Uncertainty and the epistemic dimension of democratic deliberation in climate change adaptation

Abstract Climate change adaptation is inherently local, contextual, and political, a problem distinct from the global collective action problem that is climate stabilization. Climate change vulnerability is a function not only of hydro-meteorological changes, specific geographic contexts, ecosystem integrity, and economic poverty, but also of the social and political institutions of a given local or regional context. The uncertainty, complexity, and inherent politics of climate change adaptation in particular places mean that adaptive institutions, if they are to be more than just disaster prediction and response mechanisms, must be flexible, dynamic and capable themselves of adapting quickly to changing environmental, economic, and social conditions. Certain approaches to adaptation have moved away from rigid orthodox development models. Nonetheless, they are often so general as to be impractical, or in effect comprise repackaged concepts and methods borrowed from climate change mitigation efforts and international development institutions. This study discusses the epistemic dimension of democracy at the level of international environmental institutions and at the level of local, contextually unique adaptation projects. Development and adaptation practices that involve democratic participation do so largely in accordance with norms of fairness and justice, which are unquestionably important. Attaching democracy exclusively to transcendent norms of justice, however, belies concrete possibilities for democratic approaches to climate adaptation. These possibilities reside in the epistemic dimension of democracy, a pragmatic notion developed. The account suggests that an epistemic democratic conceptual framework can inform adaptation institutions that are better able to cope with complexity and uncertainty, even ultimately directing these lessons towards the international sphere's institutional focus on mitigation. Keywords: climate change adaptationepistemic democracyuncertaintycomplex systemsinternational environmental governancesustainable developmentinstitutions Acknowledgements A thousand thanks to Jana Mittag for her master-like patience, hard work, and good humour. Thank you also to two anonymous reviewers, as well as to Peter Burnell and to Christopher Britt at George Washington University for their insight, encouragement, and criticism. Notes For further explanation of Bali's subak/water temple system, see Lansing, Perfect Order; Lansing, Priests and Programmers; Eiseman, Bali Sekala and Niskala; Wiguna, Lorenzen and Lorenzen, ‘Past, Present and Future’; Wayan Windia, ‘Sustainability’; Lorenzen and Lorenzen, ‘Changing Realities’. Emergent properties are characteristics of a complex system that cannot be determined or predicted from that system's constituent parts (e.g. termite mounds; or the human mind as an emergent property of the interactions of the electrochemical processes of the brain, embodiment, and environment). Barrett, Why Cooperate? ‘Article 2: Objective’, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The GEF funds environmental projects in developing countries. The CDM is one of three ‘flexibility mechanisms’ crafted through the Kyoto Protocol. It is designed to enable industrialized countries (Annex I countries of the UNFCCC) to fulfil their emissions reductions obligations more cheaply by investing in reductions in developing countries (Annex II countries). See, for instance, Articles 2 and 3 of the Copenhagen Accord of 2009, http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/l07.pdf. For an interesting extended discussion of differential treatment, see Rajamani, Differential Treatment in International Environmental Law. See Birnie, Boyle and Redgwell, International Law and the Environment, chapter 1. See also Bodansky, The Art and Craft of International Environmental Law, chapters 5, 8, and 9. CDIAC, US Department of Energy, ‘Preliminary 2009 & 2010 Global & National Estimates by Extrapolation’. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007. Anderson and Bows, ‘Beyond “Dangerous” Climate Change’, 20–44. Ibid. Young, Institutional Dynamics, 103. The latter distinction is made by Daly, Beyond Growth. In general, qualitative development refers to an increase in quality of life that is not simply a function of increased income or consumption or GDP. UNDP's Human Development Index tries to capture some of this by including mortality and literacy rates alongside gross national income (GNI) per capita in measuring well-being. Quality of life here also entails a healthy environment. Or we may observe that increased happiness does not necessarily track quantitative economic growth. In the 1848 essay, ‘The Art of Living’ John Stuart Mill wrote: ‘It is scarcely necessary to remark that a stationary condition of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There would be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress; as much room for improving the Art of Living, and much more likelihood of its being improved, when minds ceased to be engrossed by the art of getting on. Even the industrial arts might be as earnestly and as successfully cultivated, with the sole difference, that instead of serving no purpose but the increase of wealth, industrial improvements would produce their legitimate effect, that of abridging labor’. Cited in Daly, Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development, 27. For recent work on the economics of happiness, see Graham, Happiness around the World. Haas, Keohane and Levy, Institutions for the Earth, 7. The other two criteria being whether an agreement enhances the contractual environment of negotiating solutions and the extent to which it boosts national capacities. Young, Institutional Dynamics, 115–16. See Aldy and Stavins, Post-Kyoto International Climate Policy. A reassessment that will be more widely conceded as necessary, I believe, following the release of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (due in 2014). Ostrom, ‘A Polycentric Approach for Coping with Climate Change’, 13. I use the expression socio-ecological system here to underscore human society's ecological situatedness and impact as well as the underlying philosophical proposition that nature/culture is an ontologically inaccurate dualism. The socio and the eco are inextricably interrelated. This concept of society and environment as a coevolving system is central to recent resilience theory, but has powerful philosophical roots in the work of the classical American pragmatists, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead. The view has significant implications, entailing, for instance, that it is a mistake to conceive of human development separate from environmental well-being and vice versa. Article 3: ‘Parties have a right to, and should, promote sustainable development’. And Parties are to negotiate climate policy ‘on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities’. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) summarized and discussed in Moellendorf, ‘Treaty Norms and Climate Change Mitigation’. Putnam, ‘Diplomacy and Domestic Politics’. Knight and Johnson, The Priority of Democracy, 256. See Benedick, Ozone Diplomacy and also Atkinson et al., Climate Pragmatism. Benedick suggests, along with others, that the regime also focuses too little on generating incentives for technological innovation. The Kyoto Protocol's focus on abstract short-term emissions reduction targets misses the important lesson from the experience of banning chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by the Montreal Protocol, where an informally agreed policy measure drove technological innovation, not targets and timetables. See Benedick, ‘Morals and Myths’ and Benedick, ‘Avoiding Gridlock’. For more on the Montreal Protocol, see Benedick, ‘Avoiding Gridlock’. See Manfredo and Hilde, ‘Climate Change Adaptation’. Young, Inclusion and Democracy. Rawls, A Theory of Justice. Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 324. Gunderson, Peterson and Holling, ‘Practicing Adaptive Management in Complex Social-ecological Systems’, 224. See, for example, the historical analysis in Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed and the philosophical approach in Thompson, The Agrarian Vision. Dewey, The Later Works, 157. Callon, Lascoumes and Barthe, Acting in an Uncertain World, 22. ‘Planned adaptation is implemented before the impacts of climate change are observed. This type of adaptation can respond to specific projected impacts of climate change. Autonomous adaptation does not constitute a deliberate response to climatic stimuli but is triggered by ecological changes in natural systems and by market or welfare changes in human systems. This type of adaptation often occurs at the community and local level. Action and policies by governments, international organizations and other stakeholders can often influence the autonomous adaptation action undertaken directly, for example by increasing the resources available on the ground, or indirectly through measures that shape the incentives, knowledge sharing and capacity available for autonomous adaptation’. UNFCCC, Adaptation Assessment, Planning and Practice. UNFCCC, Climate Change, 10. IPCC, Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, cited in UNFCCC, ‘Reducing Vulnerability’, 16. Adger et al., Fairness in Adaptation to Climate Change, 273–4. Ribot, Najam and Watson, ‘Climate Variation’, 13–17, 23–48. Rayner and Malone, ‘Ten Suggestions for Policy Makers’, 134. Burton, ‘Climate Change and the Adaptation Deficit’. For further elaboration, see UNFCCC, ‘Reducing Vulnerability’. UNFCCC, Cancun Agreements, Decision 1/CP.16, II/12. Downing and Patwardhan, ‘Assessing Vulnerability for Climate Adaptation’, 77. Dewey, The Later Works, 181. Ibid., 181–2. Dewey, The Middle Works, 163. Ibid., 186. Ibid., 196. Ruitenbeek and Cartier, ‘The Invisible Wand’. Lobell and Burke, Climate Change and Food Security, 10. Norton, Sustainability, 323. Glouberman, A Toolbox for Improving Health in Cities, cited in Swanson and Bhadwal, Creating Adaptive Policies, 7. Knight and Johnson, The Priority of Democracy, 43. Dewey, The Later Works, 182. For an overview of approaches and cases, see Fung and Wright, Deepening Democracy. See, for example, the historical discussion in Brunner and Lynch, Adaptive Governance and Climate Change, 189. Putnam, Ethics without Ontology, 104–5. See Narayan, Voices of the Poor: Crying Out for Change. See Lansing, Perfect Order. Knight and Johnson, The Priority of Democracy, 268. Bromley, Sufficient Reason, 50.

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