Limits to Adaptation

We aim to organize a collaborative and targeted research group that explores limits to climate change adaptation. While adaption is typically deemed desirable and possible, new evidence suggests that there may be significant barriers and limits to what is practically feasible, fair, and sustainable.

Researchers will investigate opportunities for and limits to adaptation in poor and rural areas in South Africa and Australia, from three angles: agronomic, institutional, and procedural justice. We propose a 5-month preparatory learning exchange between the partners, one workshop at PSU, and a collaborative course for scrutinizing key challenges, barriers, and limits in selected case study regions.

Our aim is to integrate knowledge from earth system science, social sciences, and the humanities, which we expect to culminate in larger collaborative research.

Our key questions are:

a) What are the opportunities for agricultural adaptive strategies in South Africa and Australia, to respond to changing climates and climatic extremes (floods, droughts)? How can agricultural science help in this process? Where are the limits for modifying genotypes? When may farmers have to shift to different crops or cropping systems? Where may be the limits for rain-fed agriculture, requiring system transformation rather than just adjustments?

b) What are the institutional and regular barriers to adaptation? How is information shared between organizations (NGOs, government, researchers, ag. extension, policy makers)? How important are translation, learning platforms, and competition for the diffusion of knowledge and adoption? Who is reached through functional and dysfunctional institutional channels?

c) How do adaptation programs obscure the very drivers that create and perpetuate poverty/inequality/vulnerability? Who are the communities and households that are not included or that choose not to adopt certain agronomic practices? Who loses? Is there elite capture that further widens gaps of inequality? How does selective adaptation relate to social protection programs for the poorest?