Fairness in Adaptation to Climate Change moves away from the scientific debate on the environmental impacts of climate change and mitigation strategies to an acceptance of the fact that countries and even localities within countries will have to adapt to changes in their climate. The authors also acknowledge that there will be both winners and losers, again, sometimes within countries as well as across international borders. They also note that there are relative winners and losers, and that losses of life, health, and species must be treated differently from economic losses. Although equity has been an important part of the international debate on climate change policy, previous texts have focused on the question of mitigation and whether developing nations should be allowed to continue emitting greenhouse gasses in order to improve their economic conditions, while developed nations are required to reduce emissions.
This text brings a new perspective to the international debate with its focus on adaptation instead of mitigation. Vulnerability to climate change impacts, according to several of the authors, is not evenly distributed across the globe, and localities differ in their abilities to adapt to the climate changes that are already occurring. The primary question for Adger et al. is one of fairness in national and international policies directed toward adaptation strategies. The value of this text, however, is not its discussion of fairness, which is redundant across chapters and often confusing. Its value is in the wide range of issues related to adaptation that it covers. The book is informative and extremely useful to any political researcher on climate change policy, but it does not contribute to political theory in any meaningful way.
The book is divided roughly into four sections. The first section, “Politics, Science, and Law in Justice Debates,” contains two chapters. The first, by Stephen H. Schneider and Janica Lane covers many issues including climate change impacts, intergenerational equity, interspecies equity, north-south equity, equity in policy challenges, cost-benefit analysis as a policy evaluation tool, the role of scientists, and adaptation strategies. It provides a very useful summary for a reader needing a quick overview of the nonscientific issues related to climate change and is very informative. The second chapter in this section is equally helpful in summarizing an important topic, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Mace, in this chapter, attempts to describe the convention's framework for adaptation and notes that it is not really addressed in any comprehensive way. To address both procedural and distributive justice concerns, Mace notes that the needs of developing countries must drive the policies and the funding. This is a practical chapter and may be the most important chapter in the book for readers who want to understand the Convention on Climate Change and its implications.
The second section is titled “Aspects of Fairness in Adaptation” and the chapters all discuss social justice concerns related to adaptation to climate change. There are five chapters in this section. Dow, Kasperson, and Bohn discuss several conceptions of justice, including those of Amartya Sen (Choice, Welfare, and Measurement, 1982), John Rawls (A Theory of Justice, 1972), and Robert Nozick (Anarchy, State and Utopia, 1974). They question how we might determine what population is the most vulnerable and what should be done. They conclude that a precautionary principle should be used. Leichenko and O'Brien discuss winners and losers due to climate change and point out that the terms are relative so that winners from one perspective might be losers from another. Barnett examines the interaction among security, conflict, climate change, and justice; Baer asks who pays whom; and Leary provides an analysis based on welfare economics. Although there is a great deal of repetition among these articles, with the question of vulnerability being overdiscussed, the chapters offer important and different perspectives on fairness and climate change.
The third section, “Fairness in Adaptation Responses,” uses case studies to illustrate concerns and covers both international and intranation policies. Bangladesh, Tanzania, resource-dependent societies (i.e. Botswana), and Hungary are the subjects of the four case studies. Although Bangladesh is always mentioned with reference to climate change impacts, Hungary was a surprising and interesting addition to the debate, particularly due to the intranational aspect of the problem.
Section four, “Conclusions,” reiterates the thesis of the text: Climate change has varying impacts among and within nations and requires attention to both procedural and distributive justice, both in mitigation and adaptation. The authors suggest that vulnerability should be a primary criterion, but that vulnerability refers not only to climate impacts, but also to the ability to adapt to those impacts.
This text makes an important contribution to the study of climate change policy. It covers a wide range of issues related to vulnerability and adaptation and raises many important questions. With the case studies, it also offers potential solutions and assesses their usefulness in specific situations. The two weaknesses in this text stem from the format. There are 20 contributors to this text, which leads to some redundancy across chapters, particularly with regard to discussions of justice and of vulnerability. The book is also, in some chapters, extremely technical and there is a confusing array of science, economics, and philosophy. The reader needs some background in political theory and welfare economics to follow the arguments in Section 2, and a legal background would be helpful for Section 1. Because the text provides such a diversity of perspectives, it is both difficult to read and highly informative. The book underscores the complexities of global environmental policymaking and of global environmental justice. It is well worth the time taken to read and comprehend this text.
