CLIMATECHANGE

In terms of support to climate change related policy, the team proposes to focus on the following, interrelated topics, which allow us to provide support both to country-specific development programming by Belgian actors, as well as more general strategic policy support.

The relationships between climate change and respectively conflict and migration, have been cause of concern for a long time. An increasing number of studies, including recent evidence reviews, make clear that this relationship is generally not straightforward and more complex than often assumed (Selby & Daoust 2021).

In terms of the climate-conflict nexus, the notion of climate change as a threat multiplier, rather than a cause for conflict has gained traction. However, as shown by case study research in the KLIMSEC PSR conducted by members in the proposed core team and consortium (Mudinga et al., forthcoming), such conceptualizations only make sense when properly contextualized. Given Belgium’s engagement in fragile and conflict affected settings, providing such grounded knowledge of how biophysical climate change effects interact with existing social and/or violent conflict dynamics in settings relevant for Belgian development actors, will be an important point of focus of the team.

When adaption interventions, but also ‘regular’ development interventions, produce adverse effects in terms of climate risk and/ or in terms of overall wellbeing and vulnerability of people in climate change affected settings, this can complicate existing forms of social friction, inequality and vulnerability (IPPC AR5; Jones e.a., 2015; Schipper, 2020) Both in relation to the climate-security nexus as the climate-migration nexus, recent studies point to clear evidence regarding the role of so-called maladaptation as a factor which can contribute to conflictuality and displacement in fragile and conflict-affected settings (Selby & Daoust 2021; Black et al. 2021). Making use of the recent scholarship on maladaptation (Gonda, 2016; Rao et al., 2019), we want to work towards increased awareness on how maladaptive outcomes can be detected early and avoided via well-informed, evidence-based programming.

The issue of loss and damage (L&D) is now at the forefront of climate policy debates. While conceptual and international-legal discussions around the other pillars of climate policy – mitigation and adaptation – are by now well advanced, this is less the case for L&D, and the issue has proven to be a contentious one across the global North/ Global South fault line within the UNFCCC. We understand L&D policy making essentially to be an environmental/ climate justice issue, and we aspire to produce insights which have the potential to inform how L&D policies and resources can be leveraged in ways which recognize and address multi-scalar inequalities caused by climate change. The team aspires to contribute to deepening policymakers’ understanding of how loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change affect particularly vulnerable developing countries. Taking a cue from calls to move the debate from the realm of international climate diplomacy to national level realities(Calliari & Vanhala 2022), we will conduct case studies in affected contexts, acknowledging the structural, social and political factors which aggravate realities of climate related L&D, and at the same time foregrounding community- based and indigenous perspectives on how both sudden and slow-onset climate impacts create irreparable and reparable damages, including non-economic loss and damage to cultures and lifestyles. In addition to this original research, via a literature review, we will provide a comprehensive overview of the state of the art on L&D, by untangling the different and evolving conceptualizations of L&D and their potential policy implications.

The topics addressed in these three working groups are based on our central hypothesis (we need more information on local and national level concerns, and tools adapted to both levels, to better intervene in partner countries). Therefore, these working groups focus on the need to understand local and national practices and rationalities as well as other structural factors to understand why sustainability practices are not yet widespread and what can be done to remedy this issue.