ABSTRACT
The term ‘sustainable adaptation’ has emerged with the realization that while adaptation to climate change will be increasingly required over the next decades, we know little about the wider or longer term impacts and implications of adaptation itself. To date there is no certainty that our responses to climate change are sustainable either socially or environmentally, nor how they are likely to contribute to human well-being and poverty alleviation. Previous studies have highlighted how climate change represents both a threat (Yohe et al., 2007) and an opportunity (Commission on Climate Change and Development, 2009) for sustainable development. Only recently have there been attempts to document and compare the experiences of both externally and internally initiated, planned and autonomous, adaptations and their impact in developing countries (McGray et al., 2007; Below et al., 2010; Mearns and Norton, 2010). From these and other studies, there is emerging evidence that many of our responses run counter to principles of sustainable development. This suggests that adaptation policies and interventions that focus on reducing specific climate sensitivities such as predicted changes in precipitation or hydrological regimes, can, even if benefiting some interests, at the same time adversely affect vulnerable groups and create social inequity, as well as unintentionally undermining environmental integrity (Barnett and O’Neill, 2010).
