/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/pdnadmin/data/documents/3874

About International Alert

International  Alert  is  an  independent  peacebuilding  organisation  that  has  worked  for  over  20  years
to lay the foundations for lasting peace and security in communities affected by violent conflict. Our
multifaceted  approach  focuses  both  in  and  across  various  regions;  aiming  to  shape  policies  and
practices that affect peacebuilding; and helping build skills and capacity through training.

Our field work is based in Africa, South Asia, the South Caucasus, Latin America, Lebanon and the
Philippines. Our thematic projects work at local, regional and international levels, focusing on cross-
cutting  issues  critical  to  building  sustainable  peace.  These  include  business  and  economy,  gender,
governance, aid, security and justice. We are one of the world’s leading peacebuilding NGOs with more
than 120 staff based in London and our 11 field offices.

For more information, please visit www.international-alert.org

About IfP EW

The Initiative for Peacebuilding - Early Warning (IfP-EW) is a consortium led by International Alert and
funded by the European Commission. IfP-EW draws on the expertise of 10 civil society organisations
(and their networks) with offices across the EU and in conflict-affected countries. It aims to develop and
harness international knowledge and expertise in the field of conflict prevention and peacebuilding to
ensure that all stakeholders, including EU institutions, can access strong independent, locally-derived
analysis in order to facilitate better-informed and more evidence-based policy decisions.

This document has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The contents of
this document are the sole responsibility of IfP/International Alert and can under no circumstances be
regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union.

To learn more, visit http://initiativeforpeacebuilding.eu

by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without full attribution.

Layout by D. R. Ink, info

@d-r-ink.com

Printed by PWPFS

Front cover image: © IRIN News, http://www.irinnews.org/

International Alert

Author Profiles

Dan Smith

Dan Smith is Secretary General of International Alert, the London-based peacebuilding
organisation. Previously, he held a number of senior positions, most notably as Director of the
International Peace Research Institute in Oslo from 1993 to 2001. He also held fellowships at the
Norwegian Nobel Institute and Hellenic Foundation for Foreign and European Policy and was
the Chair of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting for over a decade. He has authored, co-
authored and edited sixteen books including successive editions of The Atlas of War and Peace.
He is a member of the Advisory Group for the UN Peacebuilding Fund.

Janani Vivekananda

Janani Vivekananda is Senior Climate Change and Security Programme Officer in International
Alert’s Security and Peacebuilding Programme. With Dan Smith, she co-authored A Climate of
Conflict: The Links between Climate Change, Peace and War published by International Alert
in 2007. Prior to her current role, she worked as disaster risk reduction policy adviser at Plan
International. She holds an MSc in Violence, Conflict and Development from the School of
Oriental and African Studies and is a graduate in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from New
College, University of Oxford.

Acknowledgements

This work is based on a research paper that was originally commissioned by the UK Department
for International Development. The authors wish to thank Karina Kristiansen who carried out
much of the detailed research and many of the interviews and wrote some sections of the earlier
drafts of the original paper. We are also grateful to Emma Crossley for her research assistance
in keeping us up to date with research sources. Preparation and drafting was at different stages
reviewed and shaped by Phil Vernon, Edward Bell and Shruti Mehrotra.

The present report is part of the European Union’s Initiative for Peacebuilding and we are grateful
to the European Commission for their financial assistance and to our partners at Adelphi Research,
PDCI and ELIAMEP for their comments and support.

The paper is copyright of International Alert. The views expressed in the report are the responsibility
of International Alert, specifically the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any of
our donors, specifically neither UK DFID nor the European Commission, nor of our colleagues or
the other institutions engaged with Alert in the Initiative for Peacebuilding.

From those who wish to refer to the contents of the paper in writing, the favour of full citation
is requested.

International Alert

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

As climate change unfolds, one of its effects is a heightened risk of violent conflict. This risk is
at its sharpest in poor, badly governed countries, many of which have a recent history of armed
conflict. This both adds to the burdens faced by deprived and vulnerable communities and makes
it harder to reduce their vulnerability by adapting to climate change.

Policy discussions about the consequences of climate change are beginning to acknowledge the
conflict and security implications. These concerns, however, are not being properly taken on
within the complex negotiations for a new international agreement on reducing global warming
and responding to climate change. In the negotiating context, the discussion focuses on how much
money should be available for it and how that money will be controlled. This discussion pays
scant attention to the complexities of adaptation, the need to harmonise it with development, or
the dangers of it going astray in fragile and conflict-affected states and thereby failing to reduce
vulnerability to climate change.

In order to shape adaptation policies, it is necessary to go beyond the most immediate natural and
social effects of climate change and look to the context in which its impact will be felt, because it
is the interaction between the natural consequences and the social and political realities in which
people live that will determine whether they can adapt successfully to climate change. Doing this
means addressing the realities of the system of power in fragile and conflict-affected societies, a
structure of power that often systematically excludes the voices of all but a privileged few.

Policies for adapting to the effects of climate change have to respond to these realities or they will
not work. At the same time, the field of development itself will have to adapt in order to face the
challenge of climate change. Neither development, adaptation or peacebuilding can be regarded
as a bolt-on to either one of the other two. The problems are interlinked and the policy responses
must be integrated.

This paper outlines the climate-conflict interlinkages and the challenges involved in responding to
their combined challenge. Establishing the overall goal of international policy on adaptation as
helping people in developing countries adapt successfully to climate change even where there is
state fragility or conflict risk, the paper makes and explains eight specific policy recommendations:

1. Adaptation to climate change needs to be conflict sensitive – responding to the needs of the

people, involving them in consultation, taking account of power distribution and social order,
and avoiding pitting groups against each other.

2. Peacebuilding needs to be climate-proof, ensuring that its progress is not disrupted by the

effects of climate change that could and should be anticipated.

3. Shifts towards a low-carbon economy must be supportive of development and peace – unlike

what happened with the rapid move to biofuels.

4. Steps must be taken to strengthen poor countries’ social capacity to understand and manage

climate and conflict risks.

5. Greater efforts are needed to plan for and cope peacefully with climate-related migration.

International Alert

Climate change is already adding to the burdens that developing countries have to face. Its impact
is hardest on the poorest and most vulnerable members of society.

Many of the worst affected

live in fragile states. Their vulnerability is shaped not only by the persistence of poverty, the lack
of good infrastructure, the difficulty of getting a foothold in the world market, and thus the
intractability of underdevelopment, but also by the fragility of state institutions, the instability
of political arrangements, and the effects of recent armed conflict or threat of looming violence.
In many, as climate change interacts with other features of their social, economic and political
landscape, there is a high risk of political instability and violent conflict. Whilst those working in
international development universally agree that the poorest will be worst hit by climate change,
there is no clear acknowledgment of how to deal with the issue of fragile states in negotiating the
post-Kyoto deal on climate change.

The monumental task of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) is to come up with the next global agreement on mitigating global warming and
responding to climate change. This process is likely to go well beyond the milestone of the 15th
Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in Copenhagen in December 2009. The complex and
highly political negotiations have become heavily polarised between rich and poor states over the
issues of legally-binding greenhouse gas reduction targets for developed countries and commitments
for adaptation funds and technical support from rich to poor countries. Nevertheless, the impacts
of climate change are manifesting daily. As they become increasingly unmanageable, the dramatic
consequences for human well-being, the environment and peace and security will only worsen.

In 2007, International Alert published a report – A Climate of Conflict – that both established
the links between climate change and conflict and identified the outlines of a policy response.

The present report takes that analysis as its starting point and will not repeat the evidence and
arguments that show that the knock-on consequences of climate change include a serious risk of
increased violent conflict.

This paper begins by outlining the interlinkages between climate change and conflict and explains
the issues involved in responding to this double challenge. Based on this analysis, we set out five key
policy objectives and a set of related practical considerations for implementation to help inform the
broad range of actors who are – or should be – concerned with the climate change debate.

INTRODUCTION

Climate change, conflict and fragility

2.1 The place of security in the policy discussion

Attention to the security implications of climate change is slowly increasing among politicians
and strategists in the developed world, but the issue remains the elephant in the negotiating
room. Specialists in climate change are not generally well informed about it and nor, very
often, are development specialists. At least the latter agree that the poorest will be worst hit by
climate change, but they have not resolved how to deal with the issue of fragile states in climate
negotiations, and there is little agreement among them on how to pursue development goals in
such countries.

It  is  essential  to  address  this  issue,  but  necessary  to  do  so  carefully.  The  potential  conflict
implications  are  among  the  most  compelling  arguments  for  rich  states  to  take  action  against
climate change. But there are three notes of warning.

First, there is the risk of over-stating the conflict dimension in an attempt to persuade a sceptical,
even  disaffected  or  merely  ill-informed  public  to  support  cuts  in  carbon  emissions.  Fuelling
fears that climate change will generate threats like terrorism and mass immigration

will lead to

oversimplified and inaccurate perceptions of the security angle. In the political debate, exaggerated
positions will inevitably be vulnerable.

Second, securitising the issue runs the risk of a damaging response that overlooks cost-effective
and sustainable options in favour of high cost and probably ineffective military ones. The point
here  is  that  policy  responses  must  be  based  on  a  thorough  understanding  of  how  impacts  of
climate  stresses  can  compound  some  of  the  root  causes  of  conflict.  Effects  of  climate  change
such  as  more  frequent  natural  disasters,  long-term  water  shortages  and  food  insecurity  could
combine with other factors and lead to violent conflict. The reason why this can happen lies in
the context of poverty, weak governance, political marginalisation and corruption. These factors
drive conflict and limit the capacity to adapt to climate change. Policy responses need to look not
only at the immediate risk of violence, for example by reforming the security sector, and not only
at the specific environmental impacts, for example by taking steps to reduce the risk of disaster,
but also at the broader context of failures of governance.

Third, climate negotiators have not paid attention to fragile states and conflict risks. Most
negotiators are climate and legal experts whose remits do not extend beyond the talks. They
have neither the incentive nor expertise for taking account of the complex web that links climate,
conflict, governance and development.

To develop a response to this challenge means focusing on the social, economic and political
consequences of climate change – and recognising, equally, that social, economic and political
issues influence the impact of climate change on people’s lives. This is relevant to but wider than
the discussions on the post-Kyoto deal. It is relevant for all engagements in states vulnerable to
climate change. It means going beyond questions about how to raise funds for climate adaptation
and mitigation, to thinking about how the money should be used and what governance and
institutional changes must be made. It means considering the role in these issues of a wide range
of actors from the development and peacebuilding communities and the private sector.

This paper aims to discuss the interlinked policies that are needed to address these interlinked
problems. Two points are worth highlighting at the outset. One characteristic of both analysing

THE INTERLINkAGES bETWEEN CLIMATE CHANGE

AND CONFLICT

International Alert

problems and proposing solutions in this context is to focus on the interlinkages. We are not
looking at climate change alone, nor conflict or governance alone, nor at issues of poverty and
livelihood alone, but at each in combination with all. In doing so, we have to acknowledge the
inadequate track record of development assistance in achieving coherent sustainable development
across different sectors. Some approaches have worked; others promote discrete and conflicting
responses. Policy-makers need to be aware of these lessons and apply them when planning
policies and structures to respond to climate change to avoid repeating the mistakes of ineffective
development over the past 20 years.

A second particularity of discussing climate change is the ambience of uncertainty. It is not known
precisely what impacts governments and international institutions need to prepare for. This
applies both to the physical effects of climate change and even more so to the knock-on social
consequences, as well as to the lack of clear and tested policy prescriptions to guide the response.
Policy responses need to be discussed, resourced and implemented despite uncertainties in the
basic evidence. Institutions involved need to adapt and evolve to accommodate such responses in
a way that permits flexibility, experimentation and adjustments as they go along.

2.2 Conflict risk

The impact of climate change will exacerbate the vulnerability of people and communities to
varying degrees. In some situations it will cause extreme disruption with which people simply
cannot cope as it overwhelms them and renders their homes and livelihoods unviable. If the
governance structures that the community looks to as safeguards are not up to the task, climate
change will weaken confidence in the social order and its institutions and damage the glue that
holds societies together. This is a particular problem in fragile states where governance structures
and institutions are often weak, regardless of climate change.

It is impossible and unhelpful to offer generic scenarios of how climate change will interact with
other variables to increase conflict risk, since impacts will always depend on context. That said,
it is possible to trace out some broad knock-on consequences that serve to illustrate some of the
risks that may arise.

Water is a key resource for agriculture, industry and daily use and climate change will significantly
affect its supply. Worldwide, 500 million people live in countries where supply is chronically
short;

the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts these numbers will rise as

climate change affects surface water levels that depend on rainfall and glacial melting.

There are several sources of conflict risk if water supply is inadequate. A key problem is poor
management that either wastes water or politicises the issue and seeks a scapegoat to blame for
shortages. Conflicting claims to water resources have generally not led to violence between states
– the record of settling disputes is largely positive, in fact – but there remains a considerable risk
of conflict within states as different groups contend for diminishing water resources. Even where
these do not lead to open armed conflict, they may well feed pre-existing tensions and exacerbate
the fragility of state institutions. Tensions over water can be also worsened by privatising control
of the resource without looking after the rights of the poor.

Directly related to the issue of water is agriculture. Disruption in the agricultural sector can
quickly affect food security, especially for the poorer sections of society. As poor communities
seek new ways of securing food supplies, there are often clashes with the needs of other
communities. In Africa’s Sahel region, desertification is reducing the availability of cultivatable
land, leading to clashes between herders and farmers. In Northern Nigeria, Sudan and Kenya,
the state is unable or unwilling to contain and manage the conflicts and these clashes have
become violent.

Climate change, conflict and fragility

Climate change will pose significant risks to human health. Some regions are likely to have a higher
incidence of water-borne diseases such as cholera. Increased natural disasters such as storms and
cyclones will lead to increased casualties, putting pressure on already stretched medical resources.
Heatwaves and water shortages will have an adverse impact on safe drinking water and sanitation,
with disproportionate effects on the poorest and most vulnerable. Increasing food insecurity may
also result in changes of diet that have an adverse effect on health and resistance to disease.

Failure by the state to provide for basic water, food and public health erodes the social contract
between  state  and  citizens.  A  declining  capacity  to  meet  such  basic  needs  is  an  indicator  of
increasing  fragility  –  witness  the  cholera  epidemic  in  Zimbabwe  in  2009.  A  general  decline
of  public  confidence  in  state  authorities,  whatever  its  proximate  source,  increases  the  risk  of
instability and conflict escalation.

As these challenges unfold, the issue of migration arises. There is wide consensus that climate
change will interact with other issues which inform a migrant’s decision to move.

There is also

consensus that climate-related migration will be a significant conflict risk.

Migration in itself

need not be a destabilising factor; it often benefits both those who move and the communities and
countries where they arrive. But there is often great difficulty in accepting immigration, especially
when newcomers are seen as an unwanted burden, which is especially the case when groups in
search of new livelihood options move to areas that are themselves barely viable. Their arrival can
compound social pressures, as in Assam and Bangladesh, for example.

In this way, migration can

transfer conflict risk from one location to another; the risk travels with the people.

A significant if unpredictable proportion of this migration will be to urban centres. While even
rapid and major urbanisation in prosperous, stable countries can be accomplished without violent
conflict (think of Japan, for example), the process is more difficult in poor and unstable countries.
Migration pushed by climate change will in some places increase the extraordinary strains of trying
to maintain livelihoods in mega-cities and sharpen the conflict risks driven by those pressures.
Further, many mega-cities are in low-lying coastal areas at long-term risk from sea-level rises.

2.3 Climate change in fragile states

This brisk look at risk transmission shows that adapting to the consequences of climate change will
require social adaptation to social consequences. This means policy responses must look beyond
climate change impacts to look at how societies are organised and especially at the question of
power. In countries that are conflict-prone and marked by state fragility, it is not really possible to
analyse the problems of climate change or figure out what to do about them without addressing
how power is organised. This is often referred to as an analysis of the political economy.

One characteristic of fragile states is that the political and economic elite is organised so that
it has privileged access to economic and political opportunity – so it can keep power, in other
words. This predominates over the principle that society’s leaders should provide for the most
basic needs for their poorest citizens. It also complicates the received wisdom in development
practice that prioritises putting development assistance funds into the hands of recipient state
governments. It is, therefore, important to look at what effect climate change will have on the
ability of social elites to retain or capture economic and political resources.

Climate change will generate fluctuations in the supply of key resources such as water and that
in turn will affect land values. Both these effects present money-making opportunities to the rich
and resourceful. Adaptation to climate change will be implemented through the provision of
goods and services, for which there will be contracts funded by government, providing plenty of
opportunity for money-making, both licit and illicit. In other words, as far the crucial issue of
natural resource management is concerned, climate change offers further opportunities for elites
to continue what is essentially business as usual.

International Alert

This has a major effect in shaping the impact of climate change. Neither the physical effects nor
the knock-on social and economic consequences of climate change will be randomly or “fairly”
distributed across the population. It is almost a truism to say that climate change will hit the
poorest hardest – and this is because of the way societies are organised. As a result, government
authorities may be less likely to react in timely and constructive ways to the increasing pressure of
climate change. Even in democratic societies, the ability of the elite to dominate political debate
means that the concerns of more marginalised members of society are regularly pushed to one
side. In less democratic societies, that happens to a much larger degree. So if the social and
political elite are doing all right amid climate change, the incentive for the government to take
far-reaching measures will be weak to non-existent.

Thus the issue of governance comes into focus. Failures of governance lead to failures in adaptation
to climate change, from which the poor and the marginalised suffer most. State fragility means
that there is little or no social safety net to ease the effects of failing to adapt to climate change.

Out of this interaction between state fragility and resource capture by elites comes heightened
conflict risk. The case that there is a greater risk of violent conflict in poor countries is well-
established.

The reason for this is not simply that poor people are more desperate and more

easily recruited into armed groups. Key parts of the reason are the marginalisation of the poor,
their lack of voice, and lack of an accessible institutional framework for handling and settling
conflicts and disputes. Poverty, state fragility and a propensity to violent conflict make a vicious
circle, full of negative feedback: each feeds on the others.

Figure 1 indicates one way of understanding not only this problem but also how to intervene to
increase the chances of peacefully adapting to climate change. It depicts the quality of governance
as a key determinant of which road is taken. The goal of policy is to block one road and direct all
traffic down the other. We identify policy implications and obstacles to implementation related to
this goal in the following section.

Figure 1:

Good governance and institutions:

- Conflict-sensitive climate

change adaptation

- Climate-proof peacebuilding

- Conflict-sensitive low-carbon

development

- Adequate assistance for

migration

Increased resilience to:
- Climate change

- Violent conflict

- Poverty

Pressures on

governance:

strong

weak

- Institutional

mechanisms,

capacities and

structures

- Awareness,

knowledge and skills

- Legal and regulatory

systems – especially

management of: land;

natural resources;

migration

- Provision of basic

services

- Exacerbates impacts of

climate change

- Exacerbates pressures

on governance

- Weakens already

bad government and

institutions

- Locks states into

repeating cycles of

violence

- Hinders mitigation

- Blocks adaptation

- Holds back development

- Exacerbates social tensions

Violent

conflict

Bad

governance,

Weak

institutions

Climate change, conflict and fragility

3.1 Ensuring the right approach for action

The lead-up to the Copenhagen Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) has seen a good deal of discussion about how to harness sufficient
funds and technology to assist developing states with adaptation to climate impacts. This is the
right objective, but achieving it will be a good deal more complicated than it sounds. Why?
Because adapting to climate change is essentially about adapting development. The question is
not ‘how institutions as they are presently organised can meet the challenges of climate change’
but rather ‘how should institutions be organised in order to meet these challenges’. This calls for
a rethink of development in a carbon-constrained and increasingly fragile world. The reasoning
behind this call rests on three key concerns.

The primary concern relates to aid effectiveness. Vast amounts of money will be spent on
adaptation; exactly how much is required is still being disputed (see Section 3.2 for discussion)
but all the estimates currently being discussed are for at least tens of billions of dollars a year. It is
axiomatic that this money must be used in ways that, by encouraging the necessary cooperation
across sectors and between different actors, address the problems in interlinked ways, supporting
adaptation, peace, good governance and development simultaneously.

The aim is easily stated but there is a problem. Policy development on the intersection between
climate, conflict and state fragility is at an early stage among those few donor governments that
are addressing the issues.

Many governments are currently re-calibrating their policies, both

domestic and international, to address climate change. As they think the policy through, the
donor governments and multilateral agencies will presumably try to adhere to the norms of aid
effectiveness; that is to say they will seek to promote coordinated, complementary and coherent
efforts

between different donors, between donors and recipient state priorities, and between

climate change and development policy processes.

This is right in principle; in practice, the issue is often addressed too narrowly, focusing on delivery
and thus on getting the aid money to the right destination. This often leads the discussion of
effectiveness into the issue of corruption. While corruption is a serious problem and a significant
hindrance to development, it is not the core issue. Whether or not aid money goes into the wrong
pockets, development can go astray because development projects are handled so as to support
a social status quo in which narrow elites perpetuate their power and privilege at the expense
of ordinary citizens. That does not necessarily entail individual corruption but, to the extent
that the inflow of aid expenditure benefits that elite and helps it hold onto power, it is indeed
a corruption of the idea of development and the purposes of development aid. And if this is
happening, adaptation will not be happening.

The second and related concern for rethinking development relates to linked sectoral approaches.
It  is  essential  that  the  climate  change  adaptation  financing  and  disbursement  mechanisms  do
not  lock  in  policy  responses  that  look  at  climate  change  impacts  in  isolation.  A  measure  that
is  addressed  at  a  specific  physical  vulnerability  related  to  climate  change  –  improved  water
management,  for  example  –  must  be  shaped  by  the  understanding  of  not  just  water  systems,
but also of systems of power and equity. Water can be managed so that all have equal access, or
so that the rich have access and the poor do not. Without bearing these implications in mind, a
scheme for improving water management could, depending on its details, exacerbate conflict in
a fragile state. Recognising this, those who are planning water management should be drawing

THE INTRICACIES OF ADAPTATION

International Alert

everybody who stands to lose or gain, including marginalised groups and the private sector, into a
discussion about the best way forward. Such an approach goes against the political grain in fragile
states so it will need effort, coordination and political will amongst donors and, where possible,
recipient governments to make it work. Simply throwing money at the problem is not a solution.

In short, interlinkage is everything and everywhere. The water problem cannot be solved by
focusing exclusively on water. The same is true of agriculture, livelihood, disease and migration:
addressing them in isolation from their context is not a solution and accordingly it is not an
option. And what is needed is not just a case of linking activities between traditional development
sectors such as water, food, health and education. It is bigger than this. It requires connecting up
development sectors with environment, trade, peacebuilding and post-conflict sectors.

The third concern for rethinking development is about institutional mechanisms. The keynote of
the policy approach must be linked responses to linked problems. Peacebuilding must be shaped
by the requirements of adaptation, the approach to which is shaped by the needs of state-building,
and so on. This requires a shift in policy and practice, for example applying conflict sensitivity
to climate change adaptation processes, conducting climate change impact assessments to post-
conflict reconstruction projects, and readjusting notions around post-conflict sequencing to ensure
climate change is factored in throughout.

A shift in practice on this scale will necessitate institutional innovation. All other things being
equal, if existing organisations are asked to work in new ways on new tasks, they will make
only those changes in their behaviour that are easy to absorb. To get institutions to do things
differently means getting them to be different; as institutions they need to change in order to take
on very new agendas.

3.2 The scale and scope of funding

It is not possible to discuss the wholesale changes in approach needed to get adaptation right
without a note on climate finance. Two important questions are the scale of funding (how much?)
and its scope (what for?).

As  to  scale,  the  UNFCCC  has  been  using  a  very  broad  estimate  of  US$49–171  billion  a  year
by  2030.  This  is  indirectly  derived  from  World  Bank  studies  in  2006  that  produced  a  much
lower  range  of  estimates;  it  is  also  much  higher  than  the  figure  in  the  Stern  Review.

These

figures are dauntingly high, but a critique published in August 2009 pointed out that none of the
current estimates, which borrow from each other, have been independently reviewed.

Further,

most estimates do not include all sectors; indeed, almost all ignore private-sector activities and
peacebuilding. Moreover, they do not make allowances for inadequacies in social and economic
investment in vulnerable states to date – that is, they do not account for the particular circumstances
and subsequently higher costs of adaptation in fragile states where the infrastructure is meagre or
nonexistent. These deficiencies in current estimates are especially worrying if these are the figures
that financing negotiations are being based on. The authors of this review indicated that actual
adaptation costs could be in the range of US$330–380 billion a year by 2030

– that is, at least

twice as much as the top end of the UNFCCC estimates. However, it needs emphasising that
this was not a definitive estimate; this was a study done with limited resources, and is a critique
of previous studies but no more. What is needed now is a properly resourced, large-scale and
comprehensive study of the costs of adaptation.

The debate about adaptation funding has been partly shaped by the concern of many in the
development community that official development assistance (ODA) from developed to developing
countries should not be “raided” to meet the climate bill. If rich countries are going to pay the
bulk of the costs of adaptation, this means new and additional funding for climate change, so as

Climate change, conflict and fragility

not to undermine the commitment donor governments have made to spend 0.7% of their national
income on ODA.

This approach seems to assume there is a fixed sum of ODA that is fully absorbed meeting
established needs, so the adaptation bill comes on top. But the commitment to increase ODA to
0.7% of donor countries’ annual GNI was a politically amenable target – no more and no less. At
no point since it entered the political discourse some 40 years ago has the 0.7% target reflected
precise calculations of need in developing countries. The sum of money that 0.7% of GNI will
represent is going to vary according to the economic performance of each donor country. Need
in developing countries may also vary but not in line with rich countries’ economic performance.
The 0.7% commitment simply does not and cannot reflect an agreed level of need to which to
respond; it is, rather, an agreed, arbitrary and variable level of response.

It is important that we do not get carried away with setting another random target not backed by
credible evidence on the costs of climate change adaptation, which like the 0.7% legacy focuses
energy and attention on agreeing to a politically amenable target (which is not met) rather than on
substantive efforts to tackle the problem through existing as well as new and innovative funding
flows.

In addition, the critique of the UNFCCC estimates for adaptation costs reveals the enormous
scale of adaptation. It would be getting things completely out of proportion to regard adaptation
as a bolt-on. The fact is that development needs to adapt in order to meet the challenge of climate
change. This does not mean that development goals have to be abandoned, but that the way of
meeting them has to include also meeting the objective of adaptation. We go into this is more
detail in Section 4.

The heavy emphasis on 0.7% not only exaggerates the status of an arbitrary figure, it also risks
distorting people’s understanding of the relationship between adaptation and development. The
call for keeping the two separate in order to protect development is fundamentally misconceived.
Development must be protected and strengthened by integrating it with peaceful adaptation and
funding the whole enterprise properly.

This in turn means that we need a proper discussion of the scope of adaptation, that is, what
adaptation funds can be used for. Is there a shared vision amongst donor and recipient states,
and if so, what are the parameters of this vision? Even in the (perhaps unlikely) event of a shared
vision emerging, the narrowly technical focus of current adaptation discourse leads us to believe
that the vision is unlikely to cover all the necessary issues.

Experience from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) shows that framing development
in quantitative and technical terms tends to skew response towards projects and funding
instruments that are technical in nature. The emphasis on meeting quantitative targets distracts
effort away from achieving sustainable and politically-grounded results. The MDGs work fine as
an aspiration but not so well as a guide to scope and purpose, and once expressed in quantitative
targets have become positively misleading. Likewise, we should be wary of apolitical, quantitative
and technical approaches to climate change adaptation.

There is a considerable degree of agreement with the proposition that existing institutional
arrangements for financing climate change adaptation are nowhere near workable.

In trying

to work out more suitable institutional arrangements, form and function cannot be divorced.
Without a clear understanding of the purpose of these funds, efforts to ensure that implementing
institutions are “fit for purpose” will clearly be ill-fated.

There is little current discussion, for example, of whether adaptation funds can be used for
political as well as technical solutions. The political dimension of climate change adaptation, just

4.1 The policy goal: building resilience

The appropriate overarching goal of international policy on adaptation is to help people in
developing countries adapt successfully to climate change even where there is state fragility or
conflict risk. This goal implies several second-level objectives.

Vulnerability to climate change is normally treated as the product of three factors – exposure,
sensitivity and adaptive capacity.

The first issue is whether a location is exposed to physical

effects of climate change – the lottery of geography. The second is how sensitive it is to that
exposure – whether it is low-lying, for example. And the third issue is whether there is adaptive
capacity that permits preparation, timely response and relatively rapid recovery. Adaptive capacity
is the side of this triangle of vulnerability that policy responses can get at.

Faced with climate change, societies will inevitably adapt. The issue, however, is how they do so.
Fighting over shrinking resources and mass abandonment of locales that are no longer viable are
two means of adaptation – but in a form that is actually or potentially violent and carries great
risks of further loss and destruction. Adaptive capacity is, by definition, the capacity to adapt
peacefully and successfully.

Some modes of adaptation are not only effective in their own terms, but can also contribute
to building peace and making states less fragile. For example, integrated natural resource
management systems involve local communities and government authorities in discussing how
to manage a key resource such as water. Doing this can create lines of communication between
different and hostile user communities who then engage in increased dialogue and cooperation
through the process.

Beyond such serendipitous synergies, the aim of climate change adaptation in fragile states
should be to build the capabilities a society needs so it can handle the broad range of risks and
uncertainty that ensue from climate change. It is building resilience writ large. Beyond the ability
to protect citizens from specific threats, this means being able to prepare for events that cannot be
predicted. Beyond being able to implement plans under extreme pressure, it means the ability to
invent responses as the need arises. It is resilience in a broad sense – the capacity to absorb stress,
to keep basic functions going even during disaster, and the ability to recover. In principle, the idea
of resilience is relevant for thinking about a society’s ability to cope with everything from natural
calamities to economic shocks, conflict, and slow onset changes in the natural environment. Such
a society can handle conflicts that arise without resorting to violence.

To help this social capability come into being is one way of understanding the goal of development
assistance; the way to bring it about, it could be argued, is through development assistance as it
should be done, that is, coordinated across all sectors, sustainable and participatory.

4.2 Policy objectives

To meet the goal of helping people in developing countries adapt successfully to climate change
even where there is state fragility or conflict risk, five policy objectives are important. Each is a
component of developing the capabilities required to manage and reduce risk.

AGENDA FOR ACTION

International Alert

4.2.1 Conflict-sensitive adaptation

Measures taken to adapt to the effects of climate change need to be conflict sensitive.

Conflict sensitivity means being aware of the causes of potential conflict in a given location;
it involves understanding the operational context and the effects of working in it, and on that
basis, developing a capacity to avoid negative impacts and maximise positive ones.

For example,

where water resources have to be managed because they are otherwise insufficient, the process
must respond to the needs of the people, involve them in consultation, and avoid pitting groups
against each other. The provision of technical assistance to one group can increase tensions over
equity and resource allocation amongst this group and between it and other groups. Since violent
conflict has such a crippling effect on communities’ and governments’ abilities to adapt to climate
change, these unintended consequences have a doubly negative impact: they increase vulnerability
to both conflict and climate-change impacts.

Over the past decade the international community has increasingly recognised the need to minimise
the potential negative impacts of its work and has slowly begun to act on the basis of that
understanding by adopting what is known as a “do no harm” approach. Slowly, some development
agencies are beginning to adopt a conflict-sensitive approach which involves scrutinising the potential
positive and negative impacts of their work on the conflict context and vice versa. Similarly, agencies
responsible for programmes of adaptation to climate change should take steps to ensure that at a
minimum they do no harm and, ideally, have a positive impact on the contexts in which they work.

The challenge of conflict-sensitive adaptation, however, goes further than this; what matters is
not just ensuring that specific activities are designed with awareness of the context but, more
ambitiously, working out how to re-shape the context to offer fertile ground for peace. The
UK Department for International Development (DFID) is among those agencies where there
is discussion of an approach to adaptation that puts long-term resilience at the base. On this
it aims to build better protection for the most vulnerable, on top of which targeted responses
address specific climate-change risks. Against a background of state fragility and conflict risk,
the challenge is not just to operationalise this resilience-protection-response model, but to
contribute to creating the conditions that make it possible. The aim should be to work in a

CASE STUDY:
River
management
and flood risk
in Nepal

When the Koshi River which flows through the
Eastern Terai region of Nepal flooded in summer
2008, it displaced more than 60,000 people, damaged
the national highway, and destroyed crops.

Since

then,  major  concerns  have  been  voiced  that  the
fragile  embankment  will  break  in  more  places,
flooding an even greater area. The severity of risk
is closely linked to the poor maintenance of dams
and  river  barriers.  Responsibility  thus  ultimately
lies with the government. These risks in the Terai
are  particularly  sensitive  because,  despite  the
comprehensive peace accord of 2006 that ended the
Maoist  insurgency,  there  are  now  estimated  to  be
35 armed groups active in the Terai. The immediate
legacy  of  the  ten  years  of  civil  war  includes  bitter
political  rivalries  between  some  of  the  political
parties  and  a  tendency  to  relatively  low-level
violence between their militant youth wings.

In 2008, an Indian firm was contracted to repair

the Koshi barrage. The work was held up by labour
disputes that the firm could not settle because of the
rivalries between the unions, linked to rival political
parties. Nor was it possible to get the district
authorities to resolve the issues. And because the
barrage was not repaired, it broke.

The  challenge  of  managing  the  Koshi  requires  a
framework  of  well  functioning  state  regulation.
Specifically,  an  effective  river-management
scheme  would  reduce  the  discontent  caused
by  the  massive  socio-economic  consequences
of  flooding.  This  is  only  possible  if  the  political
parties  cooperate,  suspending  rivalries  in  the
name of the people’s interest. This would increase
confidence  in  the  political  process  and  in  the
possibility for state institutions to rise above party
differences,  which  in  turn  could  lubricate  the
crucial  peacebuilding  and  state-building  task  of
writing a new national constitution.

Climate change, conflict and fragility

way that does both. For this to be possible, responses should actively contribute to the system
of governance and the relationship between citizens and state. As such, adaptation measures
must be based on a rounded analysis that addresses not only the climate challenge, but also
the difficulties that arise from conflict risk and state fragility and undermine the foundations
of resilience-protection-response.

4.2.2 Climate-proofed peacebuilding

Peacebuilding needs to be climate-proofed.

If adaptation has to be conflict sensitive, the other side of the coin is ensuring that peacebuilding is
designed with sensitivity to climate change. For example, re-integrating ex-combatants in society
is an enormously complex task requiring that people transform their identities from fighters to
citizens and members of families and communities.

At the same time, internally displaced peoples

and refugees may be returning from camps, seeking to pick up the strands of their interrupted
lives and needing secure livelihoods. Where agriculture is a key element of this – either as a form
of livelihood, or as the basis of a community, or simply as the means of providing food – it is
essential to know from climate projections whether specific agricultural produce is likely to be
viable in the long term. If not, the result will be further disruption in a context made volatile by
the frustrations of recent ex-combatants, the fears of those who were recently victims, and the
difficulties of social and economic reconstruction. So planners and implementers of peacebuilding
and post-conflict activities need to have the relevant knowledge and capacity to integrate climate-
change considerations into programming.

CASE STUDY:
Climate-proof
reintegration of
ex-combatants
in Liberia

CASE STUDY:
Gender
implications
of climate
change in
Darfurian IDP
camps

In  Liberia,  the  process  of  recovery  from  war
includes  encouraging  both  ex-combatants  and
former  IDPs  to  return  to  their  place  of  origin
and  resume  their  lives  there.  There  are  many
difficulties,  not  least  the  reluctance  of  some  ex-
combatants to go and to stay, and the reluctance
of  some  communities  to  accept  them  back.
Leaving  community  reintegration  to  one  side,
there is also the issue of economic reintegration.
When  returnees  go  back  to  rural  villages,  the
basic livelihood will be agriculture. But the Inter-
governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has
reported  projections  of  climate  change  reducing
crop yield by 50% by 2020 in parts of West Africa.

The prospect arises of returned fighters becoming
resentful, unemployed farmers, and thus potential
recruits, with their combat experience, in a new
conflict.

One way to address these issues could be by learning
from  the  success  of  the  participatory  approach  of
forest-user  groups  in  Nepal.  These  groups  now
involve  over  40%  of  the  population,  which  means
about  60%  of  the  rural  population,  and  they  have
successfully  decelerated  the  rate  of  deforestation.

It is the combination of practicality and participation
that  makes  this  kind  of  approach  attractive.  In
the  Liberian  example  and  similar  rural  settings,
the  technical  aspect  of  adaptation  should  include
options  for  new  farming  techniques,  alternative
crop  selection,  and  shifting  from  crops  to  animal
husbandry.  These  options  will  be  taken  up  more
smoothly and will function more efficiently if they are
based on well-informed and fully analysed decisions
taken  and  implemented  by  the  people  whose  well-
being is most directly at stake – the farmers and their
communities and the returnees themselves.

In Darfur peacebuilding has for some years meant
attempting  to  hold  back  the  onward  surge  of
violence.  Wood  in  the  camps  is  being  used  at  an
unsustainable level, especially in the many camps
where  manufacturing  bricks  is  a  livelihood.  This
leads  to  local  deforestation,  so  IDPs  have  to  walk
further to find wood – as much as 18 kilometres from
some camps.

As women and girls perform much

of this task, they have become more vulnerable to
attacks  and  rape  by  the  militias.  Moreover,  when
the wood runs out the camps have to move, causing
more  pressure  on  the  environment.  Climate-
sensitive  approaches  to  peacebuilding  in  the
Darfurian  IDP  camps  must  take  account  of  these
gender-specific  risks  and  generate  options  for
alternative livelihoods.

International Alert

4.2.3 Development- and peace-friendly low-carbon economy

Rich countries’ efforts to shift towards a low-carbon economy must be peace-friendly and
supportive of development.

If all goes well with the UNFCCC, the rich, developed countries will focus on mitigating global
warming by reducing carbon emissions, will fund their own needs for adaptation, and will
support adaptation in poorer countries. Meanwhile, the poor, developing countries will not need
to do so much on mitigation and will focus on adaptation with international support. But in a
globalised world, such neat demarcations break down. Decisions taken in developed and fast-
developing countries have significant effects on poorer countries via the mechanisms of market
and investment. Decisions to embark on a low-carbon economic pathway must take into account
the development and peacebuilding needs of the more vulnerable.

Biofuels  offer  an  outstanding  illustration  of  the  problem.  Several  recent  studies,  including
one  by  the  World  Bank,  show  how  large-scale  biofuel  production  has  affected  poor  farmers’
and  indigenous  peoples’  access  to  land  in  Africa  (e.g.,  Mozambique,  Tanzania),  Asia  and  the
Pacific (e.g., India, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea) and Latin America (e.g., Colombia).

It was

estimated that the diversion of food crops and land use for the production of biofuels in these
places accounted for up to 30 percent of the rise in food prices during 2008, which in turn caused
violence in over 30 countries. Oxfam estimated that expanded biofuel production pushed about
30 million more people into poverty and threatened the livelihoods of almost 100 million.

The World Bank’s World Development Report 2010 promotes market-based responses to dealing
with climate change, focusing on low-carbon development paths within G-77 states.

Current

research suggests that creating markets for low-carbon technologies will in turn create new job
opportunities and that these will be greater than the number of jobs lost in carbon-intensive
sectors. If managed equitably, low-carbon development can promote sustainable peace.

However,  it  must  be  remembered  that  with  development,  peacebuilding  and  indeed  climate-
change  adaptation,  specific  country  context  is  everything.  Whilst  developing  countries  are
nominally operating as a block as the G-77 within the UNFCCC, the fact is that low- and middle-
income countries within the G-77 have increasingly divergent interests on climate change. A core
divergence is on how climate funding is spent. A one-size low carbon model will certainly not fit
all the G-77 member states.  Middle-income countries want to see a lot of cash being pumped into
low-carbon development programmes that will help them to grow and to access clean technology,
whereas low-income countries are far more concerned with adaptation.

This difference must be

taken into account when designing the architecture for assistance to G-77 countries. Whilst low-
carbon development is a real long-term priority, the more immediate needs of low-income and
fragile states for adaptation must also be considered and addressed with equal weight.

4.2.4 Stronger risk management

Steps must be taken to strengthen poor countries’ social capacity to understand and manage
climate and conflict risks.

A society can manage the risks it faces and minimise its vulnerability to them if it has the capacity
to understand the risks and the resources to respond. There is a need for scientific capacities to
analyse the issues, for institutions that can plan and act on the basis of knowledge, and for public
awareness of the issues thanks to good communications and transparency. Children as well as
adults can understand flood risks and, with a little help, learn how to plant natural flood barriers,
prepare evacuation plans and learn new farming techniques that deal better with changed patterns
of rainfall.

Education is as important as technical flood defences and public knowledge must be

supplemented with alternative livelihood opportunities. On a local level, this is the social basis of
resilience.

Climate change, conflict and fragility

This approach is familiar in the literature on natural disaster risk reduction but there is no reason
why it cannot address a broader range of risk, including violent conflict and economic shocks.
Part of its value is that its success depends on widespread cooperation – between individuals,
communities and institutions, between citizens and the state, and between different political
actors whatever their other rivalries and disputes.

This cooperation is premised on the existence of trust between different groups. Without trust,
there is no reason why a village elder for example should act on well-intended early warnings
about future climate change threats from an outsider whom he neither knows nor respects.
Furthermore, this outsider information may be at odds with traditional coping mechanisms which
have served his community for generations. The top-down imposition of new climate knowledge
upon communities is likely to be ignored or received with contempt and reluctance to change.
But done properly, an inclusive and context-sensitive process of knowledge gathering and sharing
builds long-term habits of cooperation and practical conflict settlement that can have great pay-
offs in the effort to build a peaceful society and a responsive state. Policy-makers must ensure
that consideration is given not just to enhancing climate information, but to ensure that the
appropriate conditions are in place for this information to be acted upon.

4.2.5 Facing the challenges of migration

Areas that experience increased in-migration need additional assistance.

The resilience-protection-response model assumes that not all problems can be resolved.
Strengthening resilience is important but vulnerable groups will remain, and though protection
of the vulnerable may be improved, extreme weather events will nonetheless threaten human life.
In a similar vein, though conflict-sensitive adaptation, climate-proofed peacebuilding and policies
for social resilience will reduce the global flow of migration, there is still likely to be significant
localised migration. This is, inevitably, most likely in areas where policies to build resilience and
protect the vulnerable cannot be implemented because of state fragility and violent conflict.

Some governments and communities will instinctively try to block immigration with regulations
and physical barriers, which may well exacerbate conflict risk. For other, more constructive and

CASE STUDY:
Waiting for
the ants is
not enough in
Mozambique

People must both understand and trust the climate
information they receive if they are to respond in an
adequate manner. In 2000, the Limpopo river basin
in southern Africa experienced a very substantial
rainfall for many days as a result of unusual cyclone
activity. Experts knew that it would result in serious
flooding – of a magnitude never experienced before
by rural communities in Mozambique. Yet very few
villages were informed about it.

Most  communities  had  no  electricity  or  radio,  yet
people  were  usually  able  to  successfully  predict
floods  by  observing  ants.  Ants  build  their  homes
underground;  when  groundwater  rises,  they  leave
their nests – and people know that the water is rising.
On this occasion, the flood came so rapidly there was
no  time  for  the  groundwater  to  rise,  or  for  ants  to
react  before  the  river  overflowed.  When  someone
who  had  heard  the  experts’  prediction  drove  to  a

certain village to tell them to evacuate, the local chief
asked him, ‘Who are you and why should I do what
you say? Since the times of my ancestors, floods
have only occurred after ants leave their homes.
Now the ants are not moving and you come and ask
me to leave?’ As in most of the Limpopo Valley, many
people did not evacuate. About 700 people drowned.

With climate-change risks, traditional knowledge is
increasingly not enough because our past experience
does not necessarily apply to present and future risks.
There  is  no  point  in  generating  advanced  climate
models without also preparing to communicate this
new  knowledge  in  ways  that  are  sensitive  to  the
context  and  that  can  be  understood  and  trusted  –
especially amongst marginalised communities where
trust  of  the  local  government  may  be  low.  For  an
example of how this can be done, see the case study
on the Philippines.

International Alert

generous responses to be possible, communities and governments will need support. And they will
need it not just if and when migration occurs but in anticipation of it. Long-range preparation will
minimise the problems that arise when people feel strangers impinging on their lives.

Developing a much improved analytical basis is essential. The effort will need to be inter-
disciplinary. Climate and demographic projections combined with economic and conflict analysis
will identify sources of migration, while an analysis of migration history and cultural connections
will help identify destinations.

In migrants’ likely destinations, there will be a need for policy measures that make their arrival less
disruptive. The problem breaks down into serial strategic planning for those locations, whether
they are rural areas, towns or major cities. The process of planning will need to be transparent
and participatory because its aim will not simply be to produce a good plan, but to be part of
the process by which immigrants are gently absorbed into the social fabric. Issues of livelihood,
employment opportunities, needed skill sets, infrastructure and public service provision, including
law and justice, will all need to be in the frame. Public dialogue on the problems, potential
solutions and possible benefits will need to be patient and evidence-based. The key is for the
immigrants to be and be seen as an asset for local society instead of an unwanted burden.

The specific needs of major cities that are both dealing with migration flows and facing increased
climatic threats will need targeted responses to reduce vulnerability. Efficient water and sanitation
services are critical to making “harmonious cities”.

Building on these, other aspects of good

national and local governance are also important. This includes good quality disaster-preparedness
and response, reasonable housing with physical resilience that is appropriate to identified risks of
extreme weather events and other disasters, and an enabling environment for civil society action.

4.3 Residual risk

Implementing these policies successfully will not solve everything and protect everyone from the
consequences of climate change. It will be necessary to be ready for large-scale humanitarian
response as well.

Climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction both have similar goals in that they aim
to reduce vulnerability and increase sustainable development. Disaster risk reduction is the more
established discipline and its seniority provides helpful frameworks and tools that could be applied
in climate change adaptation. Current practice in disaster risk reduction programming favours a

CASE STUDY:
Regional
cooperation
to deal with
migration from
bangladesh

In Bangladesh, the disturbance to the natural balance
of  the  delta  region  has  forced  many  to  migrate  –
either  within  Bangladesh  or  to  India.  The  general
pattern has been that those leaving non-viable areas
have  often  migrated  to  areas  that  are  already  only
just  viable.  Even  though  livelihood  difficulties  and
the  growing  population  have  caused  this  type  of
migration since the 1950s, the climatic threats that
have recently emerged have added to the pressure.
The  country  is  experiencing  summer  droughts,
worsened flooding when cyclones hit, and salination
of the coastal rivers. About half a million people have
moved  within  Bangladesh  to  the  Chittagong  Hill
Tracts and several million have migrated to India.

Both  the  Chittagong  Hill  tribes  in  Bangladesh
and  the  north-east  Indian  region,  where  the
newcomers  have  been  accused  of  stealing  land,
have  experienced  social  frictions  and  violent
conflict  because  of  immigration.  In  reaction,  the
Indian government is erecting a 2,500-mile physical
barrier  to  stop  further  immigration.  This  may
insulate  India  in  the  short-term  (though  physical
barriers are often an imperfect means of preventing
migration), but the better it works, the worse that
will  be  for  Bangladesh  –  and  eventually  a  build-
up of problems in Bangladesh will become India’s
problem  too.  Regional  cooperation  makes  long-
term sense.

Climate change, conflict and fragility

community-based approach. Much of this methodology is relevant to climate change adaptation,
where a common problem is that local knowledge is not allowed to feed properly into the decision-
making processes. This is an obvious place to share good practice and promote joined-up policy
and response approaches. Given that most donors have in place a disaster risk reduction strategy
and funding stream which is not considered when drawing up climate change adaptation policies
and funding streams, steps must be taken to promote the convergence of disaster risk reduction
and climate change adaptation to avoid re-inventing the wheel for adaptation, duplication, and
the diversion of funds and energy from disaster risk reduction to narrowly focused climate change
adaptation processes.

The issue of residual risk is at its sharpest in countries that are not only poor and extremely
vulnerable to extreme weather events, but which are also badly governed. For example, in May
2008, Cyclone Nargis hit Burma, causing an estimated death toll of over 140,000 and leaving an
estimated 2.4 million people homeless. It appeared that the Burmese state was unprepared and
unwilling to do very much by way of response. If there is a solution to that problem, it is not to
be found when the cyclone has hit nor does it lie in the realms of disaster risk reduction. Like the
inability of global or regional concern to prevent the predictable cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe,
if there is a solution it is political.

However, it is extremely difficult and widely regarded as undesirable to force an intervention in
a country against the state’s wishes, regardless of whether the aim is humanitarian in the strict
sense or broader and political, and regardless of whether it involves force. The international
system takes sovereignty very seriously. It is possible that intervention can be forced in extreme
circumstances. But in extreme circumstances, by definition, the opportunity for developing
resilience and protecting the vulnerable has passed.

CASE STUDY:
Ensuring
resilient
responses in
the Philippines

The  governor  of  Albay  Province  in  the  Luzon  island
group has mainstreamed climate change adaptation
into  his  economic  development  strategy.  Facing
changing  pattern  of  typhoons  and  future  sea-level
rises, he initiated the “Albay Declaration on Climate
Change Adaptation” in 2007. This sets out the place
of climate change in local and national development
policies.  Albay’s  prototype  for  local  climate  change
adaptation  puts  disaster  risk  reduction  into  all
development  projects  and  programmes.

Advocacy

and public information campaigns create an enabling
environment  for  making  this  happen.  Institutional
initiatives  have  generated  localised  forecasting
statistics  on  sustainable  agriculture,  forestry,
fisheries,  energy  and  eco-cultural  tourism  in  the
light of climate change. These provide the evidence
basis for further practical initiatives in fields such as
water and sanitation, crop selection, fisheries policy,
education, clean energy and forest protection.

With that knowledge as the starting point, it would

be  a  relatively  small  additional  step  to  consider
how conflict within the Philippines (the protracted
communist  insurgency)  and  regional  economic
developments would have an impact on agriculture,
forestry and so on. Albay Province has not included
conflict  issues  in  its  adaptation  initiative,  but  a
society  that  develops  the  capacity  to  think  about
itself  and  the  dilemmas  it  faces,  and  then  to  act
to  resolve  them,  can  utilise  this  capacity  on  a
range of different risks. There are numerous ways
in  which  the  capacity  can  be  developed  –  from
school  education,  through  awareness-raising  for
government  officials  and  civil  society  activists,
to  university  education.  The  goal  is  to  establish  a
culture of shared knowledge and shared willingness
to act.  To do this the state must assist not only in
building scientific capabilities to analyse the issues,
and not only in building institutions that can act on
the  basis  of  that  knowledge,  but  also  in  bringing
people  together  to  share  knowledge  and  build  a
common purpose.

International Alert

5.1. Getting the institutional structures right

What we have set out above is an ambitious policy agenda. To ensure its potential is realised, we
have to look not just at the policy objectives, but also at the institutions that will have to carry them
out. And the theme of risk, uncertainty and interlinkages is unsettling when we come to think about
institutional responses. Institutions are not always so good at dealing with such challenges.

In the last decade, international development actors have learned some hard lessons about the
difference between actions that are effective in achieving development objectives and those that
fail to be truly supportive of poor and vulnerable communities. Key among these are lessons
about how difficult it is to ensure institutions are able to do development effectively in countries
with poor governance, state fragility and the effects of violent conflict. It will take more than a
few tweaks to existing processes. It requires a wholesale rethinking of institutional structures, the
incentives that govern them and the rules by which they operate.

The major focus of the adaptation debate at the UNFCCC remains on how this money will be
raised.

However it is vital that discussions on the governance arrangements and priority area

identification surrounding the disbursement of climate funds are not postponed until after the
financing questions are answered. This process cannot occur in a linear fashion. Adaptation is
already occurring and more will need to occur, and in the absence of any global consensus under
the UNFCCC, donors are increasingly going it alone in bilateral agreements with developing
states.

There are inevitable questions about whether and how this level of finance can be absorbed in
low-income economies. In conflict-affected and fragile states, governance systems and resource
management often favour a small group of elites. The UNFCCC’s Adaptation Fund aims to ensure
that recipient countries will decide their own priorities on how funding will be spent. Noble in
principle, this aim is fraught with practical difficulties in fragile states, where it is impossible to
overlook issues of corruption, lack of adequate structures and lack of transparency.

This raises the question of whether existing institutions are fit for purpose, such as the World
Bank and the Global Environment Fund (GEF) which have de facto assumed a role as climate
fund administrators. Despite a 2012 sunset clause on two major World Bank climate funds, the
reality is that they are unlikely to disappear.

These institutions are driven by internal systems,

prescriptions and norms which often conflict with sensitivity to how fragility affects operations
and how operations affect fragility. A look at these institutions reveals three concerns.

Their guiding principles are inappropriate for the task in hand. Working in fragile states requires
different operating principles than normal. Guiding principles for development such as “country
ownership” may work in states that have a relatively stable and accountable governance structure
but they can be very damaging in fragile states. The World Bank, for example, which is presently
managing the Climate Investment Funds, including the multi-donor Pilot Programme for Climate
Resilience, is guided by principles of alignment which do not explicitly acknowledge that
sometimes the state itself is part of the problem. Efforts to minimise transaction costs mean that
the principle of country ownership is implemented simply by putting things in the hands of a
small elite group. Country ownership and government ownership are not always the same thing.
Nor does getting the buy-in of one or two national ministries such as the Environment Ministry
or National Planning Commission equate to national alignment. Failure to acknowledge that

ENSURING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CLIMATE

CHANGE ADAPTATION

Climate change, conflict and fragility

state fragility requires institutions to fit their work to the context will significantly impair the
effectiveness of efforts to build resilience in fragile states.

The second concern is whether these institutions have appropriate internal incentives. The emphasis
and incentives at the World Bank and GEF are frequently based around meeting quantitative
targets such as amount and speed of money disbursed and number of projects completed, rather
than qualitative issues that might put a higher value on adopting conflict-sensitive approaches or
supporting broad participation in decision-making processes.

And thirdly there has to be concern about institutional mandates since political and social
considerations are sometimes considered beyond the mandate of these organisations. The Bank’s
Articles for Agreement, for example, have a clause stipulating that ‘proceeds of any financing are
used … without regard to political or other non-economic influences or considerations’. There is
of course a fundamental difference between avoiding the politicisation of aid and ensuring that
development commitments are based on a solid understanding of political economy and social
factors. Whilst individuals within the organisations in question may understand this point, the
vague policy formation means it is often misinterpreted resulting in superficial and unsustainable
outcomes.

Design of the instruments under the new climate change architecture needs to ensure an
understanding of the social issues and the political economy of fragile contexts. They must also
be free of institutional constraints which impede flexibility and promote qualitative rather than
quantitative results. Perhaps even more pressingly, existing institutions such as the World Bank
and the UN system – which will undoubtedly play a major role in disbursing climate change funds
and implementing climate adaptation projects – urgently need to get their house in order. This
requires a move away from inflexible structures grounded in sectoral “silos”, counterproductive
incentive systems, patchy knowledge bases and inadequate consideration of governance in any
meaningful sense.

Below, we consider some areas for institutional reform that apply to the policy objectives. They
reflect not so much on what is to be done, but on modes of implementation.

5.2 Enhancing institutional flexibility

The nature of climate, conflict and state fragility and the most promising policy responses place
tough demands on the functions of national and international institutions alike. One such function
is analysis and monitoring of risk. Related to that is, on the one hand, the rapid dissemination
of information and, on the other, adjusting to a changing terrain of risk, perhaps by adjusting
existing policies, or maybe by generating new ones. This may well include the need to respond
to the proverbial “black swan” – an event that is so different from the norm that it is not simply
unexpected but falls right outside the framework of what is believed to be possible.

Institutions

capable of fulfilling these functions will be forward-looking, thought-led and evidence-based,
innovative and resilient.

The first question, amid the pressures of pragmatic political consideration both in national
governments and in inter-governmental organisations, is whether it is feasible to establish such
institutions. There are two reasons for doubt. The first is that they will be established by decisions
taken within institutions that themselves all too often lack the necessary qualities. The second
is that these institutions will be dealing with matters that are often politically sensitive. It is not
hard to envisage coalitions of the unwilling blocking urgently needed institutional innovation. For
both these reasons, a clear-sighted and determined political alliance is almost certainly required to
get things moving, whether we are thinking about national or international institutional change.

International Alert

The second question is how to establish rules, norms, guidelines and incentives so that a capacity
for innovation is rewarded, rather than being bottled up, as is often the case in complex, high-
profile institutions. One thought is that establishing and running institutions that can meet the
challenge of climate, conflict and state fragility will be easier in some national settings than in
others and easier than at the international level. The conclusion here may be that where such
institutions can be established they should be, with an international mission despite a national
foundation.

The emphasis on institutions can sometimes lead policy design astray if it forgets that institutions
are made up of people. The rules, guidelines and norms in an institution may all be exemplary, but
the people who work within it must be able to rise to those standards. Ensuring that the human
capacity is up to the task is as important as getting the functions and structures right. This is a
matter of staffing policies that are aligned with the mission and the value placed on flexibility and
innovation. It is, at bottom, a question of nurturing the talent needed meet the institution’s goals.

5.3 Dealing with uncertainty

Current approaches to adaptation can be seen to take two lines: one focuses on creating response
mechanisms to specific impacts, and the other on reducing vulnerability to climate change through
building capacities that can help deal with a range of impacts.

Risk, uncertainty and interaction

are key aspects of the policy challenge. The challenge that faces policy-makers is to manage rather
than overcome the uncertainty. On that basis, it would be a mistake to focus policy responses on
specific actions aimed at meeting the challenge of particular events, or even developing specific
technical capacities. In the uncertain climate future, what happens if unforeseen events occur
while expected ones do not?

In development and peacebuilding in the face of climate change, it is perhaps better to be vaguely
right than to risk being precisely wrong. Science does not give an exact forecast of future climate
change. It will never be able to. But it is wrong to conclude that no action on adaptation can be
taken. Uncertainty is different to ignorance: it is something that confronts all decision-makers,
not only in the field of climate change. Companies have to take strategic decisions despite high
levels of uncertainty about future markets. Parents make decisions in raising their children
without knowing exactly what effects they will have. We are constantly having to make decisions
without having enough validated information. To judge uncertainty – its magnitude and origins –
requires thorough analysis and scenario-planning. Climate research simply provides the relevant
information. It is ultimately the responsibility of the decision-maker to draw on relevant tools.

There are several reasons for uncertainty about climate change information. The key reason is
that we can’t be sure of future greenhouse gas emissions, and since these hypothesised levels are
the groundings for the different “emissions futures” outlined in scenarios by UN scientists, this
makes judging the socio-economic effects of climate change rather precarious. However, some
areas contain more uncertainty than others. For example, on some variables such as temperature
change there is a broad consensus amongst different climate models. Where there is less certainty,
it is possible to compare models to get an indication of the expected direction of change. Often,
uncertainty is due to lack of information at the hands of policy-makers. Yet there is a considerable
amount of accessible information now available for the purpose of informing relevant stakeholders
outside the climate community.

One step is to ensure that the right people know how to access

climate change information, interpret the information to feed into their analysis and communicate
this to field level where necessary.

In terms of practical responses to uncertainty, where there is just a low level of uncertainty, it will
be possible to address tangible impacts such as flood defences to glacial lake outburst flooding.
When facing more uncertainty, it is advisable to focus on increasing adaptive capacities through

Climate change, conflict and fragility

“no regret” or “low regret” activities (ideally a win-win-win situation for adaptation, mitigation
and peace), for example higher efficiency of water usage during the threat of possible drought.

5.4 Enhancing the knowledge base

There are five sides to the knowledge problem. First, the natural science knowledge about climate
change is unevenly distributed and used. The UK can access and compare 60 different models
of climate change to gain a sense of where the consensus lies; Bangladesh can utilise a single
model; Nepal has not properly used one at all.

Second, the social science of climate change

is in its infancy and needs to catch up. The appropriate policy response to both problems is a
sustained effort both to draw on research capacities in the developed countries to strengthen
research capacities in developing countries, and to encourage research cooperation between think
tanks and universities in developing countries.

Third, adaptation policy should begin by focusing on planning and implementing measures at
as local a level as possible. This is partly to hedge against uncertainty and take the opportunity
to pilot new initiatives on a relatively modest scale. It is also because it is at the local level that
it will be most possible to understand the societal impact of climate change. This gels with key
governance considerations.

Fourth, there is the issue of disseminating information in ways that ordinary people can understand.
Too much analysis is expressed in ways that are alienating and disempowering, so that those who
are affected by climate change and caught up in the web of social consequences are far from
aware of the risks and the challenges. But they often have a considerable knowledge derived from
experience that can help design adaptation. There is a need to bring natural science, social science
and local knowledge together into a dialogue. This will help equip citizens for their side of the
governance contract. And it will steadily strengthen not just local but national and international
capacity to find imaginative solutions to common problems.

Lastly, there is the age-old institutional problem of siloed knowledge within sectors. Climate change
is still seen as an environmental issue and thus understanding climate impacts is seen as something
for climate experts, not for development practitioners, policy-makers in post-conflict reconstruction,
conflict prevention and early warning experts or humanitarian actors. An institutional shift is
necessary for adequate understanding of climate change impacts to become part of the knowledge
base of all actors engaging in countries that will be affected by climate change.

5.5 Sequencing

Discussions about interlinkages between different problems and policy areas routinely raise
the question of sequencing – what comes first? These discussions often fall victim to the false
assumption of linearity – first one thing, then the next. When thinking about post-conflict
peacebuilding, for example, Paddy Ashdown argues that the priority task on day one of a peace
operation is to dominate the security space.

But along with that he argues it is also necessary to

establish the rule of law and get the economy kick-started. It seems important to take decisions
about sequencing, but the truth is that states and peace are not built sequentially.

Response to climate change offers the same dilemmas. Establishing the rule of law will not be
easy if the people feel that the authorities are failing to protect them from flooding. Nepal is in the
front line of climate change because of glacial melting and changes in the timing of the monsoon,
both building on climate variability that is already extreme. With severe flooding in 2007 and
2008, it seems Nepal should begin by improving its response and recovery capacity. Yet that
would have only short-term effects unless, at the same time, efforts were in hand to strengthen

International Alert

the country’s basic resilience and protect the vulnerable. To do that, however, it is necessary to
find ways of handling the legacy of the recent civil war. Often bitter party rivalries that dominate
all public issues and relations between the parties can make or break any and all policy initiatives
and actions by the state.

There is not much of a record of effective sequencing on which to draw. A review of early recovery
arrangements found little that could be thought of as best practice – few efforts in any aspect of
recovery from war that managed early on to lay foundations for long-term sustainable peace.

The review implies that sequencing is established more on the basis of available resources than
on the basis of need.

A viable approach to sequencing has to acknowledge the importance of meeting immediate needs,
fixing immediate problems and preventing or preparing for the next disaster. At the same time
it has to imagine a desirable end-state and identify the necessary conditions for making progress
towards it. In different circumstances the combination of priorities will be different. The lessons of
experience suggest there will not be a single key initial task but, rather, several equally important
early tasks.

5.6 Enhancing the governance contract

Responsive and responsible states are not created just by increasing capacity in government
departments but by a contract between citizens and state. This swings on the balance of power
between the elite and the rest of society. Development of a rich network of citizens’ organisations
contributes to state-building and to the practice of good governance because it encourages
transparency and accountability, and accordingly efficiency and responsiveness. But its influence
is resisted by the social and political elite who, if they are strong and self-confident enough, may
reject civil society influence altogether and close down the space it needs to work in.

Implementation of the policy objectives set out above must begin with local needs and capabilities,
with provincial and national governments meeting needs for which local capabilities are not
sufficient, often coordinated with other regional governments, and with international funding
and other support as necessary. This effort will have to be designed and carried out despite the
obstacles mounted by irresponsible members of the state apparatus and grasping elites. Removing
these obstacles will partly be about providing incentives for elite groups and governing authorities
to support far-sighted approaches to adaptation, peace and good governance.

Such an approach will therefore stress the engagement of citizens in understanding, deciding
and implementing the measures that need to be undertaken to face the multiple challenges of
climate change. In order to make this possible, policy should be implemented at as local a level
as possible, so it as visible and accessible as possible and the institutions implementing it are as
transparent and accountable as possible to ordinary citizens.

This is not a kind of good governance that is specific to climate change. It draws on general
thinking about governance frameworks in development, which sees responsive state-building as
offering a virtuous circle of basic functional effectiveness, transparency, social participation and
inclusivity.

In the international development community, this argument has been fairly widely

accepted in principle, theory and policy – it is the practice that lags.

The reasons why the practice lags lie in the heart of the power relations in developing societies.
In conflict-affected and fragile contexts, both governance and the economy tend to favour a
relatively small elite group. This is a clientelist system of governance, in which the goods and
services provided by the state are not universally available but selectively, according to how
politicians see their advantage.

These are typical features of “limited access social orders”.

For

the shift and development towards more open access, or, in different terminology, for responsive

International Alert

The consequences of climate change, the incidence of violent conflict and the corrosive effects of
state fragility are all major problems. To take them on together is to take aim at a very difficult
target. But it is necessary because these problems are not isolated from each other. At the same time,
the fact that they are linked problems helps identify linked solutions that benefit from synergies
and that have an impact on several targets at once. Starting with the irreducible uncertainties of
how the interlinkages can be expected to operate, this paper has set out a policy goal, backed up
by five policy objectives that together constitute a coherent agenda:

1. Adaptation to climate change needs to be conflict-sensitive. In fragile and conflict-affected

contexts, all interventions must respond to the needs of the people, involve them in
consultation, take account of power distribution and social order, and avoid pitting groups
against each other.

2. Peacebuilding needs to be climate-proof. For example, post-conflict reconstruction and the

reintegration of ex-combatants into their villages must take account of the long-term viability
of the land and natural resources available for lives and jobs.

3. Shifts towards a low-carbon economy must be supportive of development and peace. For

example, there must be no repeat of the rapid move to biofuels, which not only reduced food
availability, but also threatened to drive millions of people off the land.

4. Steps must be taken to strengthen poor countries’ social capacity to understand and manage

climate and conflict risks.

5. Greater efforts are needed to plan for and cope peacefully with climate-related migration.

These objectives need modes of implementation that are directly informed by the analysis, drawing
on the best of development practice. By briefly illustrating how this would look in practice, this
paper has also attempted to communicate a sense that these tasks are feasible – demanding,
certainly, but distinctly achievable. In essence, they require two fundamental shifts: in the way
institutions are organised, and in the way interlinkages are addressed.

First,  institutions  responsible  for  climate  change  adaptation  –  be  they  under  the  UNFCCC
architecture,  international  financial  institutions,  development  agencies  or  peacebuilding
organisations – need to ensure that their internal systems and structures promote adaptation even
where there is state fragility or conflict risk. In these complex and delicate situations, adaptation
must  do  no  harm,  and  ideally  help  the  goal  of  peace  along  its  way.  For  this  to  be  possible,
institutions must restructure in such a way as to maximise the participation of ordinary people
and build accountable and transparent public institutions.

Second, strategies must adapt to meet the combined challenge of climate change, conflict risk
and state fragility. It is wrong to imply that henceforth there will be old-style development with
adaptation on top. It may be that there will be a continuum from development activities that are
not affected by climate change to development activities whose entire purpose is adaptation,

but overall policy and strategy will present a new form of development. That means development
assistance will need to adapt too.

CONCLUSION

International Alert

ENDNOTES

The Global Humanitarian Forum (July 2009). 2009 Forum: Human impact of climate change. Available at http://ghf-ge.org/

Portals/0/pdfs/2009forumreport.pdf.

2 D. Smith and J. Vivekananda (2007). A climate of conflict: The links between climate change, peace and war. London:

International Alert.

3 For example, see the US public education campaign on climate change, September 2009. Available at http://www.

secureamericanfuture.org/.

4 R. Clarke & J. King (2004). The atlas of water. London: Earthscan, pp.22–3.
5 E. Levina (2006). Domestic policy frameworks for adaptation to climate change in the water sector, OECD; on the experience

of privatisation of water in Latin American states such the “Cochabamba Water Wars” that took place in Bolivia

between January and April 2000, due to privatisation of the municipal water supply, see http://ipsnews.net/news.

asp?idnews=35418.

6 K. Hussein, J. Sumberg & D. Seddon (1999). ‘Increasing violent conflict between herders and farmers in Africa: Claims

and evidence’, Development Policy Review, Vol 17, Issue 4, ODI.

7 For a few lead examples from the current debate see: replace this link with: http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/documents/

clim-migr-report-june09_final.pdf; and http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/documents/clim-migr-report-june09_final.pdf.

8 See, inter alia, H. Buhaug, N. P. Gleditsch & O. Theisen (February 2008). Implications of climate change for armed conflict.

Washington, DC: World Bank. Available at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTRANETSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/

Resources/SDCCWorkingPaper_Conflict.pdf; German Advisory Council on Global Change (2008). Climate change as a

security risk

; Norwegian Refugee Council (April 2008). Future floods of refugees: A comment on climate change, conflict and

forced migration

; E. Piguet (2008). ‘Climate change and forced migration’, UNHCR January 2008. New Issues in Refugee

Research

, Research Paper No. 153; D. King & G. Walker (2008). The hot topic. London: Bloomsbury, pp.90–91 & p.161.

9 G. Baechler (1999). ‘Environmental degradation in the South as a cause of armed conflict’, in A. Carius & K. Lietzmann,

Environmental change and security: A European perspective

. Berlin: Springer-Verlag; E. van Ireland, M. Klaassen, T. Nierop,

& H. van der Wusten (1996). Climate change: Socio-economic impacts and violent conflict. Wageningen, The Netherlands:

Wageningen University & Research Centre.

10 P. Collier; V. L. Elliott; H. Hegre; A. Hoeffler; M. Reynal-Querol; N. Sambanis (2003). Breaking the conflict trap: Civil war

and development policy

. Washington, DC: World Bank and Oxford University Press.

11 Source: Interviews with key interlocutors in donor agencies.
12 The “three Cs” requirement developed for promoting the implementation of the Maastricht Treaty: coherence, coordination

and complementarity.

13 See Stern, N. (2006). Stern review on the economics of climate change. London: HM Treasury; and OECD (2008). Economic

aspects of adaptation to climate change

, p.69; and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (August

2007). ‘Report on the analysis of existing and potential investment and financial flows relevant to the development of an

effective and appropriate international response to climate change’, Dialogue working paper No. 8, Dialogue on long-term

cooperative action to address climate change by enhancing implementation of the Convention

, Vienna. Available at http://

unfccc.int/files/cooperation_and_support/financial_mechanism/financial_mechanism_gef/application/pdf/dialogue_

working_paper_8.pdf.

14 For a comprehensive discussion of the deficiencies of adaptation costs, see M. Parry, N. Arnell, P. Berry, D. Dodman,

S. Fankhauser, C. Hope, S Kovats, R. Nicholls, D. Satterthwaite, R. Tiffin and T. Wheeler (2009). Assessing the costs of

adaptation to climate change: A review of the UNFCCC and other recent estimates.

London: International Institute for

Environment and Development & Grantham Institute for Climate Change.

15 See M. Parry et al. (2009). Op. cit., p.12.
16 B. Muller (October 2009). Is there room for compromise? The debate on institutional arrangements for climate finance.

Oxford: Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

17 DFID White Paper (2009). Building our common future. Available at http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/whitepaper/

building-our-common-future-print.pdf.

18 J. Paavola & W. Neil Adger (2006). ‘Fair adaptation to climate change’, Ecological Economics, 56, pp.594–609, p.604.

Available at www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon.

19 See www.conflictsensitivity.org.
20 From WFP Nepal’s preliminary assessment report from September, available at http://www.un.org.np/reports/

WFP/2008/2008-10-03-WFP-report-koshi-flood.pdf; Action Aid Nepal’s Koshi Flood Situation Report of Sunsari from

September, available at http://www.un.org.np/reports/ActionAid/2008/2008-09-30-ActionAid(CAN)-MCN-Flood-Report.

pdf.

21 Conversations with interlocutors in Nepal.
22 International Alert (2006). DDR: Supporting security and development: The EU’s added value. London, International Alert/

Brussels, Conflict Prevention Partnership, p.9 & p.15.

Climate change, conflict and fragility

23 Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (2007). Climate change 2007: Impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability.

Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 19 on Africa.

24 See http://srdis.ciesin.columbia.edu/cases/Nepal-Paper.html.
25 S. A. Alam (2006). Use of biomass fuels in the brick-making industries of Sudan: Implications for deforestation and greenhouse

gas emission

. Available at http://ethesis.helsinki.fi/julkaisut/maa/mekol/pg/alam/useofbio.pdf.

26 D. Mitchell (July 2008). A note on rising food prices. Washington, DC: World Bank. See also, E. Gallagher (2008). The

Gallagher Review of the indirect effects of biofuels production.

Available at http://www.dft.gov.uk/rfa/_db/_documents/

Report_of_the_Gallagher_review.pdf.

27 Oxfam (June 2008). Another inconvenient truth: How biofuel policies are deepening poverty and accelerating climate change,

Oxfam briefing paper. Available at http://www.oxfam.org/files/bp114-inconvenient-truth-biofuels-0806.pdf, p.3.

28 M. Fay and K. Watkins (2009). World Development Report 2010: Development and climate change. Washington, DC: World

Bank. Available at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDR2010/Resources/5287678-1226014527953/Overview.pdf.

29 Global Climate Network (September 2008). Creating opportunity: Low carbon jobs in an interconnected world. London:

IPPR. Available at http://www.globalclimatenetwork.info/.

30 See http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/09/17/world-bank-unctad-climate-emissions/.
31 An example from a programme in Malawi was described by DFID, DFID (August 2008). Degrees of separation – Climate

change:

Shared challenges, Shared opportunities. London: DFID.

32 Adapted from a case study by Maarten van Aalst from the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Guide, available at

www.climatecentre.org.

33 WaterAid (October 2008). Turning slums around: The case for water and sanitation. WaterAid discussion paper. Available at

http://www.wateraid.org/documents/plugin_documents/turning_slums_around.pdf.

34 R. Reuveny (June 2005). Environmental change, migration and conflict: Theoretical analysis and empirical explorations. Oslo:

GECHS, University of Oslo.

35 Hon. Joey Sarte Salceda, ‘Local responses to climate change’, presentation at the Energy, Climate, & Food Security

Conference organised by the Asia Institute for Management Policy Center and others, 27th August 2008, Manila,

Philippines.

36 Projected requirements for adaptation fall between US$75 billion and US$360 annually by 2030, whereas the total climate

finance for developing countries for both adaptation and mitigation is US$10 billion a year at the time of writing.

37 For example, the UK’s Environmental Transformation Fund, Germany’s International Climate Initiative and Japan’s Cool

Earth fund.

38 The New York Times (11th September 2009). ‘Still no money for developing nations, new G-20 documents show’. Available at

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/09/11/11climatewire-still-no-money-for-developing-nations-new-g-20933.html.

39 E. Bell (2008). The World Bank in fragile and conflict-affected countries: ‘How’ not ‘how much’. London: International Alert,

p.10.

40 Ibid.
41 The term has been introduced into the discourse by a market analyst, Nassim Nicholas Taleb; see N. N. Taleb (2007).The

Black Swan: The impact of the highly improbable.

London: Allen Lane.

42 H. McGray, A. Hammill & R. Bradley (2008). Weathering the storm: Options for framing adaptation and development.

Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, p.17.

43 For example, Adaptation country profiles provided by the UNDP, the World Bank Climate Portal, UNDP impact maps of

climate change, WBGU and Assessments of Impacts and Adaptations to Climate Change (AIACC) multiple region and 24

country data sets.

44 Conversations with interlocutors in South Asia.
45 P. Ashdown (2007). Swords and ploughshares: Bringing peace to the 21st Century. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, pp.69,

71–3, 76–80, 94–5.

46 R. Chandran, B. Jones & N. Smith (2008). Recovering from war: Gaps in early action. New York: NYU Center on International

Cooperation. Available at http://www.cic.nyu.edu/peacebuilding/docs/earlyrecoveryfinal.pdf, pp.22–26.

47 A. Whaites (2008), States in development: Understanding state-building, A DFID Working Paper, pp.6–11; see also M.

Ibrahim (2008), ‘Climate change and fragile states: Opportunities and challenges’. A Scoping Paper Draft, p.12.

48 See the discussion of power in fragile states in E. Bell (2008). Op. cit., pp.16–17. Available at http://www.international-

alert.org/publications/pub.php?p=380.

49 See the ground-breaking discussion of social orders, violence and development advanced by D. C. North, J. J. Wallis & B.

R. Weingast (2009). Violence and social orders: A conceptual framework for interpreting recorded human history. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press. An earlier briefer treatment covering the same theoretical issues without so much evidence

base is available online: idem, A conceptual framework for interpreting recorded human history¸ Working Paper 12795.

Cambridge, Ma: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2006. Available at http://www.nber.org/papers/w12795.

50 See A. Whaites (2008). Op. cit.
51 UN Environmental Programme (September 2008). ‘From conflict to peacebuilding: The role of natural resources and the

environment’, consultation draft. Nairobi: UNEP, p.19.

52 H. McGray, A. Hammill & R. Bradley (2007). Weathering the storm: Options for framing adaptation and development.

Washington, DC: World Resources Institute. pp.18–22.