The need for locally-led climate actions
The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describes how climate change is already causing widespread disruption, affecting natural and human systems across the globe. The effects of global temperature warming up above 1.5°C through intensified extreme weather events are unavoidable and irreversible. A strong message of the IPCC report is to act now.
Adapting to climate change is increasingly crucial. While climate mitigation seeks to limit global warming through reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases, climate adaptation is the process of adjusting to current or expected future climate effects. Essentially, adaptation aims to reduce climate vulnerabilities of natural and human systems while building long-term resilience to evolving environmental conditions.
Adaptation solutions and measures exist, but greater efforts and actions are urgently needed to shift from planning to implementation. Thailand has a National Adaptation Plan 2020-2037. But the big question is what is being done locally?
Cities and local communities are on the frontlines of climate change impacts. Adaptation must be guided by local priorities. Local actors and communities must be at the centre of decision-making, leading the design and implementation of adaptation interventions. Voices of vulnerable, marginalised and poorer community groups must also be included in decisions to ensure inclusive and equitable adaptation measures.
Responding to climate change requires an understanding of climate impacts, vulnerabilities and the future risks associated with a changing climate. One useful approach, climate vulnerability assessment, is often used to identify local priorities and inform policies and measures that adapt to climate impacts. However, climate vulnerability assessments commonly identify who is vulnerable rather than why. To reduce vulnerability, understanding the underlying causes is a vital element of response, thus, the need to go beyond identifying “who” is vulnerable.
An EU-funded project, named Strengthening Urban Climate Governance for Inclusive, Resilient and Sustainable Societies in Thailand, is seeking to better understand why some communities are more vulnerable to climate impacts and other non-climate shocks, and to empower local civil society groups to play a critical role in inclusive and equitable adaptation and climate resilience efforts.
Recognising the importance and urgency of climate impacts and vulnerability in the urban context, the European Union has entrusted the Thailand Environment Institute Foundation and its project partners, the Center for Civil Society and Non-profit Management at Khon Kaen University, Songkhla Community Foundation, and Maastricht University in the Netherlands, to strengthen the capacity of civil society organisations in Thailand. The project will play a critical role in enhancing community adaptive capacity and improving urban climate governance practices.
A few communities are included in the research.
In the southern city of Songkhla, Boyang informal settlements and urban poor communities are located in coastal, low-lying areas. In the northeast, the informal settlements and urban poor communities reside along the Khon Kaen city railway track, and in the wetland areas of Ban Phai. These communities are all living in naturally at-risk areas in poor housing conditions, with limited or no access to basic services and critical infrastructure, such as drainage and piped water. As the cities continue to expand with more large-scale infrastructure development, the lack of land ownership means they are faced with the insecurities and uncertainties associated with eviction threats.
Urban poor communities and informal settlements are vulnerable to climate change not only because they are poor, but because they
also lack critical social structures and basic infrastructure that support their livelihoods and needs for day-to-day living. With limited or no access to welfare or state assistance, any crises, big or small, pose setbacks and a continual “process of recovery”. Where they live, and the low quality of dwellings, contribute to their susceptibility to weather-related crises.
Cities across Thailand are experiencing rapid urbanisation, uncontrolled urban sprawls, and drastic land use change with poor or no urban planning and design. These are also important contributing factors which are driving uneven impacts across different social groups and increasing disproportionate exposure to disasters.
Ignoring increasingly complex climate, water and land use challenges, the development of new special economic zones and corridors in climate sensitive and risk-prone areas is being accelerated through the implementation of the Thailand 4.0 strategy and recent reform of urban planning policy.
With ambitious plans to lift the country out of the middle-income trap, the new urban planning policy is set to speed up construction of large-scale transport infrastructure, such as high-speed trains, and support investment and development in economic and industrial zones. This comes at high costs of reducing public participation and environmental impact assessment processes.
It is not just the poor who are vulnerable to climate impacts. The way cities are urbanising is increasing exposure to multiple hazards and creating new patterns of risk. Without effective responses and actions to complex urban and climate issues, everyone is becoming more vulnerable.
In the scientific field of climate change adaptation, attention has been drawn to capacity as a common explanatory in risk and vulnerability assessment frameworks — such as the adaptive capacity to adjust and respond to changes, or the capacity to bounce back. But what shapes adaptive capacity?
Although poorer communities experience similar socio-economic problems, local causes of vulnerabilities and capacity to adapt, vary across communities, households and gender. Social, political-economic and structural variables must also be examined to better understand the determinants of vulnerability.
As climate impacts and vulnerabilities vary across localities, social groups and economic sectors, informed and equitable adaptation options must be developed taking account of targeted and specified contexts, to avoid creating new problems through maladaptation.
To demonstrate that the government is “leaving no one behind”, climate adaptation, disaster preparedness and development agenda must be centred around inclusiveness and equitability, by encouraging the involvement of all community groups in the co-design and implementation of actions and capacity building.
‘‘ Development of new economic zones in risk-prone areas is being accelerated.
Pakamas Thinphanga, PhD, is an independent urban climate resilience expert. She is leading a five-year EU-funded initiative, Strengthening Urban Climate Governance for Inclusive, Resilient and Sustainable Societies in Thailand (Success), at the Thailand Environment Institute.