What Contributes to Climate Change Adaptive Capacity? A Retrospective Case Study in a Caribbean Small Island Community

Abstract

Climate change has been argued to be the single largest threat to human society and will be especially pronounced in Caribbean Small Island Developing States. Adaptive capacity—defined in the context of this chapter as the ability to design, develop and implement successful strategies that address climate change impacts—is dependent on a range of socio-political factors that dynamically interact and operate at different scales. While adaptive capacity is central to the theoretical foundations of climate change adaptation research, very few studies have attempted to understand how these different factors facilitate or hinder the ability of a community to successfully implement adaptation strategies. This chapter presents a preliminary analysis of how certain social, institutional, political and economic factors interact to facilitate and enhance adaptive capacity in a Caribbean small island community. The study also assesses the different perceptions surrounding the concept of “successful” climate change adaptation. The community of Paget Farm on the island of Bequia in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has been chosen as a case study since it has both demonstrated high adaptive capacity and increased its adaptive capacity to future climate-related threats by having access to freshwater from the Caribbean region’s first carbon–neutral desalination plant.