Gender inequalities are reflected in differential vulnerability, and exposure to the hazards posed by climate change and addressing them is key to increase the adaptive capacities of societies. We ...provide trajectories of the Gender Inequality Index (GII) alongside the Shared-Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), a scenario framework widely used in climate science. Here we find that rapid improvements in gender inequality are possible under a sustainable development scenario already in the near-term. The share of girls growing up in countries with the highest gender inequality could be reduced to about 24% in 2030 compared to about 70% today. Largely overcoming gender inequality as assessed in the GII would be within reach by mid-century. Under less optimistic scenarios, gender inequality may persist throughout the 21st century. Our results highlight the importance of incorporating gender in scenarios assessing future climate impacts and underscore the relevance of addressing gender inequalities in policies aiming to foster climate resilient development.
The 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) of the United Nations (UN) climate negotiations concluded in December against a backdrop of shattered climate records, extreme weather, and climate events ...in 2023 that resulted in substantial loss of life, impacts on health and wellbeing, climate-related mobility, food and water insecurity, and other socioeconomic effects worldwide. In this context, the importance of addressing loss and damage (L&D)-the negative impacts of climate change that persist despite mitigation and adaptation efforts-was paramount. With countries having agreed at the opening plenary to operationalize the L&D fund that was established in 2022 at COP27, inputs from the scientific community will be essential as the global community now seeks to bring the fund online.
Purpose
This study aims to assess policies and mechanisms in Caribbean and Pacific small island developing states (SIDS) that address climate-induced migration and displacement. The migration of ...communities away from vulnerable regions is highly likely to be an adaptation strategy used in low-elevation SIDS, as the impacts of climate change are likely to result in significant loss and damage, threatening their very territorial existence. SIDS must ensure that residents relocate to less vulnerable locations and may need to consider international movement of residents. Ad hoc approaches to migration and displacement may result in increased vulnerability of residents, making the development and enforcement of comprehensive national policies that address these issues a necessity.
Design/methodology/approach
Interviews with United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiators for SIDS as well as analysis of secondary data, including Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, are utilized to determine policies and mechanisms in place that focus on climate-induced migration and displacement.
Findings
While climate change is acknowledged as an existential threat, few SIDS have policies or mechanisms in place to guide climate-induced migration and displacement. Potential exists for migration and displacement to be included in policies that integrate disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation along with national sustainable development plans. Regional bodies are beneficial to providing guidance to SIDS in the development of nationally appropriate frameworks to address climate-induced migration and displacement.
Originality/value
Existing gaps in policies and mechanisms and challenges faced by SIDS in developing strategies to address climate-induced migration and displacement are explored. Best practices and recommendations for strategies for SIDS to address migration and displacement are provided.
Climate change adaptation is paramount, but increasing evidence suggests that adaptation action is subject to a range of constraints. For a realistic assessment of future adaptation prospects, it is ...crucial to understand the timescales needed to overcome these constraints. Here, we combine data on documented adaptation from the Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative with national macro indicators and assess future changes in adaptation constraints alongside the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, spanning a wide range of future socio-economic development scenarios. We find that even in the most optimistic scenario, it will take until well after 2050 to overcome key constraints, which will limit adaptation for decades to come particularly in vulnerable countries. The persistence of adaptation constraints calls for stringent mitigation, improved adaptation along with dedicated finance and increasing efforts to address loss and damage. Our approach allows to ground truth indicators that can be further used in climate modelling efforts, improving the representation of adaptation and its risk reduction potential.
An actor-centred, risk-based framework for analysing limits to the capacity to adapt to climate change impacts, developed in the context of IPCC AR5 (Dow et al,. 2013b), was refined in the IPCC AR6 ...reports (Mechler et al., 2020; O’Neill et al., 2022; Thomas et al., 2021). In this paper, we centre the analysis on how institutional contexts shape and influence adaptation limits as experienced by social actors. We emphasise institutions’ stability over time leading to delayed adaptation, their role in protecting more powerful rather than weaker social interests, and their tendency to generate punctuated rather than smooth changes in vulnerability to climate risks. We illustrate these arguments with two case studies of socio-ecological institutional regimes facing adaptation limits: water resources management in the Colorado River Basin; and disaster risk management in The Bahamas. These represent divergent risk governance contexts generating limits to adaptation for multiple social actors, despite the availability of plausible adaptation pathways. Our aim is to contribute to a generalisable approach to adaptation limits which can be applied in identifying and assessing critical choices in responses to growing climate change impacts.
Using alternative future scenarios in development planning supports the integration of diverse perspectives and the joint consideration of the needs of humans and nature. Here, we report on the use ...of scenarios as an integral part of a two-year sustainable development planning process for Andros Island, The Bahamas. We combined qualitative and quantitative approaches to link stakeholder visions of the future of their island with quantitative assessments of the likely impacts of those visions on future conditions. We highlight knowledge gains for scenarios in three key areas: (1) inclusion of participatory mapping as both a mechanism for eliciting stakeholder knowledge and aspirations, and as an input for risk assessment; (2) participation of a transdisciplinary team to guide the scenario creation process and enable better understanding of the range of stakeholder visions and values; and (3) use of cumulative risk assessment as a framework to bring together quantitative and qualitative information and provide objective comparisons between alternatives. We convened over 560 people in 35 meetings and worked with 13 government ministries to create and compare four alternative scenarios consisting of storylines and maps of habitat risk of degradation. We found that one scenario, featuring intensive development, would pose the greatest risk to habitats and worked together to understand which activities could lead to such a future and what interventions could be taken to help avoid it. Ultimately, our collaborative process yielded objective comparisons between alternative future scenarios, incorporated diverse visions and values of stakeholders into the island-wide master plan, and informed investments in the sustainable management of coastal ecosystems and infrastructure critical for the livelihoods of island communities. This process can serve as an example for scientists and practitioners worldwide seeking to use scenarios to inform sustainable development planning.
Caribbean islands have increasingly turned to tourism as a pathway for economic advancement, often to the detriment of other industries, particularly agriculture. The influx of millions of tourists ...to these island destinations increases food demand, escalates food importation, and oftentimes results in food insecurity. Agritourism, an alternative tourism form, has been proposed as a way to stimulate domestic food production and increase food security. This article provides a selective examination of the possibilities of relationships between agritourism and food security in the context of a specific Caribbean island: New Providence, Bahamas. Drawing from semi-structured interviews and site visits with over sixty farmers, we focus on the experiences of three farms that have attempted to engage in agritourism, with different approaches, levels of success, and potential impacts on food security. We find that the potential for agritourism to transform food security for Caribbean islands is constrained by demand and the consumption standards of both residents and tourists. The type of agritourism that has thus far proven to be most appealing to tourists is unachievable for the majority of farmers, has inconsequential contributions to island food security, and privileges wealthy farmers. Unfortunately, in its current form, agritourism is not yet a viable solution for the food security issues of New Providence, let alone other Caribbean islands.
Adaptation to ever intensifying climate change is of paramount importance to reduce its impacts, in particular for those at the frontlines of climate change such as the Caribbean Small Island ...Developing States (SIDS). However, a range of constraints make it harder to plan and implement adaptation and thus hinder adaptation progress. Here, we provide an assessment on regional perceptions of adaptation constraints and avenues to overcome them based on a mixed-method approach, combining an online survey and semi-structured interviews with adaptation experts from Caribbean SIDS. We find that finance is the largest constraint being faced which closely interacts with information, human capacity and governance constraints throughout the entire adaptation process. Such interacting constraints can lead to vicious cycles profoundly hindering adaptation and therefore need to be addressed in parallel. Our results highlight how adaptation actors at the national level, in particular national governments, have a key role to play when overcoming constraints for the implementation of adaptation projects at the local level, alongside regional and international organisations.
Climate change and population growth are degrading coastal ecosystems and increasing risks to communities and infrastructure. Reliance on seawalls and other types of hardened shorelines is ...unsustainable in an era of rising seas, given the costs to build and maintain these structures and their unintended consequences on ecosystems. This is especially true for communities that depend on coastal and marine ecosystems for livelihoods and sustenance. Protecting and restoring coral reefs and coastal forests can be lower cost, sustainable alternatives for shoreline protection. However, decision-makers often lack basic information about where and under what conditions ecosystems reduce risk to coastal hazards and who would benefit. To better understand where to prioritize ecosystems for coastal protection, we assessed risk reduction provided by coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass along the entire coast of The Bahamas, under current and future climate scenarios. Modeled results show that the population most exposed to coastal hazards would more than double with future sea-level rise and more than triple if ecosystems were lost or degraded. We also found that ecosystem-based risk reduction differs across islands due to variation in a suite of ecological, physical, and social variables. On some populated islands, like Grand Bahama and Abaco, habitats provide protection to disproportionately large numbers of people compared to the rest of the country. Risk reduction provided by ecosystems is also evident for several sparsely populated, remote coastal communities, in some cases with large elderly populations. The results from our analyses were critical for engaging policy-makers in discussions about employing natural and nature-based features for coastal resilience. After hurricanes Joaquin and Matthew hit The Bahamas in 2016 and 2017, our assessment of coastal risk reduction and the multiple benefits provided by coastal ecosystems helped pave the way for an innovative loan from the Inter-American Development Bank to the Government of The Bahamas to invest in mangrove restoration for coastal resilience. This work serves as an example for other regions and investors aiming to use assessments of ecosystem services to inform financing of natural and nature-based approaches for coastal resilience and climate adaptation.
Climate-induced displacement has direct implications for non-economic loss and damage, including threats to health and wellbeing and loss of culture and agency. Displacement due to extreme events is ...particularly challenging for small island developing states (SIDS) given their high exposure and vulnerability to tropical cyclones. Devastating hurricanes in the Caribbean in 2017 exposed non-economic loss and damage associated with prolonged displacement of entire island populations due to complete destruction of communities. Such was the case in Ragged Island, The Bahamas, where the entire population was displaced. This study assesses national policies, plans, legislation and reports from The Bahamas to determine non-economic loss and damage experienced by displaced residents and how the policy landscape addresses these issues. We find that non-economic loss and damage was acknowledged neither by the policy landscape nor by Government actions, but that there were likely health impacts and disruptions to sense of place and connection to the island. Failure to consider non-economic loss and damage also contributed to assessments that costs of rebuilding outweighed benefits. While existing literature has acknowledged policy deficiencies on loss and damage at the national level in SIDS, this study illustrates real-world impacts of these deficiencies. The case of Ragged Island highlights the need for SIDS to take the lead in developing national responses to loss and damage as they are currently experiencing severe impacts, which are intensified by the lack of clear policies, plans or strategies.
Key policy insights
Climate-induced displacement is linked to non-economic loss and damage, particularly when displacement is prolonged and due to extreme events. However, these impacts are rarely addressed in national policies, plans or strategies.
National policies that address climate-induced displacement and non-economic loss and damage are critical in order to reduce impacts experienced by displaced communities and expand feasibility assessments of rebuilding to include more than economic considerations.
SIDS are currently experiencing non-economic loss and damage and should take the lead in developing national policies and strategies to assess, address and report on these impacts, particularly those SIDS that rely on international funders for recovery and response to extreme events.
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