Abstract
Although the development and implementation of a global greenhouse gas reduction regime has dominated policy debates even before the advent of the Kyoto Protocol (and remains a critical element of effective mitigation), communities in developing countries do not have direct control of critical sources of emissions or are not fully aware of the scale at which the potentially catastrophic impacts of climate change will play out. This paper has undertaken a revision of scientific literature on climate change issues and has introduced the concept of response capacity, its links to adaptive and mitigative capacity, as well as action or behaviour change in response to climate change. As this paper shows, communities face a unique set of challenges as they navigate through the uncertain future presented by climate change. Even so, communities bring to the task of climate change adaptation and mitigation a unique set of tools and proficiencies that are often absent at the national and international levels. The paper investigates the complex relationship between capacity and action in response to global climate change, which represents a significant gap in the climate change literature and influences the ability of climate policies to build effective mitigation and adaptation strategies. It is the one aim of this paper to present some of the means via which communities might more effectively employ the various forms of capacity they possess to rise to the challenge presented by climate change.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Adger NW, Brooks N, Kelly M, Bentham S, Eriksen S (2004) New indicators of vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Technical Report 7. Tyndall centre for climate change resource
Beg N, Morlot JC, Davidson O et al (2002) Linkages between climate change and sustainable development. Clim Policy 2:129
Berkes F, Colding J, Folke C (2000a) Rediscovery of traditional ecological knowledge as adaptive management. Ecol Appl 10:1251–1262
Berkes F, Folke C, Colding J (2000b) Linking social and ecological systems: management practices and social mechanisms for building resilience. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Betsill M (2001) Mitigating climate change in US cities: opportunities and obstacles. Local Environ 6:393–406
Brooks N, Adger WN, Kelly PM (2005) The determinants of vulnerability and adaptive capacity at the national level and the implications for adaptation. Global Environ Change 15:151–163
Bullard R (1994) Decision making. Environ 36:11–20, 39–44
CIA [homepage on the Internet]. CIA World Factbook; c (2004). Available from http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/
Cohen S, Demeritt D, Robinson J, Rothman D (1998) Climate change and sustainable development: towards dialogue. Global Environ Change 8:341–371
Dang HH, Michaelowa A, Tuan DD (2003) Synergy of adaptation and mitigation strategies in the context of sustainable development: the case of Vietnam. Climate Policy 3(1):81–96
Dietz T, Stern PC, Guagnano G (1998) Social structure and social psychological bases of environmental concern. Environ Behav 30:450–471
Folke C, Carpenter S, Elmqvist T, Gunderson L, Holling C, Walker B (2002) Resilience and sustainable development: building adaptive capacity in a world of transformations. Ambio 31:437–440
Grothmann T, Patt A (2005) Adaptive capacity and human cognition: the process of individual adaptation to climate change. Global Environ Change 15:199–213
Haddad B (2005) Ranking the adaptive capacity of nations to climate change when socio-political goals are explicit. Global Environ Change 15:165–176
Hawley AH (1986) Human ecology: a theoretical essay. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Holling CS (1978) Adaptive environmental assessment and management. Wiley, New York
Holling CS (1986) The resilience of terrestrial ecosystems: local surprise and global change. In: Clark W, Munn R (eds) Sustainable development of the biosphere. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 292–317
IPCC. Climate Change (2001) Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of working group II to the third assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York
Irwin A (1995) Citizen science. Routledge, New York
Irwin A, Wynne B (1996) Misunderstanding science? The public reconstruction of science. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Jasanoff S, Wynne B (1998). Science and decisionmaking. In: Rayner S, Malone E (eds) Human choice and climate change. 1. The societal framework. Batelle Press Ltd., Columbus, Ohio, pp 1–87
Jones RN, Dettmann P, Park G, Rogers M, White T (2007) The relationship between adaptation and mitigation in managing climate risks: a regional response from North Central Victoria, Australia. Mitig Adapt Strat Glob Change 12:685–712
Kahneman D, Frederick S (2002) Representativeness revisited: attribute substitution in intuitive judgement. In: Gilovich T, Griffin D, Kahneman D (eds) Heuristics and biases: the psychology of intuitive judgment. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp 49–81
Kempton W (1997) How the public views climate change. Environment 39:13–21
Kollmuss A, Agyeman M (2002) Mind the gap: Why do people act environmentally, and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behaviour? Environ Educ Res 3:239–260
Lowe T, Brown K, Dessai S, de França Doria M, Haynes K, Vincent K (2006) Does tomorrow ever come? Disaster narrative and public perceptions of climate change. Public Underst Sci 15:435–457
Moss R, Brenkert AL, Malone EL (2001) Vulnerability to climate change: a quantitative approach. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Olowa OW (2003) Global warming: implications for freshwater and marine fish supply in Nigeria. Afr J Vocat Educ 4(1):5–6
Robinson J, Bradley M, Busby P et al (2006) Climate change and sustainable development: realizing the opportunity. Ambio 35:2–8
Satterfield T, Mertz C, Slovic P (2004) Discrimination, vulnerability, and justice in the face of risk. Risk Anal 24:115–129
Slovic P (1992) Perceptions of risk: reflections on the psychometric paradigm. In: Krimsky S, Golding D (eds) Social theories of risk. Praeger, New York, pp 117–152
Slovic P, Finucane ML, Peters E, MacGregor DG (2002) The affect heuristic. In: Gilovich T, Griffin D, Kahneman D (eds) Heuristics and biases: the psychology of intuitive judgement. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp 397–420
Smit B, Pilifosova O, Burton I et al (2001) Adaptation to climate change in the context of sustainable development and equity. In: Mccarthy J, Canziani O, Leary N et al (eds) Climate change 2001: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Stern PC (2000) Towards a coherent theory of environmentally significant behaviour. J Soc Issues 56:407–424
Swart R, Robinson J, Cohen S (2003) Climate change and sustainable development: expanding the options. Climate policy. Special issue on climate change and sustainable development 3:19–40
Tompkins E, Adger WN (2005) Defining response capacity to enhance climate change policy. Environ Sci Pol 8:562–571
UNFCCC [homepage on the Internet]. Key greenhouse gas emissions data; c2005. Available from http://unfccc.int/ghg_data/items/3800.php
Wilbanks T, Kates RW (1999) Global change in local places: how scale matters. Clim Change 43:601–628
Wilbanks T, Sathaye J (2007) Integrating mitigation and adaptation as responses to climate change. Mitig Adapt Strat Glob Change 12:957–962
Wilbanks T, Leiby P, Perlack RD, Ensminger JT, Wright SB (2007) Toward an integrated analysis of mitigation and adaptation: some preliminary findings. Mitig Adapt Strat Glob Change 12:713–725
Winkler H, Baumert K, Blanchard O, Burch S, Robinson J (2007) What factors influence mitigative capacity? Energ Policy 35:692–703
Wynne B (1992) Misunderstood misunderstanding: Social identities and public uptake of science. Public Underst Sci 1:281–304
Yohe G, Strzepek K (2007) Adaptation and mitigation as complementary tools for reducing the risk of climate impacts. Mitig Adapt Strat Glob Change 12:727–739
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Olowa, O.W., Olowa, O.A., Leal Filho, W. (2011). Links Between Capacity and Action in Response to Global Climate Change: A Climate Response Shift at the Local Level. In: Leal Filho, W. (eds) Experiences of Climate Change Adaptation in Africa. Climate Change Management. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22315-0_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22315-0_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-22314-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-22315-0
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)