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Theme: Equity

Project Name: A Strategic Assessment of Equity and Justice Implications of Adaptation

Date: July 2002 - December 2003

Project partners: Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD), IIED, The Tyndall Centre, the Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE).

Introduction:

This project sought to illuminate issues of justice and equity in adaptation to climate change. It did this by developing a conceptual framework for analysing justice and equity, and re-interpreting existing adaptation responses and planned policies in the light of equity and justice criteria. It brought together leading scholars from within and from outside the climate change adaptation community to think through the implications of these conceptual and empirical insights for future adaptation, and its relationship to sustainable development. The project sought to clarify a framework, which concurrently addressed:

• International justice from a governance and legal standpoint within international transfers proposed under the Marrakech Accord of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
• Local distributive justice from an entitlements and vulnerability standpoint for national plans and local autonomous adaptations to climate change and variability.

Objective:

The objective of the project was to provide a framework for incorporating justice and equity into decision-making for climate change adaptation plans and strategies at a range of scales. First, understanding spontaneous adaptation processes requires a metric for identifying those who benefit as well as those who are vulnerable to climate change. Second, the global-scale, uneven distribution of the impacts of future climate change has equity and justice implications for adaptation options and strategies at the trans-national level. Many of these are being played out through discussions around the adaptation fund of the UNFCCC. The ultimate aim of this proposed strategic assessment was to inform planning for adaptation for vulnerable peoples and communities through helping to shape the international responses to adaptation. The project met these objectives by:

• Bringing together leading scholars to develop justice and equity frameworks.
• Analysing current international rules that underpin adaptation assistance by the international community.
• Analysing existing case study material from Tuvalu, Tanzania and Bangladesh, in the light of justice and equity considerations.

For more information please see:

http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/research/theme3/summary_t2_34.shtml

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