AR6: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability

Chapter 15: Small Islands

Executive Summary

Options, Limits and Opportunities of Adaptation

In small islands, despite the existence of adaptation barriers several enablers can be used to improve adaptation outcomes and to build resilience (high confidence). These enablers include better governance and legal reforms; improving justice, equity and gender considerations; building human resource capacity; increased finance and risk transfer mechanisms; education and awareness programmes; increased access to climate information; adequately downscaled climate data and embedding Indigenous knowledge and local knowledge (IKLK) as well as integrating cultural resources into decision-making (high confidence) {15.6.1 15.6.3, 15.6.4, 15.6.5}. 

15.2 Points of Departure from AR5

15.2.2 Points of Departure on Adaptation

Since the previous assessment, integration of IKLK into adaptation is recognised as a major benefit in preparing and recovering from TCs and EbA (Narayan et  al., 2020). The roles of social capital, healthrelated adaptation strategies and livelihood responses are more fully understood (Nalau et al., 2018b; Nunn and Kumar, 2018; Abram et al., 2019; IPCC, 2019). Gender equity, climate justice, climate services, early warning systems and disaster risk reduction (DRR) (Vaughan and Dessai, 2014; Newth and Gunasekera, 2018), which were data gaps in AR5, have received more treatment, especially in the context of small islands. Stronger evidence confirms that education and awareness-raising enhance household and community adaptation (high confidence). 

15.5 Assessment of Adaptation Options and Their Implementation

15.5.3 Migration

There are few examples of highly ‘successful’ and therefore adaptive international resettlement or relocation in response to environmental pressures in history. For example, the experiences of Gilbertese resettled in the Solomon Islands highlight that tensions with host communities over land and resource rights and limited knowledge of new environments (such as when communities previously reliant on marine resources are resettled in high island locations) can create new vulnerabilities (Donner, 2015; Weber, 2016a; Tabe, 2019). Even where gradual international relocation is supported and planned through policy as in the case of Kiribati’s ‘migration with dignity’ strategy, strong cultural connection to land and uncertainty about life in receiving communities in Australia and New Zealand means that many remain opposed to indefinite or permanent migration (Allgood and McNamara, 2017; Hermann and Kempf, 2017). The same challenges could apply where domestic migration occurs between significantly different cultural, social and physical environments. However, planned migration for employment or education can reduce exposure in sending locations and spread risk through expanding economic opportunities and providing remittances, thus having inadvertent adaptation outcomes (Campbell, 2014a). Policies which support migration for employment by the most vulnerable—those that may wish to migrate but lack the resources to do so—may offer an adaptive strategy to environmental pressure, particularly where these incorporate adequate preparedness for life in host communities (Luetz, 2017; Curtain and Dornan, 2019; Drinkall et al., 2019). Research from the Maldives suggests that women and men do not possess equal capacities to use mobility as a strategy to adapt to climate change, with women less able to employ migration as an adaptation strategy due to gender roles, social expectations, economic structures, political laws and religious doctrines, and gender norms and cultural practices (Lama, 2018).

15.5.5 Community-Based Adaptation

Community-based adaptation (CBA) is best described as a ‘community-led process based on meaningful engagement and proactive involvement of local individuals and organisations’ (Remling and Veitayaki, 2016; p. 380). Enabling CBA projects to succeed relies on gaining a good understanding of the sociopolitical context within which the communities operate, including such key issues as land tenure arrangements and ownerships, gender and decision-making processes that operate on the ground (Nunn, 2013; Buggy and McNamara, 2016; Crichton and Esteban, 2018; Delevaux et al., 2018; Nalau et al., 2018b; Parsons et al., 2018; McNamara et al., 2020; Piggott-McKellar et al., 2020).This also includes the broader and often more urgent development issues that impact on communities’ well-being (Piggott-McKellar et  al., 2020). Community-based projects demonstrate in the Pacific that communities’ vulnerabilities, priorities and needs might be a better and more effective entry point for climate adaptation than framing projects solely around climate change (Remling and Veitayaki, 2016; Weir, 2020).This is supported by a recent review of 32 CBA initiatives in the Pacific where initiatives that were locally funded and implemented were more successful than those with external international funding (McNamara et  al., 2020). Initiatives that integrated EbA and climate awareness raising also performed better (McNamara et al., 2020).

15.5.7 Disaster Risk Management, Early Warning Systems and Climate Services

15.6 Enablers, Limits and Barriers to Adaptation

15.6.1 Governance

Specific governance-related barriers for effective adaptation include: lack of coordination between government departments and sectors and limited policy integration (Scobie, 2016; Robinson, 2018b), lack of ownership of adaptation implementation in cases where communities or national governments have not been part of the adaptation decision process (Conway and Mustelin, 2014; Kuruppu and Willie, 2015; Prance, 2015; Nunn and Kumar, 2018; Parsons and Nalau, 2019), and difficulties in integrating IKLK in adaptation initiatives. Specific barriers to effective sustained adaptation in the Pacific include variable climate change awareness among decision makers, and the preference for short-term responses rather than longer-term transformative ones (Nunn et al., 2014). These barriers also stem from donors’ preferencing their own priorities that do not necessarily fit the country priorities or context (Conway and Mustelin, 2014; Kuruppu and Willie, 2015; Prance, 2015), which has led to increasing calls for effective community/cultural engagement in adaptation, especially through CBA and EbA (Nalau et al., 2018b). In cases where recovery efforts are framed as purely a matter of infrastructure other important aspects, such as livelihoods and gender, are more easily overlooked in adaptation (Turner et  al., 2020).

15.6.5 Culture

Despite widespread international evidence that the impacts of climate change and disaster events often negatively affect women (and gender minorities) more than men (McSherry et al., 2014; Aipira et al., 2017; Gaillard et al., 2017), attention to gender equality as a concept is still only ‘embryonic in climate change adaptation in the Pacific’, and although recognised in some policies and project designs, it is not well supported by on-the-ground actions or well monitored (Aipira et al., 2017, p. 237). Many Pacific small island climate change adaptation policies do not mainstream gender across the activities (Aipira et  al., 2017), with women’s groups being excluded from climate grants due to patriarchal formal and informal governance structures, lack of resources, less access to educational and training schemes and no track record (or receiving grants or meeting grant milestones) (McLeod et  al., 2018). However, Pacific women identify several strategies that enable them to adapt to climate change more effectively. These include the recognition and support of women’s IKLK by governments, researchers and NGOs; increasing women’s access to climate change funding and support from organisations to allow them to meet the requirements of international climate change grants; and specific education and training to women’s groups to allow them to develop strategic action plans, mission statements, learn financial reporting requirements as well as general leadership and institutional training (McLeod et al., 2018). These and other measures could enable a broader representation and participation in adaptation processes despite cultural constraints (Table 15.7 on Enabling Conditions).

15.8 Research Gaps

Table 15.8 |  Research gaps in small islands.