Lessons for adaptation pathways in the Pacific Islands
Lessons for adaptation pathways in the Pacific Islands
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太平洋岛屿适应路径的经验教训
DOI：
10.1371/journal.pclm.0000011
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发表时间：
2022
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
R. Clissold
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
K. McNamara;Ross Westoby;R. Clissold
尽管太平洋岛屿地区的碳排放量仅占全球的0.03%，但该地区是气候变化影响和适应对话的先锋[1]。太平洋岛民生计的各个方面都受到气候变化的威胁，包括主要维持生计的生活方式造成的粮食安全（如图1在瓦努阿图Marobe市场拍摄的照片所示），这些危机必须通过适应和复原力建设来解决。然而，整个太平洋岛屿地区的当地社区长期以来一直在为极端环境变化做准备并从中生存下来，管理和保护自然资源，并知道什么样的解决方案可以在其特定的当地脆弱性背景和日常现实中为他们提供最佳支持。在这篇观点文章中，我们列出了太平洋岛屿适应方面持续存在的挑战，然后提出了四条相辅相成的适应途径，这些途径可能会带来更加公平、可持续和有影响力的适应未来。第一个挑战是太平洋岛屿地区经常出现的持续的“赤字框架”。占主导地位的叙述是消极、问题和弱点。我们对这种框架的担忧是，捐助者、政府、从业者和学者不加批判地关注缺陷，从而创造了需要“解决”的“问题”[5]。这可能导致地方效能和机构受到损害，太平洋岛民解决问题的自主能力受到削弱，地方创造力和能力受到阻碍。这种赤字框架往往是由局外人、外部各方和捐助者延续的，他们往往是飞来飞去的，并发挥咨询作用，传授“专门知识”，很少考虑当地机构。第二个挑战是如何将基于社区的适应作为太平洋岛屿干预措施的灵丹妙药。资金越来越多地流向地方一级，以摆脱自上而下的办法，但实现有效和可持续的适应，确保真正的社区参与，并不是一件简单的事，出现了许多问题[6]。我们最近的研究评估了太平洋四个国家20个农村社区的32项CBA倡议，发现倡议的适当性是一种优势，但可持续性是一个持续的挑战。第三个挑战是，“适应知识”往往被紧紧抓住。在适应领域，由于取得成功的巨大压力和对筹资前景影响的担忧，成功的故事很容易被分享，而关于业绩不佳的智慧和教训在很大程度上被掩盖。这种缺乏反身性意味着其他人经常重复错误，在这个过程中浪费了宝贵的资源。害怕分享不良业绩也抑制了人们对地方一级权力差距可能产生的适应结果的任何异质性的思考和分享的意愿。标准化的适应结果不可避免地有利于某些观点，从而加剧了边缘化群体的脆弱性（见[8]）。PLOS气候
Despite contributing only 0.03% of global carbon emissions, the Pacific Islands region is at the vanguard of climate change impacts and adaptation conversations [1]. Varied aspects of Pacific Islander livelihoods are threatened by climate change, including food security due to predominately subsistence lifestyles (as highlighted in the photograph taken at Marobe market in Vanuatu as Fig 1), and these crises must be addressed through adaptation and resilience building. Local communities across the Pacific Islands region, however, have long prepared for and survived extreme environmental changes [2], managed and protected natural resources [3], and known what kinds of solutions would best support them in their specific local vulnerability context and everyday realities [4]. In this Opinion piece, we lay out the persistent challenges for adaptation in the Pacific Islands before proposing four mutually reinforcing adaptation pathways that could lead to more equitable, sustainable, and impactful adaptation futures. The first challenge is the persistent ‘deficit framing’ that is often cast over the Pacific Islands region. The dominant narrative is one of negativity, problems, and weakness. Our concern with this framing is that donors, governments, practitioners, and academics uncritically focus on deficiencies, thereby creating ‘problems’ to be ‘solved’ [5]. This can lead to local efficacy and agency being undermined, Pacific Islanders’ autonomous capacity to solve issues being undercut and local creativity and capabilities being stymied. This deficit framing is often perpetuated by outsiders, external parties and donors who tend to fly-in-fly-out and play the consultative role that imparts ‘expertise’ with little regard for local agency. The second challenge is the way community-based adaptation (CBA) has been used as the panacea for interventions in the Pacific Islands. Funding has been increasingly channelled to the local level to move away from top-down approaches but achieving effective and sustainable adaptation that ensures genuine community engagement has not been straightforward, with many issues emerging [6]. Our recent study, which evaluated 32 CBA initiatives in 20 rural communities across four countries in the Pacific, found that initiative appropriateness was a strength, but that sustainability was a consistent challenge [7]. The third challenge is that ‘adaptation knowledge’ is often tightly held. In the adaptation field, due to significant pressures to be successful and fears around ramifications on funding prospects, success stories are readily shared while the wisdoms and lessons around poor performance are largely obscured. This lack of reflexivity means that mistakes are often repeated by others, wasting precious resources in the process. The fear of sharing poor performance is also stifling reflections on, and the willingness to share, any heterogeneity in adaptation outcomes that can emerge from local-level power disparities. Standardised adaptation outcomes inevitably favour some views over others, thereby reinforcing the vulnerability of marginalised groups (see [8]). PLOS CLIMATE