“Adaptation done well, cuts across all sectors” – Benjamin Sovacool
I attended a change lecture last week titled: When Climate Change Adaptation goes wrong: A case study for Bangladesh. The Lecture was presented by Prof Benjamin Sovacool from the University of Sussex. The lecture presented best options to adapt to climate change, taking into account the current options in Bangladesh.
Benjamin presented the four E’s approach from a study that they conducted – Bamboo Beating Bandit . The four E’s are: Enclosure, Exclusion, Encroachment, and Entrenchment, these are the processes that hinder adaptation efforts in Bangladesh. Enclosure is the process in which public assets are privatized; exclusion refers to limitations in access resources and participating in decision-making processes; encroachment refers to the damaging of natural resources such as biodiversity rich areas; and entrenchment is based on inequalities or efforts that lead to dis-empowerment of women or minorities.
The main insights from the lecture, were:
- That Adaptation is inter twinned with global pressures
- Often the villain is the local actor and that there is need to shift from the idea that the local actors are always in need
- The four E’s are interconnected
- That adaptation interventions can require their own future adaptation in a perpetual cycle- which suggests that often doing nothing could be the better solution
This lecture feeds into my research which looks at engagement of rural youth and the adaptions options employed to sustain their livelihoods. It was interesting to hear that often doing nothing could have been the better option, atleast in the case of Bangladesh