, sedimentation) are being exacerbated by cross-system threats (e.g., climate change). We draw on a systematic review of 151 peer-reviewed papers on governance and land-sea connections to (1) outline the current state of the literature, (2) examine the predominance of different approaches to address land-sea interactions, (3) characterize how governance is conceptualized within these approaches, (4) investigate governance challenges, and (5) provide insights into effective governance. The review finds that the number of relevant papers published per year has generally been increasing, and most of these papers are found in interdisciplinary journals. Ecosystem-based management is the most predominant approach found in the literature as a means to address land-sea interactions. Papers referring to ecosystem-based management are more likely than those referring to alternative management approaches (e.g., integrated management) to highlight science-policy integration and the need to account for interactions between ecosystem components as elements of effective governance. The main governance challenges include determining boundaries, addressing cross-scale effects, and accessing knowledge. However, few empirical studies of governance across the land-sea interface have been completed. A richer conceptual framework of governance is required to improve our ability to navigate the rapid social and environmental change occurring across the land-sea interface.

Climate governance in Small Island developing States (SIDS) is a pressing priority to preserve livelihoods, biodiversity and ecosystems for the next generations. Understanding the dynamics of climate change policy integration is becoming more crucial as we try to measure the success of environmental governance efforts and chart new goals for sustainable development. At the international level, climate change policy has evolved from single issue to integrated approaches towards achieving sustainable development. New actors, new mechanisms and institutions of governance with greater fragmentation in governance across sectors and levels (Biermann and Pattberg, 2008) make integration of policy in the area of climate change governance even more of a challenge today. What is the Caribbean reality regarding policy coherence in climate change governance? Are the same climate change policy coherence frameworks useful or indeed applicable for environmental governance in developing states more generally and for SIDS in particular? What are the best triggers to achieve successful climate change policy integration in environmental governance—especially as the complex interconnectivity of new actors, institutions and mechanisms make the process of integration even more challenging? What facilitates and what hampers climate policy integration in the regional Caribbean context? This article reviews the debates around policy coherence for climate change governance, creates a framework to test or measure policy coherence and examines how relevant this has been to regional climate change governance processes in Commonwealth Caribbean States. The study found that though at the regional level, there is substantial recognition of the importance of and mechanics involved in climate policy coherence, this has not translated to policy coherence at the regional and national levels. There is a large degree of fragmentation in the application of climate policy in each Caribbean Island with no mechanism to breach the gap. Silos in public environmental governance architectures, unwillingness to share data, insufficient political will; unsustainable project-based funding and lack of accountability among actors are the main challenges to climate policy coherence. The findings fill a gap in the literature on the elements of climate policy coherence from a SIDS perspective.

In many Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States, such as in Kiribati, formal national adaptation programmes are currently being operationalised. A key focus is enhancing the adaptive capacity of vulnerable communities through piloting of sectoral adaptation strategies such as diversifying water resources. This study argues that fundamental to water management and adaptation planning is the integration of people's cultural values attached to the assets/resources they control and utilise in their efforts to adapt to various stresses on water resources. The results from integrating cultural resources into a Sustainable Livelihoods Framework indicate that people's capacity to diversify is constrained by cultural processes negotiated in their daily lives that reinforced and reproduced hardships. Material resources provided personal significance when they were spent on maintaining social identity, expressed in recent times through the church. Thus fewer resources were available for pursuing a diversification strategy. Furthermore, power structures in the church delimited benefits to the individual, depriving people of their freedom to exercise autonomous agency and achieve personal wellbeing. The study demonstrates the significance of religion to adaptation. Moreover, it highlights the need to consider the relational aspects of assets, in conditioning how people access and utilise assets in pursuing adaptation strategies.