Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-8 (section)

===== 8.5.2.4.1 Socio-cultural Factors =====

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Social and cultural factors are closely linked to values, beliefs and identities ( [[#Heimann--2016|Heimann and Mallick, 2016]] ) and mediate the ways in which people respond to climate variability and change ( [[#Adger--2013|Adger et al., 2013]] ). There is ''limited evidence'' but ''medium agreement'' about the importance and role of social and cultural factors in shaping adaptation, in terms of both the need to adapt and the way it is presented and communicated, although evidence is somewhat mixed in terms of how experiences of weather affect opinions and perceptions of climate change ( [[#Howe--2019|Howe et al., 2019]] ). Research also highlights the importance of context in understanding relations between perceptions of risks and behaviour, arguing that power relations and other obstacles and opportunities play a vital role in shaping actions ( [[#Rufat--2020|Rufat et al., 2020]] ). In general, nonetheless, adaptation is spurred when people perceive that there is an action they can take to make a difference ( [[#Kuruppu--2011|Kuruppu and Liverman, 2011]] ; [[#Mayer--2019|Mayer and Smith, 2019]] ), although it cannot be assumed that action will be taken if the socio-cultural setting is not amenable and it contravenes the values underlying people’s perceptions ( [[#Kwon--2019|Kwon et al., 2019]] ). Research testing for the effect of beliefs on behavioural change from 48 countries highlighted the need for policy leaders to present climate change as solvable yet challenging, if fatalistic beliefs that act as barriers to adaptation were to be reduced ( [[#Mayer--2019|Mayer and Smith, 2019]] ). This demonstrates how beliefs do not always reinforce actions, even when risks are perceived. Similarly, research from Burkina Faso working with the Fulbe ethnic group found that cultural norms restricted engagement in four of the most successful livelihood strategies that support adaptation to climate change (labour migration, working for development projects, gardening and female engagement in economic activities) ( [[#Nielsen--2010|Nielsen and Reenberg, 2010]] ). Cultural factors therefore play an important but under-researched role in adaptation.

Social factors in the context of adaptation, by contrast, are more widely studied. The literature on adaptation and the role of social capital as an enabler is diverse. There is ''high confidence'' that during disasters, social capital plays an important role in linking those who are affected to external supports and resources. On small islands, social networks can be dense and support adaptation ( [[#Petzold--2015|Petzold and Ratter, 2015]] ), with traditional knowledge and societal cohesion helping small island communities to have self-belief and build resilience even in the absence of external interventions ( [[#Nunn--2018|Nunn and Kumar, 2018]] ). Even the development of weak ties (e.g., one-way information transfer) can lead to the establishment of mutual collaboration relations that can be more easily drawn on in times of climate change-related shocks and stresses ( [[#Ingold--2017|Ingold, 2017]] ), while collective shared disaster experiences can cause new social groups to emerge and spur action, linked to a perceived common fate ( [[#Ntontis--2020|Ntontis et al., 2020]] ). However, this can exacerbate inequalities and create new ones, with those who are more connected having enhanced access to, for example, shelters following storm evacuations or earthquakes ( [[#Rahill--2014|Rahill et al., 2014]] ). In adapting to more incremental changes, social capital has been shown to increase shared local knowledge and awareness, support participatory processes and strengthen ties to corporate and political institutions, increasing their responsiveness to local concerns, as shown by examples from Aldrich et al. (2016). They describe how in Houma, Louisiana, located west of New Orleans, rising sea levels and hurricane risks have drawn on and built social capital at the community level. Having what was perceived locally as insufficient federal government support, residents, church groups and town council members collaborated to spur adaptation. Community mobilisation led to construction of self-funded levees and water projects to protect 200,000 residents from storm surges. Projects include marshland restoration, the elevation of existing housing, improved pumping systems and canal drainage, as well as buyouts and relocations of businesses and housing that has been repetitively damaged. Funds were raised from households through donations via a self-imposed sales tax. While this example paints a positive picture of the role of social capital and collective action in adaptation activities, it also raises questions about the coherence of actions across levels, again, highlighting a role for polycentric governance if risks of maladaptation are to be reduced. The danger in the example presented here is that should federal plans conflict with the community level work in the future, local efforts may have been in vain if installations have to be removed. This highlights the importance of careful evaluation of all adaptation options on an ongoing basis.

Further warnings about social capital as an adaptation enabler come from [[#Acosta--2016|Acosta et al. (2016)]] who recognise that it may be detrimental to private adaptation in some cases. Their research in rural Ethiopia found that qualitative measures of trust predict contributions to public goods, supporting theories about collective action, but that the effects of social capital are not homogenous: it can be helpful in some contexts, but unhelpful, or even detrimental in others. This led them to highlight the need for policymakers to consider these potentially different outcomes. Other research, also from Ethiopia, suggested that households with more social capital are more specialised in their livelihood strategies. This could leave them more vulnerable to climate change impacts (as per the Cyclone Aila example where shrimp farmers were specialised and hit hardest by the cyclone’s impacts), though social capital acts as a kind of informal insurance ( [[#Wuepper--2018|Wuepper et al., 2018]] ).

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'''Box 8.7 | Addressing inequalities in national capabilities: common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities relating to adaptation and the Paris Agreement'''
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Common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC) is a key principle within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and attempts to acknowledge countries’ diverse development situations. The Convention and its Kyoto Protocol operationalised the principle by committing developed (Annex I) countries to absolute emission reduction or limitation targets and exempting developing countries from any binding reductions in emissions ( [[#Huggins--2016|Huggins and Karim, 2016]] ; [[#Pauw--2019|Pauw et al., 2019]] ). In contrast, the Paris Agreement distinguishes between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries instead of Annex I and non-Annex I countries and acknowledges significant asymmetries and inequalities, not only between developed and developing countries, but also between developed and developing countries themselves, both in terms of vulnerability to climate change impacts and capacity to mitigate the problems. The literature contains extensive analyses of CBDR-RC in relation to equity in mitigation efforts in the post-2020 regime (e.g., [[#Michaelowa--2015|Michaelowa and Michaelowa, 2015]] ; [[#du%20Pont--2017|du Pont et al., 2017]] ; [[#Liu--2017|Liu et al., 2017]] ; [[#Holz--2018|Holz et al., 2018]] ; [[#Sælen--2019|Sælen et al., 2019]] ), but little in relation to adaptation, particularly relating to how it plays out in the Paris Agreement.

The somewhat static interpretation of CBDR-RC prior to the Paris Conference of the Parties was overcome through the introduction of a qualification to the CBDR-RC principle: the phrase ‘in the light of different national circumstances’. Without changing the original principle, the qualifier adds a dynamic element ( [[#Rajamani--2016|Rajamani, 2016]] ). Common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities of parties are therefore recognised not to be ‘tied to the annexes’, but instead evolve alongside national circumstances ( [[#Maljean-Dubois--2016|Maljean-Dubois, 2016]] ; [[#Voigt--2016|Voigt and Ferreira, 2016]] p.301). The Paris Agreement also recognises context, considering differentiation in relation to each of the Durban pillars: mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology, capacity building and transparency ( [[#Rajamani--2017|Rajamani and Guérin, 2017]] ).

Article 7 of the Paris Agreement acknowledges adaptation as a ‘global challenge faced by all’, recognising, for the first time, a global aspiration of ‘enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change’. It calls for a balance between mitigation and adaptation funding and emphasises the need to provide developing country parties, especially the most vulnerable, with ‘[c]ontinuous and enhanced international support’ for adaptation. The basis for differentiation under Article 7 therefore relies mostly on diverse national circumstances, capabilities and vulnerabilities. LDCs, as well as SIDS, are assumed by the literature, to be part of this category ( [[#Maljean-Dubois--2016|Maljean-Dubois, 2016]] ).

The literature offers two main perspectives when evaluating the effectiveness of these provisions on adaptation in the context of the post-Paris climate change regime. One argument follows that the Paris Agreement gives priority attention to the most vulnerable parties and, unlike previous international agreements in the climate change regime, places adaptation on equal footing to mitigation ( [[#Magnan--2016|Magnan and Ribera, 2016]] ; [[#Pérez--2017|Pérez and Kallhauge, 2017]] ; Morgan, 2018). Article 7 is interpreted here as a breakthrough, containing unprecedented provisions that give adaptation prominence and which elevate the importance of undertaking adequate action to cope with current and future climate change impacts. A second view argues that the Article 7 marks little departure from previous efforts to support adaptation efforts in developing countries ( [[#Doelle--2016|Doelle, 2016]] ) or that it could have included stronger provisions, such as a quantitative goal with respect to adaptation needs and costs ( [[#Bodansky--2016|Bodansky, 2016]] ).

The literature nevertheless shows ''high agreement'' that other parts of the Paris Agreement do contain consequential provisions on adaptation and the operationalisation of the CBDR-RC principle. Those provisions covering financial support are arguably the most pertinent, as they replace the dichotomy between developing countries and developed countries with a trichotomy which also includes ‘other Parties’ ( [[#Maljean-Dubois--2016|Maljean-Dubois, 2016]] ). While provision of support from developed parties continues to be mandatory, these ‘other parties’, apparently developing country parties, are ‘encouraged to provide or continue to provide such support voluntarily’ (Article 9.2). Parties themselves determine whether they belong to this category. So far, several developing countries have made contributions to the Green Climate Fund, ranging from Indonesia and Mexico to Mongolia and Panama (Green Climate Fund, 2017). Expanding the donor base to these ‘other parties’ and breaking down the wall between donor and recipient countries marks a departure from previous practice, under which developing countries had no formal role in climate finance and support ( [[#Bodansky--2016|Bodansky, 2016]] ; [[#Voigt--2016|Voigt and Ferreira, 2016]] ).

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'''Box 8.8 | Cyclone Aila in Bangladesh: impact, adaptation and way forward'''
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Historically, southern coastal Bangladesh, where the 1970 Bhola Cyclone killed 500,000 people, has been considered among the most climate-vulnerable environments on Earth. However, in recent decades, extreme weather events, like Cyclone Aila, though still destructive and destabilising, have resulted in lower death tolls thanks to a concerted investment in flood mitigation infrastructure, a dense network of cyclone shelters and a robust early warning system ( [[#Chowdhury--1993|Chowdhury et al., 1993]] ; [[#Paul--2009|Paul, 2009]] ). Cyclone Aila struck the southwest coast of Bangladesh on 25 May 2009 with a wind speed of 120 km hour –1 ( [[#Islam--2016|Islam and Hasan, 2016]] ). With tidal surges of up to 6.5 m, occurring over dry pre-monsoon soils, 11 coastal districts and more than 3.9 million people were affected ( [[#United%20Nations--2010|United Nations, 2010]] ), 190 people died and 7100 people suffered injuries ( [[#Saha--2017|Saha, 2017]] ).

Aila greatly damaged the region’s physical capital, including 6000 km of roads and 17,000 km of embankments. The cyclone polluted and damaged sources of drinking water and destroyed 243,000 houses and thousands of schools ( [[#Mallick--2017|Mallick et al., 2017]] ; [[#Paul--2019|Paul and Chatterjee, 2019]] ). In Satkhira and Khulna districts alone, 165,000 houses were destroyed and households were forced to live on damaged embankments in makeshift shanties ( [[#UNDP--2015|UNDP, 2015]] ). Many people had to live in these temporary shelters for years ( [[#Saha--2017|Saha, 2017]] ). Aila occurred during a high tide and the surge of saline water inundated not only the roads, embankments and houses but also vast areas of agricultural field and shrimp farms ( [[#Paul--2019|Paul and Chatterjee, 2019]] ) leaving many areas waterlogged for months ( [[#Abdullah--2016|Abdullah et al., 2016]] ; [[#Mallick--2017|Mallick et al., 2017]] ). The effect of saline water logging inside embankments caused further harm to houses, roads and culverts, adding more barriers to the post-disaster reconstruction activities ( [[#Roy--2020|Roy, 2020]] ). In the same area, tube-wells were damaged. Women had to travel up to 2 km every day to collect safe water, spending 30–90 minutes on this activity daily ( [[#Alam--2019|Alam and Rahman, 2019]] ). The distribution of costs across different socioeconomic groups was not always as expected. A study in Aila-affected Koyra sub-district of Khulna found that households with higher incomes were more vulnerable to Aila in both relative and absolute terms compared to middle- and low-income groups mainly due to damage to shrimp farming, which underpinned their livelihoods ( [[#Abdullah--2016|Abdullah et al., 2016]] ). This highlights how specialised livelihoods can leave people more vulnerable as they have fewer options. However, the same study found that the damage to physical capital such as fishing nets and boats was statistically significantly greater for middle- and low-income groups. Damage to houses was statistically significantly more among poorer households followed by middle- and higher-income groups.

A range of coping and adaptation actions were enacted in response to losses of and damage to physical capital (Table Box 8.8.1). Actions varied across the different affected areas and were taken by the households themselves, by the government and by NGOs.

'''Table Box 8.8.1 |''' '''Coping and adaptation actions enacted in the Cyclone Aila-affected area in response to losses of and damage to physical capital.'''

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Coping and adaptation actions

! Action group

! References

|-
| Human migration—mostly forced due to loss of houses as well as other resources and livelihood activities

| Households

| ( [[#Abdullah--2016|Abdullah et al., 2016]] ; [[#Mallick--2017|Mallick et al., 2017]] ; [[#Paul--2019|Paul and Chatterjee, 2019]] )

|-
| Alternative livelihood activities such as crafts, and honey and wood collection from the Sundarbans, due to irreparable damage to fishing gear

| Households

| ( [[#Alam--2015|Alam et al., 2015]] )

|-
| Saving money for house repairs or construction

| Households

| ( [[#Alam--2015|Alam et al., 2015]] )

|-
| Underground storage of emergency items such as foods, matchbox, cooker and cooking fuel

| Households

| ( [[#Alam--2015|Alam et al., 2015]] )

|-
| Selection of high land to build shelter along both sides of the embankments

| Households

| ( [[#Alam--2015|Alam et al., 2015]] )

|-
| Tree plantation in the homestead periphery to protect the house from gusty winds and to use as a source of wood for house repair/construction

| Households

| ( [[#Alam--2015|Alam et al., 2015]] )

|-
| Increasing height of the house plinth

| Households

| ( [[#Alam--2015|Alam et al., 2015]] )

|-
| Changing of house roofing material from thatched to corrugated iron sheet or asbestos

| Households

| ( [[#Alam--2015|Alam et al., 2015]] )

|-
| Informally allowing people to harvest Sundarbans forest wood without any charge so they could make makeshift houses

| Forest Department

| ( [[#Abdullah--2016|Abdullah et al., 2016]] )

|-
| Rainwater harvesting using plastic or clay pots and artificial aquifer tube-wells for securing drinking water.

| NGOs and households

| ( [[#Sultana--2015|Sultana and Mallick, 2015]] )

|-
| Replacement of mud walls of houses with wood or bamboo sticks to enhance durability

| NGOs and households

| ( [[#Sultana--2015|Sultana and Mallick, 2015]] )

|-
| Making thick shelterbelts along coastal embankments

| NGOs and households

| ( [[#Rahman--2015|Rahman and Rahman, 2015]] )

|}

The impacts of some of these adaptations, particularly engagement in new livelihood activities after Aila, were varied, with income of the affected households increasing in some cases and decreasing in others. In Koyra, the income of the poorest and middle-income households increased by 16% and 4%, respectively, while the income of richer households (many of whom lost physical capital assets that they used to pursue their livelihoods) decreased by 50% ( [[#Abdullah--2016|Abdullah et al., 2016]] ).

Research into adaptation projects led by various actors has shown that adaptations taken by the households and community themselves are effective only to address typical challenges (such as seasonal shifts in temperature or rainfall) but are less effective in addressing extreme events that have long-lasting impacts. This is mainly due to lack of adequate resources and institutional support ( [[#Alam--2015|Alam et al., 2015]] ). At the same time, some coping mechanisms are harmful in the longer term, for example, harvesting Sundarbans forest wood after Aila for reconstruction could have negative impacts on the forest.

As of 2017, many of the affected areas had not yet been able to recover from the effects of Aila ( [[#Paul--2019|Paul and Chatterjee, 2019]] ). A transformative approach needs to be taken not only to help them recover in livelihood terms, but also to support people’s well-being. Suggestions of physical interventions that are needed include higher and stronger dykes, cyclone-resistant housing, active maintenance and strict policing of embankment use and good governance ( [[#Abdullah--2016|Abdullah et al., 2016]] ). Enabling formal institutions could help, for instance, by improving the climate resilience of physical capital (e.g., by developing and enforcing building codes for houses). Other institutional mechanisms could help to improve access to low interest credit, prevent maladaptation, improve enforcement of laws, and provide insurance. However, such institutional reforms need to be co-developed with local people and incorporate local cultural mechanisms ( [[#Islam--2017|Islam and Nursey-Bray, 2017]] ). Future adaptation strategies also need to consider the limits to autonomous adaptation (i.e. that without external intervention) and differential level of impacts and adaptive capacities among different groups of households in the Aila-affected areas. This example illustrates the importance of a more comprehensive approach to resilience building, and the need to better understand the interlinkages between the core components of an enabling environment for adaptation (see Figure 8.12).

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Box 8.8

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