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Inclusive approach to climate-change adaptation is needed in Canada
Given that contradictions (or paradoxes) are inherent and recurring in any attempt to adapt inclusively to climate change, it is important to recognize and create spaces to manage these contradictions at both the individual and collective levels – for example, by developing mechanisms to manage trade-offs and conflict. (Pexels Photo)
For climate-resilient development, an inclusive approach is a critical enabling factor. This is what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has argued. That means taking into account diverse knowledge systems and nature-based solutions. It means including local leadership and empowering groups dependent on ecosystems.
In Canada, the federal government has a long-standing commitment to a “whole-of-society” approach, advancing social equity and using inclusive processes as guiding principles for effective climate action.
We recently concluded an analysis of 84 policy documents shaping national climate-change adaptation (CCA) in Canada from 1994 to present. We also conducted discussions with adaptation practitioners. What we found is that it is not necessary to invent new adaptation actions that are inclusive. What is needed is a new way of thinking and doing.
Each adaptation action can be planned, conducted and evaluated in a way that produces resilience across locations and generations and for non-human actors.
However, what is meant by inclusive CCA is seldom explicitly defined in the literature or documents. There are also only limited efforts to fully understand or provide sufficient evidence of how it can be achieved.
Therefore, all CCA policies in effect need to be reviewed and amended to ensure that planned actions, their implementation and evaluation are well-aligned with the government’s commitment to fostering greater diversity and inclusion.
These principles should be explicitly mentioned in any CCA strategies, policies, plans, programs or projects, along with detailed indications of how they will be implemented.
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One way is to use all the tools, resources and funding provided by the federal government. This includes diversity and inclusion statistics of Canada’s public service, training for the practice of gender-based analysis plus along with the inventory of smart practices in recruitment, retention, talent management, training and development, and career mobility for Indigenous employees.
There is an urgent need – particularly at the federal level – to synthesize and unify important terms and concepts and develop consensus on perceptions and knowledge that facilitate policymaking.
For example, the policies we reviewed lacked consistency about Indigenous knowledge. That knowledge can cover specific issues such as fire management, but it also encompasses a broader wealth of understanding, skills and philosophies developed by Indigenous societies based on their long histories of interaction with their natural surroundings.
We even found contrasting arguments. In some cases, Indigenous knowledge was deemed impossible to integrate with Western science while the integration of Inuvialuit knowledge with Western science has been promoted to support all future Arctic climate change policies and research.
Throughout all the policies reviewed, the intrinsic value of the natural environment was mentioned in only one document, which included no action for implementation.
In other policies, the natural environment was considered natural capital or natural assets, with a focus on the services that natural environments could provide for human adaptation. By contrast, environmental ethics posit that human and non-human actors have their own values and rights, and that any attempt to adapt to climate change should take them into full consideration.
CCA planning should also carefully consider the welfare of the impacted ecosystems by minimizing human ecological interference while assisting ecosystems to adapt to climate adversities.
An empirical study consisting of interviews with 26 practitioners in Canada and Vietnam found an emphasis on the broad nature of inclusiveness as well as the need for opening spaces for contradiction and change management to achieve more inclusiveness.
Given that contradictions (or paradoxes) are inherent and recurring in any attempt to adapt inclusively to climate change, it is important to recognize and create spaces to manage these contradictions at both the individual and collective levels – for example, by developing mechanisms to manage trade-offs and conflict. The both/and mindset is a good tool to deal with that.
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Reframing trade-offs as opportunities, separating options to understand pros and cons, then reconnecting them and rethinking the outcomes in a way that maximizes the benefit of both options could be the essential steps to embrace more creative adaptation, achieving broad inclusiveness despite resource constraints.
Measuring the progress of inclusiveness in CCA should also reflect the extent to which changes (both incremental and radical) are triggered by individual or collective attempts to resolve the systemic vulnerabilities and exclusion rooted in social norms and institutional arrangements.
This structural discrimination often puts certain social groups – such as women, Indigenous Peoples and linguistic minorities – at a disadvantage. It limits their voice, power and access to resources. It hinders their opportunities to meaningfully engage in adaptation planning. They end up shouldering a disproportionate impact from the changing climate.
Figure 1 below illustrates the idea of inclusive CCA and could serve as a tool to understand, plan, implement and evaluate inclusiveness in adaptation actions.
It is a circle with four main components, emphasizing this is a repeated process, starting with setting up inclusive moral foundations and stakeholder inclusion, then elaborating on inclusive processes and ensuring inclusive outcomes.
It consists of four main components and nine priorities. This is also the empirical grounding modification for the inclusive CCA framework we developed. Here’s a sample of indicators to evaluate inclusiveness in a national CCA policy along with a five-step process to apply these indicators.
This article first appeared on Policy Options and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
