This chapter discusses the background of adaptation and mitigation to climate change and makes clear how the international community addresses climate change. Article 2 of the UNFCCC sets a long-term objective of limiting global warming. To that end, the Kyoto Protocol introduced a binding commitment on 37 industrialised countries and the European Community to reduce their carbon emissions by an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the period 2008–2012. Despite this, the IPCC reports that the global average temperature is rising at a rate at the top of the predicted range, while the sea level is rising faster than predicted. As discussed in Chapter 1, in 2012, the Parties to the Protocol met at COP 18 in Doha and agreed on a second commitment period from 2013 to 2020. Japan, New Zealand and Russia, among others, have refused to sign up to the second commitment period, however, and it did not set binding targets for the USA.86 Nor did it impose legally binding targets for the fast-growing developing countries such as India and China. In the absence of these countries, the eventual success of this agreement is questionable.
As mentioned above, the UNFCCC has introduced two main instruments to address climate change, with three policy options: mitigation, adaptation and technology or geoengineering. Mitigation addresses the emission of GHG into the atmosphere in the first place; geoengineering takes place when the GHG concentration increases in the atmosphere; and
83 IPCC, above n 28. 84 Ibid.
85 Mary Robinson, ‘Climate change is a ‘serious issue of human rights, Climate Change Watch (online), 19
September 2013, <http://www.climatechangenews.com/2013/09/19/mary-robinson-climate-change-is-a-serious- issue-of-human-rights/>.
86 Greenpeace, What Happened in Doha? Analysis of the Conduct and Outcome of the COP 18 Climate
Negotiations (Greenpeace, 2012),
<http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/briefings/climate/Doha2012/QandAoutcomeDoh a.pdf>.
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adaptation addresses the impacts after climate change has occurred. This paper will discuss the UNFCCC’s two main instruments to manage climate change, mitigation and adaptation. Although there is no specific definition of adaptation and mitigation, the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC has defined those measures this has already been discussed in Chapter 1. Article 2(a) of the UNFCCC states that ‘each of these parties shall adopt national policies and take corresponding measures on the mitigation of climate change, by limiting its anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and protecting and enhancing its greenhouse gas sinks and reservoirs.’87 On the other hand, under Article 4 of the UNFCCC, ‘the developed country parties
and other developed parties included in Annex II shall also assist the developing country parties that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in meeting cost of adaptation to those adverse effects’.88 Mitigation limits greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide
and methane to prevent, or at least reduce, further climate change; adaptation accepts that some degree of climate change is already inevitable and seeks to limit the negative impacts.89
In 2001, the IPCC Third Assessment Report demonstrated that climate change impacts are already occurring. For the first time, the IPCC used observations over the previous 10 years rather than working solely on predictions.90 However, while adaptation and mitigation are both set out in the UNFCCC as responses to anthropogenic climate change, the Eleventh Conference of the Parties (COP 11) at Montreal in 2005 focused on adaptation.
Under Article 12 of the Kyoto Protocol, mitigation has been linked to funding for developing countries through the creation of the CDM—discussed in detail in Chapter 4.91 COP11 also tried to attract business interest in CDMs so that developed countries and developing countries could participate to combat climate change as well as participate in socio-economic growth. However, by that time 800 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases, almost 80% of which were
87 UNFCCC, art 2(a), <https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf>. 88 UNFCCC, art 4, <https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf>.
89 Jessica M. Ayers and Saleemul Huq, The Value of Linking Mitigation and Adaptation: A Case Study of
Bangladesh (IIED, 2008) <http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/G02370.pdf>.
90 IPCC, Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report, Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Third
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change, R.T. Watson and the Core Writing Team, eds. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 365. Cited in Jessica Ayers and Tim Forsyth, ‘Community Based Adaptation to Climate Change’ (2009) 51(4) Environment: Science and Policy for
Sustainable Development 22 <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3200/ENV.51.4.22-31>.
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emitted by developed countries, had been stored in the atmosphere.92 As a result, the global temperatures had already increased and Arctic ice had started melting. At the Thirteenth Conference of the Parties, adaptation formed one of the five steps of the Bali Roadmap, which points the way to a post-Kyoto policy framework to include adaptation together with mitigation, technology cooperation and finance.93 The Marrakech Accords have increased the
emphasis on climate justice as part of the role of developing countries in decisions on adaptation.
Overall, mitigation has attracted most attention since the UNFCCC was drafted, as it was more important from the beginning. Even over the past decade, debates on climate justice have also focused on mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions because of the importance of promoting international action to reduce the causes of human-induced climate change.94 Many of the important discussions on climate justice ignore adaptation to climate change impacts.95 One of the main reasons for ignoring adaptation may be the fear that a focus on adaptation would decrease international efforts to mitigate climate change. Its omission, however, has created injustices for those vulnerable countries that have no other than adaptation measures to address climate change.
Policy-makers have begun to pay more balanced attention to adaptation and mitigation, which have to be seen as equally significant in addressing climate change. International negotiations have also encouraged linking adaptation and mitigation, through the Adaptation Fund financed by a two per cent levy on CDMs (discussed in detail in Chapter 4). The IPCC’s Working Group II has developed assessments of climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, and its Fourth Assessment Report has focused on adaptation.
As adaptation measures depend on the nature and extent of climate change impacts at the local and regional level it is difficult to estimate adaptation costs, but policy-makers would need to recognise that adaptation offers great benefits. To incorporate this approach—i.e., recognising the need for locally appropriate national adaptation policies—the UNFCCC set out the process
92 Jyoti Parikh ‘India and Climate Change: Mitigation, Adaptation and A Way Forward’ in Ernesto Zedillo (ed)
Global Warming Looking Beyond Kyoto (Brooking Institution Press, 2008) 207.
93 J. Ayers and D. Dodman, ‘Climate Adaptation and Development: The State of the Debate,’ Progress in
Development Studies (accepted 2009). Cited in Ayers and Forsyth, above n 90.
94 Jouni Paavola and W. Neil Adger, ‘Fair Adaptation to Climate Change’ (2006) 56(4) Ecological Economics
594, <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800905001187>.
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of the National Adaptation Program of Action (NAPA). NAPA ‘provides a process for the least developed countries (LDCs) to identify priority activities that respond to their urgent and immediate needs with regards to adaptation to climate change’—those for which ‘further delay could increase vulnerability or lead to increased costs at a later stage’.96 Through the NAPA
programme, LDCs identify and communicate urgent adaptation activities, focusing on immediate adaptation needs in agriculture and food security, water resources coastal zones and early warning and disaster management.97 However, while NAPAs focus on urgent and immediate
needs, no NAPA project has been completed yet; indeed, there is no specific mechanism for implementing those projects. The fact is that adaptation policies gained legitimacy gradually within international negotiations. According to Schipper, there is a lack of specific definition, made more confusing by its association with other aspects of the Climate Convention.98 On the other hand, mitigation has a clear definition agenda and targets and clear funding regimes.
2.3.1 The Adaptation Gap
Since climate change impacts are not equally distributed, nor are adaptation needs. Least developed countries, developing countries and small island developing countries are likely to be more vulnerable and therefore have greater adaptation needs. In such cases, failure to implement early adaptation needs will have a disproportionate impact and extend the current adaptation gap. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published a report in 2014 providing preliminary assessment of the adaptation gap. It defined the adaptation gap as ‘the difference between actually implemented adaptation and societally set goals, determined largely by preferences related to tolerated climate change impacts, and reflecting resources limitations and competing priorities’.99 But it is a great challenge to estimate the adaptation gap because there is no globally agreed estimation for adaptation. The UNEP report found gaps in areas such as funding, technology and knowledge. The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report also highlighted finance and technology for realising adaptation potential and possibly reducing risk and impacts. This report has predicted a major adaptation funding gap after 2020 unless new
96 UNCC, National Adaptation Programmes of Action (UN, 2016),
<http://unfccc.int/adaptation/workstreams/national_adaptation_programmes_of_action/items/7567.php>.
97 Irene Suarez and Progresum J. Huang, Addressing Adaptation in a 2015 Climate Agreement (Center for
Climate and Energy Solutions, 2015), <https://www.c2es.org/docUploads/adaptation-brief-06-2015.pdf>.
98 E. Lisa F. Schipper, ‘Conceptual History of Adaptation in the UNFCCC Process’ (2006) 15(1) Review of
European Community and international Environmental Law 82.
99 UNEP, The Adaptation Gap: A Preliminary Assessment Report (UN, 2014),
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and additional finance for adaptation becomes available.100 The Adaptation Gap Report 2014 also indicated that by 2030 the costs of adaptation could be two to three times higher than the range cited by the IPCC, and possibly four to five times higher by 2050.101 However, in 2015 the UNEP also published an updated report on the Adaptation Finance Gap which stated that enhanced mitigation action is essential to limit adaptation costs.102 As a result, the Paris
Agreement has provided co-benefits to adaptation and given priority to adaptation finance to achieve global goals on adaptation. This thesis will argue that Bangladesh should take advantage of this increasing focus on adaptation.