Legal Approaches To Climate Change Adaptation

Global climate change presents serious threats that will affect both human system and natural system in the world. And the most vulnerable or the already-vulnerable population will suffer most. As necessary legal response to cope with climate change, climate change law has emerged as a new and developing legal system particularly since United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Under climate change legal system, there are two distinct but related basic ways to prevent and reduce climate change effects, or climate change damage in legal sense. One is mitigation by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, and the other is adaptation by reducing vulnerability or improving adaptive capacity to climate change. Comparatively speaking, although adaptation has recently featured very high on the international or national climate change law-making agendas, adaptation is less developed and researched than mitigation as a coping strategy. As a direct way to prevent and reduce climate change damage, adaptation is especially important for those main victims who are suffering most from the real or expected climate change impacts. This thesis focuses on adaptation issues and analysis of the legal approaches to facilitate further climate change adaptation. And its structure is as follows:Chapter I examines the concepts of adaptation and the meaning of climate change adaptation as a legal term. Adaptation is one of the most commonly used concepts that applys to many disciplines in different areas with varied and sometimes equivocal meanings. Yet in spite of this, the adaptation theory in modern biology obviously lays the foundation for the widely accepted term of adaptation. Besides biological adaptation originating from biological theory, cultural adaptation particularly developed by anthropology is also the fundamental construct for the adaptation theory as far as human beings are concerned. Thus far, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has provided a very broad, comprehensive and widely accepted definition of climate change adaptation, or briefly called adaptation in the context of dealing with global climate change. Under a legal framework for adaptation action, adaptation shall be directly related to prevent and reduce climate change damage through necessary, possible legal adjustment and regulation of human behavior, social process and structure, which helps establish and improve adaptability for those vulnerable to the effects of climate change.Chapterâ…¡introduces the related international climate change negotiating process leading to the formulation of multilateral adaptation legal framework, as well as some regional and national climate change law-making activities catalyzed by the international climate change regime and international climate negotiation. Overall speaking, climate change adaptation has been an indispensable internal part of climate change legal system and multi-level climate change governance. The international community adopted the UNFCCC in 1992 as a legal policy framework to address anthropogenic global climate change. But the UNFCCC, emerging initially as an international mitigation arrangement agreement, paid only little attention to adaptation policy and strategy. It is not until 2001 Marrakesh Accords under the UNFCCC that adaptation policy has been appropriately placed on equal footing with mitigation. Under the influence of UNFCCC and international mandatory GHGs emissions reduction arrangement for developed countries by Kyoto Protocol, the last few years have also seen the emergence of climate change law as a new legal discipline in some developed region and nations. Although the focus is usually on GHGs control or how to fulfill GHGs emissions reduction commitments, those new climate change acts or bills have, to some extent, shown the trend of the development of an integrated mitigation and adaptation strategy so as to enable a comprehensive legal framework for regional or national climate change damage minimization.Chapterâ…¢gives an insight into the functional role of adaptation under climate change regime and the reality that adaptation policy development and resources supply is significantly lagging behind the urgent and immediate adaptation needs from the most vulnerable. Climate change damage tends to distribute unevenly and unequally. And the most vulnerable with low adaptive capacity due to geographic, economical, social, cultural, institutional or other reasons face the severest challenge of adaptation to climate change. If priority adaptation measures are unlikely to reach and benefit them timely and substantively, the effectiveness of legal responses aimed at reducing climate change damage comes under doubt. Some scholars have reviewed such theories as social capital, collection action and social solidarity to inform effective adaptation actions. Pubic and private actors at various scales should all be involved in the dynamic social process of adaptation through a victim-centered approach in order to facilitate solidarity support for effective adaptation.Chapter IV looks into the human rights dimensions of climate change adaptation in theory and practice. In the last few years, growing attentions have been paid to the human rights implications of climate change effects and damages in the international climate change community. It has been stressed that climate change effects pose severe threats to a broad range of universally recognized human rights, especially as far as those most vulnerable and those main victims of climate change are concerned. The right-based approach is important to inform, deepen and strengthen adaptation actions, to empower the vulnerable, and to bringing those main victims of climate change into focus at international and national levels. In fact, the right-based perspective has inspired the real and potential suffers of climate change damage to seek possible litigation approach, which may promote the national and international actions to prevent and reduce climate change damage including adaptation assistance and damage relief.Chapter V reviews the basic institutional value of climate change adaptation regime from the perspectives of security and fairness. In modern society, the concept of security has gone beyond its traditional concern with security from external military threats and is giving high priority to other human or ecological issues such as climate change effects. Climate change adaptation action, aimed at directly prevent and reduce climate change damage, implies the particular purpose of removing severe threats to human security and all life on earth. A security-based approach is important in assessment of the urgently required minimal level of climate change adaptation action and other coping strategies. The climate ethics or justice has called for fair adaptation to climate change. As has been pointed by the IPCC, equity or fairness also affects social adaptive capacity. In order to facilitate fair adaptation, climate change adaptation regime should prioritize adaptation assistance for the most vulnerable, pursue sustainable ways to adaptation and encourage fair and active participation from relevant stakeholders, especially those suffering most, in the dynamic adaptation process.Chapter VI concentrates on the social-based approach to facilitating adaptation through mechanisms of climate change funds and insurances, which may help socialize adaptation costs and climate change damage risks to the extent that urgent adaptation actions can be funded and catastrophic damage can be relieved timely and effectively. Climate change funds have somehow developed both at international and national levels. The estimated scale of financing needed is significant while the current climate change funds still lag too far behind. Additional international and domestic financing sources should be explored including mandatory funding stream for adaptation funding. With respect to the distribution of climate change funds, the vulnerable should be positively involved and the funds should be spent to meet their real needs. Insurance is deemed as one of the measures to facilitate adequate adaptation under the initial guidance from the Conference of the Parties on adaptation (Decision 11/CP.1). But to date there is little agreement on the role of insurance-related mechanism in adaptation assistance process from the climate negotiation. Some types of insurance have been developed to transfer climate change damage risk in several countries usually through public and private partnerships. Public insurance is one of feasible options for climate change damage relief and adaptation assistance to those vulnerable.