BOOKS & ARTS An issue of equity Gary Yohe The world’s most vulnerable must be prioritized in adapting to climate change. FAIRNESS IN ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE Edited by W. Neil Adger, Jouni Paavola, Saleemul Huq and M. J. Mace MIT Press: 2006. 319 pp. £16.95 It is well recognized that vulnerability to the world where the richest developed countries productivity, and water scarcity would aff ect impacts of climate change is unequal: the like the United States and the fasting growing an additional 1.6 billion people in Asia and planet’s poorest face the widest assortment emerging economies like China and India Africa. Th ese are risks that defy meaningful of climate-related stresses and have the emit the largest proportion of greenhouse economic quantifi cation, and they fall in fewest tools to cope with them. In Asia, gases and developing nations suff er the places where most of the world’s poor reside. for example, 2.5 billion people live in rural largest proportion of negative impacts. Th e Two bookend chapters were craft ed by areas on incomes of less than one dollar Convention asserts that this is, quite simply, the editors to tie these themes together with per day. Th ey typically do not have access not fair, and so countries that have signed the more than the usual signpost descriptions to sanitation, are vulnerable to disease and, Convention have committed themselves to of who said what. Th e intervening chapters coupled with illiteracy, poverty undermines remedying the situation. ask “So what?”, and the somewhat academic their ability to pursue sustainable practices. Several fundamental themes run discourse of the early chapters is brought to Th e disaster-prone and ecologically through the entire collection, which is life in case studies from Bangladesh, Tanzania, fragile nature of their environment essentially a rigorous scholarly assessment Botswana, Namibia, Hungary and Vari. makes it unproductive, further increasing of the role of equity in understanding Th e editors themselves then bravely their exposure to climate risks. Similar adaptation. Th e fi rst relates vulnerability tackle the more diffi cult question of “What demographics across Africa result in extreme to the social and environmental processes do we do about it?”. Th ey argue that avoiding exposure to the various manifestations of that limit the ability of systems to cope with dangerous climate change is the minimum climate change that intensifi es the pain of a climate-related stresses. Vulnerability is moral responsibility of the planet’s most vicious cycle of land degradation, polluted thereby appropriately and integrally related privileged decision-makers, but they also river catchments, desertifi cation and to the wider political economy within which highlight that this is not simply a developed– diminished ecosystem services. it is located. Th e second theme argues developing country problem. Some of the In an eff ort to explore what we know that uncertainty (born of either imprecise world’s most vulnerable people live in places about the plight of the world’s most understanding of climate change and socio- like Darfur, but others are citizens of the vulnerable, Fairness in Adaptation to Climate political-economic systems or confl icting wealthiest societies the planet has ever seen, Change brings together an extraordinary norms of justice) is never a reason not to in places like New Orleans. Th ey argue collection of scholarly essays that focus on act. Some participants in the climate policy correctly that allowing dangerous impacts the role of equity and fairness in supporting debate have used uncertainty to do just that; would exacerbate inequity and other social the capacity of human systems to adapt to but this book provides more evidence that problems everywhere, but they conclude climate change. It is a succinct presentation they are, quite simply, wrong in doing so. optimistically that making progress towards of the obvious — that access to resources A third holds that vulnerability must be reducing inequity across the globe and is an essential prerequisite for adapting to measured using multiple “numeraires” or within individual communities could be any external stress — but it is also a careful metrics. Here the essays are on the frontier good “climate policy”. discussion of the more subtle — that the of the academic discourse on impacts. To support their optimism, they off er capacity to adapt and equity are related Although many impacts can be expressed a productive approach to adaptation, through intricate webs of social, cultural, purely in economic terms, in other cases, arguing persuasively for making the political and economic connections. Th ese diff erent yardsticks must be recognized. For most vulnerable (wherever they live) are prerequisites for eff ective adaptation example, the Fourth Assessment Report the top priority in designing adaptation that the world’s poor are, for all intents and of the Intergovenmental Panel on Climate programs. All themes identifi ed in the book purposes, currently denied. Change makes no attempt to convert some can be found in the UNFCCC. All that Because context can vary signifi cantly of its major conclusions into economic remains is to weave them into meaningful from place to place, society to society and measures. An additional 1 °C of warming implementation — the incredibly diffi cult time to time, however, it is extremely diffi cult would increase the number of people facing task of asking the Parties of the UNFCCC to tell an inclusive story about how equity and water scarcity by up to 1.2 billion additional to keep to their word. fairness should enter development plans and, people in Asia and 250 million in Africa perhaps more importantly, negotiations under and would cause as much as a 5% decline Gary Yohe is Woodhouse/Sysco Professor the United Nations Framework Convention in wheat and maize productivity in India. of Economics at Wesleyan University, on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Equity issues Another degree of warming would cause Connecticut, USA. are not foreign to the UNFCCC. We live in a China to experience a 12% decline in rice e-mail: [email protected] nature reports climate change | VOL 5 | OCTOBER 2007 | www.nature.com/reports/climatechange 71 BOOKS & ARTS Powerful position Chris Goodall At its root, climate change is not a scientifi c or technical problem, but an issue of the use of power. SURVIVING THE CENTURY: FACING CLIMATE CHAOS AND OTHER GLOBAL CHALLENGES Edited by Herbert Girardet Earthscan: 2007. 208 pp. £17.99 A decade ago many involved in climate environmental or economic disasters. It is nevertheless worth pointing out that issues hoped it was a problem that the Large companies, the theory goes, are the world’s fi rst eco-city, in Dongtan, East world would fi nd relatively easy to threatened by actions to reduce emissions. Asia still has an ecological footprint larger conquer; the causes would be identifi ed Th e oil and gas industry will suff er if than can be sustained, and is but one of a and mechanisms devised to reduce the world moves to renewable energy. huge number of new urban centres rising carbon emissions. With proper direction Monsanto’s profi ts will fall if we switch across China. from a mixture of careful subsidies for from industrial agriculture back to low- Of the eight excellent essays in this low-carbon technologies and increased input farming methods. Th e Brazilian book, I think the one that should most pollution taxes, the free market would government will lose elections if it resists attract our attention is Paul Bunyan’s work eventually rein in our burgeoning attempts to turn more of the rainforest on the Amazon rainforest. Even those greenhouse-gas emissions. But it hasn’t into soy farms and cattle ranches. Freely who know little about global warming are turned out this way. Hopes of a strong operating markets, the book says, do becoming dimly aware of the role of this and coordinated international approach not solve diffi cult problems. Markets enormous area on the world’s climate. have all but disappeared as most countries concentrate power, rather than dispersing International treaties, including Kyoto, will fail to meet even the limited demands it, with the result that the success of global have failed to recognize the importance for emissions reductions imposed by the capitalism over the last twenty years has of tropical forests both as carbon sinks Kyoto Protocol. produced an elite of immense power and as stabilizers of our weather systems. Herbert Girardet’s new book and wealth. Aggressive action on climate Th e maintenance of the forest depends Surviving the Century: Facing Climate change threatens this power, and is being on high rainfall, which largely comes Chaos and Other Global Challenges resisted at every turn. Th e core thesis of from the evapotranspiration of rainfall brings together an eclectic mix of the the book, highlighted by Frances Moore elsewhere in the forest. Deforestation may initial optimists, from campaigning US Lappé’s analysis of the intertwining of cause diminished rainfall and eventual journalist Ross Gelbspan to the German democracy with free market economics, is disruption of the Hadley cell circulation, renewable energy pioneer Hermann that many of the world’s most intractable changing the world’s climate system Scheer. Containing a restrained but problems are only solvable if we reduce in potentially catastrophic ways. And deeply felt passion, this book combines the power of the global elite, whose deforestation is, to reprise the core theme wisdom with an intense idealism about infl uence is holding back any attempt to of this book, carried out “by just a handful how mankind can make the radical restructure the world’s economic system. of Brazilians” eager to use the land for soy changes necessary to deal with the issues But, rather than being merely a and cattle.