P11 - Climate change: making global policies local
PANEL Organizer
• Pain Adam (adam.pain@slu.se), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Sweden)
SUMMARY
Developing countries are formulating policies to address climate change. There are questions as to the extent that the voices of those most exposed to climate risk are represented in these global policies in science of climate change. Developing countries face challenges in assessing the implications of this science in their own national political dynamics and downscaling global frameworks into ongoing sub-national processes. Weak states are particularly subject to the influences of donor driven global narratives that presume that fundamentally political issues can be addressed in a technocratic manner. Climate change science does not adequately address or inform the analysis of vulnerability and simultaneously serves to exclude the voices of the most marginal people. Calls for “political will” to undertake “radical transformations” may further undermine the voice of climate vulnerable populations.
Vulnerability to climate risk is generated in conjunction with local social and political conditions, and not everyone is equally vulnerable. A technocratic framing of policy that avoids political contestations and downplays the demand for inclusive and deliberative processes creates a multi-faceted representational crisis in this arena. This suggests a need for a flexible, contextually grounded, and multi-scalar approach to political representation and an emphasis on downscaling climate science to inform policy development and implementation to achieve fair and effective adaptation. This panel will debate the ways in which the politics of representation and climate science are framed and pursued in the process of climate policy development. It will examine how the twin challenges of enhanced adaptation to vulnerability caused by climate risks as well as local social conditions can be addressed. It will focus on building understanding of the effectiveness of globally framed, generic policy mechanisms in vulnerable and politically volatile contexts, and consider opportunities for improving policy processes to contest technocratic framing and international adaptation templates.
KEY WORDS
Climate Change, Politics of Representation
ROOM
Faculty, E2.10
SESSION 1 : 10/07/2015 : 09:00-10:30
Chair: Adam Pain (adam.pain@slu.se), Swedish University of Agricultural Science (Sweden)
Discussant: Hemant Ojha (ojhahemant1@googlemail.com), University of New South Wales, Sydney (Australia)
• Changing local institutions and agricultural climate change adaptation in Viet Nam
Ian Christoplos, Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen (Denmark), speaker, Le Ngoan, Le Thi Sen and Nguyen Huong (huongptnt@gmail.com, corresponding officer)
• Infrastructure as climate change adaptation and state formation in Central Vietnam
Lily Lindegaard (lili@diis.dk), University of Copenhagen (Denmark)
• Climate Change and institutional authority in southern Zambia
Mikkel Funder (mfu@diis.dk), Danish Institute for International Studies (Denmark), Carol Mweemba and Imasiku Nyambe (both at University of Zambia, Zambia)
• Local Politics of Climate Change Adaptation
Esbern Friis-Hansen (efh@diis.dk), Danish Institute for International Studies (Denmark), Charles Aben, Bernard Bashaasha and Peter Chelli (all at Makere University, Uganda)
SESSION 2 : 10/07/2015 : 11:00-12:30
Chair: Ian Christoplos (ich@diis.dk), Danish Institute for International Studiers (Denmark)
Discussant: Mikkel Funder ( mfu@diis.dk), Danish Institute for International Studies (Denmark)
• Climate Change and the importance of subsidiarity in Nepal’s local Governance
Neil Webster (nwe@diis.dk), Danish Institute for International Studies (Copenhagen)
• ‘Doing’ climate change projects in Nepal: aid regimes, project design and implementation practices at the district level
Dil Khatri (dil@forestaction.org), Swedish University of Agricultural Science (Sweden), Adam Pain and Hemant Ojha
• What’s in a name? Epistemic perspectives and Payments for Ecosystem Service policies in Nicaragua
Gerten Van Hecken (gert.vanhecken@uantwerpen.be), University of Antwerp (Belgium), Johan Bastiaensen and Frederic Huybrechs.
