Mitigation and Adaptation Pathways for a Climate Resilient 2050

A. INTRODUCTION & OVERVIEW

A.1. This Policy Brief presents potential pathways toward a climate resilient 2050 by discussing key academic findings and proposals concerning climate mitigation and adaptation.

A.2. Section B introduces the concept of climate resilience. Sections C and D explore possible mitigation and adaptation pathways, with case studies from Southeast Asia, in recognition of the region’s unique vulnerability arising from rapid growth, pressures on resources, and reliance on coastal and marine ecosystems (ADB 2009). Section E reflects critically on the challenges of implementing the proposed pathways and the policy support needed for a climate resilient 2050 to become reality. Section F analyses the implications of these findings and recommendations on how they might be applied in research, policy, and practice.

B. A CLIMATE RESILIENT 2050

B.1. Resilience refers to the ability of ecosystems “to cope with a hazardous event… responding or reorganising in ways that maintain their essential function, identity and structure… while also maintaining the capacity for adaptation, learning and transformation" (IPCC 2022:7).

B.2. In a climate resilient 2050, humanity can survive climate impacts and grows through those impacts, emerging stronger and more resistant to future effects of climate variations (Beauchamp et al 2020) and economic, health, and other risks (OECD 2021).

B.3. Today, adverse climate effects are observed in more frequent and intense climate and weather extremes, such as hot extremes on land and at sea, heavy rainfall events, drought, and fire weather (IPCC 2022).

B.4. If warming trends continue, the temperature increase has a 50:50 chance of reaching 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels between 2030 and 2052 (IPCC 2018, WMO 2022), leading to greater frequency and intensity of extreme climate events (IPCC 2018a). Climate-related catastrophes increased by more than 80% in the last 20 years (Yale 2020). To put a stop to this situation, emissions must be reduced progressively to reach net zero by 2050 (UN).

B.5. Surviving the climate crisis means adapting by building resilience against climate impacts and also mitigating the cause of those impacts. Thriving in the face of climate change, on the other hand, calls for a profound shift in social structures and processes.

C. MITIGATION PATHWAYS

C.1. Climate impacts have been attributed to the enhanced greenhouse effect originating from human-derived emissions of greenhouse gases (Houghton 2015). To curb warming and prevent overshoot of the 1.5°C target, greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced and existing emissions eliminated. This entails a 45% reduction of global net carbon dioxide emissions from anthropogenic sources by 2030 (compared to 2010 levels) (IPCC 2018a), with simultaneous substantial cutbacks in emissions of other greenhouse gases (IPCC 2018b), and balancing emissions and removals around 2050 (IPCC 2018a).

Reducing New Emissions

C.2. Emission reduction may be achieved by lifestyle changes, increasing energy efficiency in buildings and heavy machinery, and transitioning away from fossil energy.

C.2.1. Reducing emissions and energy demands can be an issue of personal choice. In the global North, the lifestyle choices which yield the greatest influence on personal emission reductions are: having one fewer child, going car-free, avoiding air travel, and practising a plant-based diet (Wynes and Nicholas 2017).

C.2.2. The buildings and industry sectors represent approximately a third of global energy demand and emissions (IEA; IEA 2021). By using energy-efficient technologies and refurbishing existing equipment and infrastructure, buildings and industry energy consumption and emissions can be significantly minimized.

C.2.3. Decarbonizing involves “finding alternative ways of living and working that reduce emissions and capture and store carbon in our soil and vegetation” (Meza 2022). In particular, forests are crucial carbon sinks supporting emission reduction. REDD+ – a system for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation which includes “conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks and sustainable management of forests” (ADB 2015:19) – allows a country’s emission reduction obligations to take into account reductions from avoided deforestation (UNEP). Deforestation is a major emission contributor in Indonesia, the fourth greatest greenhouse gas emitter in 2015 (CarbonBrief 2019), especially when carbon-rich peat swamp forests are cleared (ADB 2015). Notably, Indonesia holds more than 1/3 of the world’s peat swamp forests (Warren et al 2017). Indonesia’s domestic forestry reforms include:-

i. a permanent moratorium on clearing primary forest and peatlands (Reuters 2019).

ii. a Court ruling that the state has no title to customary forests, which are owned by “local communities who have customarily resided in those forests” (ADB 2015:83).

iii. tasking local forest management units with inspecting forest concessions for conformity with legal requirements (ADB 2015).

Removing Existing Emissions

C.3. Negative emissions technologies seek to remove carbon from the atmosphere in order “to compensate for residual emissions and…achieve net negative emissions to return global warming to 1.5°C following a peak” (IPCC 2018b:17).

C.3.1. This involves enhancing or expediting natural processes, and includes the planting or replanting of trees (i.e. afforestation and reforestation), bioenergy production with carbon capture and storage, enhanced weathering by accelerating developments within the carbon cycle, direct capture of CO2 from ambient air with CO2 storage, and ocean fertilisation with iron and other micronutrients (EASAC 2018).

C.3.2. NETs remain largely untested, in early stages of research, and fraught with uncertainty, controversy, and possibly high financial and environmental costs (EASAC 2018). One criticism is that they “further disincentivize near-term mitigation” (Minx et al 2018:21). NETs could also justify fossil fuel companies’ continued carbon-intensive operations. The PETRONAS Kawasari carbon capture and storage (“CCS”) project in offshore Sarawak, Malaysia, allegedly one of the world’s largest offshore CCS projects (Petronas 2022), was intended to capture and sequester carbon dioxide emitted from PETRONAS’ adjacent gas field (Energy Connects 2021) and facilitate PETRONAS’ 2050 net-zero target (Petronas 2022).

C.4. Despite the limitations of current NETs, they are necessary for an emission-neutral 2050 (EASAC 2018). Given the long timescales for scaling-up and diffusion and the large number of actors involved (Minx et al 2018), there is a pressing need to ensure NET risks are identified and addressed and safe practices be mainstreamed as soon as possible.

D. ADAPTATION PATHWAYS

D.1. Societal resilience can be measured by assets (e.g. livelihoods and infrastructure) and systems capacities (e.g. social and communal networks and strengths) (Cutter 2016). In the prevailing scientific framing of climate vulnerability, adaptation design is generally impacts-driven, expressed in advancements in sectoral and technical solutions adopted in reaction to expected climate effects (O'Brien et al 2007). From a human-security perspective, climate change is one of many factors affecting individuals and communities; the focus expands beyond immediate climate consequences to include capacity-building and addressing underlying sociopolitical and economic vulnerability (O'Brien et al 2007).

D.2. Impacts-focused or ‘hard’ adaptation includes policies, programs, and infrastructure to dampen the effects of extreme climate events such as rising sea levels, more frequent heatwaves, increased precipitation, and extreme climate events (Houghton 2015).

D.2.1 Technical adaptation to sea level rise is embodied in structures such as dikes and breakwaters, soft protection such as dune-building, and accommodative measures such as raising and floodproofing buildings (Brown et al 2014).

D.3. Climate vulnerability is not only a problem of data and infrastructure, but also a dimension of lived experience interacting with other political and socio-economic conditions and processes (O’Brien et al 2007). By seeing climate change as an issue occurring within complex societal and geopolitical contexts, ‘soft’ adaptation proposals pursue the resolution of intrinsic structural issues, processes, and inequalities within those contexts.

D.3.1. For climate change adaptation to be effective, individuals, and communities will need to strengthen their adaptive abilities, which in turn requires social learning at multiple levels and scales (Le et al 2017). Social learning refers to the multi-scalar debate, distribution of resources, decision-making, execution, and observation actions through which diverse stakeholders engage with each other and evolve common definitions, priorities, and values (Le et al 2017), driving “a process of social change in which a diverse group of people learn from one another in ways that can benefit a wider socio-ecological system” (Le et al 2017:6).

D.3.2. A multilevel participatory adaptation framework is exemplified in the Baroro and Saug watersheds of the Philippines, in which a project team secured local, cross-municipal, and provincial consensus and support to act for the benefit of the climate resilience of the two watersheds (Pulhin et al 2022).

i. Applying the watershed approach, which “recognizes the linked social and ecological systems in [that] geographic unit, as well as its multifunctionality” (Pulhin et al 2022:22), the project team employed the watershed as a boundary for developing adaptive policy, and surveyed residents at different sites along the watersheds “to harvest the local knowledge of the communities and municipal officers through a historical situational analysis” (Pulhin et al 2022:23).

ii. Those surveys also resulted in the residents’ heightened awareness of the environmental risks surrounding the watershed (Pulhin et al 2022).

iii. The project team presented survey outcomes to residents and other stakeholders in meetings which “served as sites for integration of local and scientific knowledge” (Pulhin et al 2022:23).

iv. Parties then identified:

1) The watersheds’ vulnerability to fragmentation and flooding,

2) The dearth of harmonization between affected municipalities,

3) The need for education and training of various agencies on threats to the climate and watersheds, and

4) Stakeholders’ desires for the watersheds’ futures.

(Pulhin et al 2022).

v. A meeting with the Provincial Councils, at which the project team briefed council members on joint findings and visions, culminated in the execution of a Memorandum of Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding for both watersheds at the provincial levels, with funding allocated for the Baroro project (Pulhin et al 2022).

E. DISCUSSION

E.1. Achieving climate targets while minimizing trade-offs demands robust mitigation and adaptation action taken equitably and in “a participatory and integrated manner” (IPCC 2018b:19).

E.2. Land-intensive NET methods may compete with other ecosystem services such as agriculture, food, and biodiversity (IPCC 2018b). REDD+, while supporting conservation and economic development, has also reduced the diversity of forest livelihoods and imposed greater external regulation over forestry management, thereby lowering forest communities’ social and ecological adaptive capacity (Hajjar et al 2021).

E.3. Adaptive agricultural technologies and policies are less effective in areas where institutions and structures offer inadequate assimilation and distribution (Sha’arani et al 2022). Climate adaptation actions may compromise gender equality where women are disadvantaged in remuneration, workload, and recognition (Roy et al 2022).

E.4. To centre the experiences of the most vulnerable members of society, including future generations, policy support is needed to enshrine the consent, consultation, and participation of local and vulnerable communities as conditions precedent to the implementation of any climate action.

F. CONCLUSIONS

F.1. Because climate change is experienced in the context of socioeconomic, political, and cultural conditions, to flourish in climate adversity, we need radical social learning and change and to formulate equitable adaptation to climate change. This means prioritizing justice and sustainability through multi-level communication and ensuring socioeconomic progress for the most marginalized (Miller et al 2010).

F.2. There is immense value in mapping science-informed climate action around the most vulnerable and marginalized members of society, who also tend to be most susceptible to and less able to come to terms with adverse climate impacts. Adaptation programs should benefit lower income communities, particularly women and children (OECD 2003), who have lower access to resources and information (Pelling and Garschagen 2019). Equitable adaptation has as its starting point the advancement of “economic productivity, social cohesion, health and peace” (Pelling and Garschagen 2019:328).

F.3. To foster intergenerational equity, climate action must fulfil the needs of both current and future generations in terms of development and environmental conservation (Rio Declaration, Principle 3). This translates into a judicial and sustainable approach toward development in climate action and the use and extraction of natural resources.

F.4. We also will need to forge a just transition by, amongst others, the co-production of knowledge between scientists and locals, and by involving Indigenous leaders in all decision-making processes (CDKN 2013). A climate resilient 2050 is realized not only through scientific means, but also by strengthening access to justice, equality, and socioeconomic opportunities (Cutter et al 2016).

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