Inserting Ethics into Deliberation on Adaptation and Resilience Policy
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Warwick
Department Name: Politics and International Studies
Abstract
This follow-up project aims to integrate into adaptation and resilience policy-making some of the lessons gained through the Why We Disagree About Development (WhyDAR) research project (NE/P01609X/1). WhyDAR aimed to identify different ways in which urban resilience is understood while investigating the role of science, technology, ethics and expertise in the making of resilience strategies in the Global South. It drew out key ethical questions arising from disagreement about conceptions to resilience, and asked what an equitable approach to resilience would look like in the face of this disagreement.
Aiming to integrate these lessons into real-life adaptation and resilience policy, this project will work together with the climate adaptation team at the municipal level in Cape Town, South Africa (upper middle income). South Africa is likely to experience - and, in some cases, have already experienced - the negative effects of climate change, such as droughts and floodings. Unfortunately, access to resilient infrastructures, including housing, health care, and food chains, and representative institutions is highly unequal, inequitable, and inadequate within South Africa. Consequently, especially the poorest and most vulnerable community members are often left out and underrepresented within resilience and adaptation strategies, threatening their lives, health, food security, livelihoods, well-being, and access to crucial services, such as water and energy supply. This situation raises ethical issues of how adaptation and resilience planning within the most climate vulnerable LMICs can become more equal, equitable, and representative of those who are most in need of inclusion, including taking into account the fact that different stakeholders have different conceptions of and aims for resilience.
Working together with the municipal climate adaptation team of Cape Town, the project will develop and implement three procedural methodologies for inserting ethical deliberations into adaptation and resilience planning and policy-making at the local and municipal level:
(i) Stakeholder dialogues bring together representatives of different affected groups, including policy-makers, city council members, service providers, NGOs, businesses, and not members of the local communities. Through dialogue, deliberators will be forced to take into account the interests of other groups, explain and provide justification for their own views.
(ii) Scenario building exercises will encourage deliberators to reflect on the ethical aspects of different resilience scenarios and how they may be resolved. In particular, we will try out an exercise in which the deliberators will be behind a 'veil of ignorance' when considering a scenario and will not know what identity they have within it. Only afterwards will their identities be revealed to them and they will then evaluate whether the solutions that they came up with behind the veil were really fair to all stakeholders.
(iii) Problem-oriented deliberations focus on solving particular, real-life resilience challenges. At different stages during the planning process, the planners will be asked to reflect, with the help of a trained ethicist, on the ethical implications of their plan.
The aims of these exercises will be to test different framework for inserting ethics into resilience planning in Cape Town; to draw lessons and best practices from that, which can be scaled up and implemented in similar LMIC contexts; to identify and co-produce knowledge about the ethical aspects of resilience planning; and to build capacity for taking into account ethics when deliberating on resilience within municipal and local institutions. The project will involve researchers at the University of Warwick and the University of Cape Town in collaboration with the City Climate Adaptation Team of Cape Town and the non-governmental organizations Practical Action and Christian Aid.
Aiming to integrate these lessons into real-life adaptation and resilience policy, this project will work together with the climate adaptation team at the municipal level in Cape Town, South Africa (upper middle income). South Africa is likely to experience - and, in some cases, have already experienced - the negative effects of climate change, such as droughts and floodings. Unfortunately, access to resilient infrastructures, including housing, health care, and food chains, and representative institutions is highly unequal, inequitable, and inadequate within South Africa. Consequently, especially the poorest and most vulnerable community members are often left out and underrepresented within resilience and adaptation strategies, threatening their lives, health, food security, livelihoods, well-being, and access to crucial services, such as water and energy supply. This situation raises ethical issues of how adaptation and resilience planning within the most climate vulnerable LMICs can become more equal, equitable, and representative of those who are most in need of inclusion, including taking into account the fact that different stakeholders have different conceptions of and aims for resilience.
Working together with the municipal climate adaptation team of Cape Town, the project will develop and implement three procedural methodologies for inserting ethical deliberations into adaptation and resilience planning and policy-making at the local and municipal level:
(i) Stakeholder dialogues bring together representatives of different affected groups, including policy-makers, city council members, service providers, NGOs, businesses, and not members of the local communities. Through dialogue, deliberators will be forced to take into account the interests of other groups, explain and provide justification for their own views.
(ii) Scenario building exercises will encourage deliberators to reflect on the ethical aspects of different resilience scenarios and how they may be resolved. In particular, we will try out an exercise in which the deliberators will be behind a 'veil of ignorance' when considering a scenario and will not know what identity they have within it. Only afterwards will their identities be revealed to them and they will then evaluate whether the solutions that they came up with behind the veil were really fair to all stakeholders.
(iii) Problem-oriented deliberations focus on solving particular, real-life resilience challenges. At different stages during the planning process, the planners will be asked to reflect, with the help of a trained ethicist, on the ethical implications of their plan.
The aims of these exercises will be to test different framework for inserting ethics into resilience planning in Cape Town; to draw lessons and best practices from that, which can be scaled up and implemented in similar LMIC contexts; to identify and co-produce knowledge about the ethical aspects of resilience planning; and to build capacity for taking into account ethics when deliberating on resilience within municipal and local institutions. The project will involve researchers at the University of Warwick and the University of Cape Town in collaboration with the City Climate Adaptation Team of Cape Town and the non-governmental organizations Practical Action and Christian Aid.
Planned Impact
The main beneficiaries of this project are the partner organizations, namely the municipal climate adaptation team of Cape Town, the Department for International Development, Practical Action, and Christian Aid, and the communities that they work with.
In recent years, Cape Town experienced the negative effects of climate change, including a drought from 2015 to 2018 that threatened the City's water, energy, and food supply and had wide-ranging impacts on the lives, livelihoods, and well-being of its inhabitants. The poorest and most vulnerable communities, especially those living in informal settlements, mainly felt these effects. This has primarily to do with unequal and inequitable access to resilient infrastructures and institutions and a lack of inclusion and representation within resilience and adaptation planning. How can the unequal impact of climate change on the poorest and most vulnerable communities be taken into account within adaptation and resilience planning?
This project will benefit both municipal climate adaptation team as well as vulnerable communities in Cape Town by enabling them to avoid unintended negative consequences downstream at the level of implementation by developing and implementing three procedural methodologies for inserting ethical deliberations upstream at the adaptation and resilience planning and policy-making levels. For example, while income inequalities are widely recognized, not taking into account inequalities in terms of gender and disability will further exacerbate inequalities in terms of access to infrastructures at the level of implementation.
In order to achieve these benefits, the project will work both directly with Cape Town's Climate Adaptation Team as well as with governmental and non-governmental organizations working resilience and adaptation efforts within LMICs, including Practical Action and Christian Aid.
Directly, the project will work with authorities and service provides on the municipal level in Cape Town, South Africa (upper middle income) These countries are likely to experience - and, in some cases, have already experienced - the negative effects of climate change. We will develop, implement, and test in practice frameworks, such as stakeholder dialogues, scenario building exercises, and problem-oriented deliberations, for inserting ethics concern into policy deliberations on adaptation and resilience in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) that will be tested in practical exercise with our partners in Cape Town. This process will result in a body of best deliberative practices that will be published as an open access report.
Indirectly, we will further use these lessons and best practices to build capacities within governmental and non-governmental development organizations in order to allow them to implement the lessons of the project within LMICs that are not directly involved in the project. In particular, we will UK Department for International Development as well as Practical Action and Christian Aid. These organizations have a wide reach and existing capacities for working within LMICs to advance adaptation and resilience efforts, promising the opportunity for the successful scaling up of and wider ranging implementation of the project.
In sum, we expect the potential impact of taking into account ethics within adaptation and resilience planning to lead to more equal and equitable infrastructures and institutions within LMICs, enabling them to withstand the most negative effects of climate change. The project has a clear pathway to influence adaptation and resilience planning at a small scale within three cases studies - namely, Cape Town (South Africa) - as well as a pathway to scaling up lessons learned within the three case studies through the leverage of existing collaborations with Practical Action and Christian Aid.
In recent years, Cape Town experienced the negative effects of climate change, including a drought from 2015 to 2018 that threatened the City's water, energy, and food supply and had wide-ranging impacts on the lives, livelihoods, and well-being of its inhabitants. The poorest and most vulnerable communities, especially those living in informal settlements, mainly felt these effects. This has primarily to do with unequal and inequitable access to resilient infrastructures and institutions and a lack of inclusion and representation within resilience and adaptation planning. How can the unequal impact of climate change on the poorest and most vulnerable communities be taken into account within adaptation and resilience planning?
This project will benefit both municipal climate adaptation team as well as vulnerable communities in Cape Town by enabling them to avoid unintended negative consequences downstream at the level of implementation by developing and implementing three procedural methodologies for inserting ethical deliberations upstream at the adaptation and resilience planning and policy-making levels. For example, while income inequalities are widely recognized, not taking into account inequalities in terms of gender and disability will further exacerbate inequalities in terms of access to infrastructures at the level of implementation.
In order to achieve these benefits, the project will work both directly with Cape Town's Climate Adaptation Team as well as with governmental and non-governmental organizations working resilience and adaptation efforts within LMICs, including Practical Action and Christian Aid.
Directly, the project will work with authorities and service provides on the municipal level in Cape Town, South Africa (upper middle income) These countries are likely to experience - and, in some cases, have already experienced - the negative effects of climate change. We will develop, implement, and test in practice frameworks, such as stakeholder dialogues, scenario building exercises, and problem-oriented deliberations, for inserting ethics concern into policy deliberations on adaptation and resilience in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) that will be tested in practical exercise with our partners in Cape Town. This process will result in a body of best deliberative practices that will be published as an open access report.
Indirectly, we will further use these lessons and best practices to build capacities within governmental and non-governmental development organizations in order to allow them to implement the lessons of the project within LMICs that are not directly involved in the project. In particular, we will UK Department for International Development as well as Practical Action and Christian Aid. These organizations have a wide reach and existing capacities for working within LMICs to advance adaptation and resilience efforts, promising the opportunity for the successful scaling up of and wider ranging implementation of the project.
In sum, we expect the potential impact of taking into account ethics within adaptation and resilience planning to lead to more equal and equitable infrastructures and institutions within LMICs, enabling them to withstand the most negative effects of climate change. The project has a clear pathway to influence adaptation and resilience planning at a small scale within three cases studies - namely, Cape Town (South Africa) - as well as a pathway to scaling up lessons learned within the three case studies through the leverage of existing collaborations with Practical Action and Christian Aid.
Publications
Byskov M
(2022)
Epistemic injustice in Climate Adaptation
in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice
Byskov M
(2022)
Who Should Represent Future Generations in Climate Planning?
in Ethics & International Affairs
Coggins S
(2021)
Empirical assessment of equity and justice in climate adaptation literature: a systematic map
in Environmental Research Letters
Ford JD
(2022)
Interactions between climate and COVID-19.
in The Lancet. Planetary health
Kunyanga C
(2023)
Perceptions of the Governance of the Technological Risks of Food Innovations for Addressing Food Security
in Sustainability
Oyebode O
(2021)
Introducing the Multi-Dimensional Injustice Framework: a case study in climate-related health risks
in Journal of the British Academy
Description | There are two main key findings from this project: First, ethical deliberation is essential to good policy and planning in that it can help identify and anticipate ethical issues that may arise from policy and planning and set out fair solutions to address these. Second, the project showed that it is valuable to build capacities among municipal officials to enable them deliberate ethically, including how to distinguish normative from descriptive statements; what are the main ethical theories and how can they be applied in practice; and how to include different stakeholders in the process and view an issue from different perspectives. |
Exploitation Route | We will be able to upscale the project in two ways: (i) The deliberative framework developed in collaboration with the Cape Town municipal team to identify and address ethical issues would be beneficial for assessing ethical issues in other contexts geographically as well as on different governmental level (local, municipal, national). (ii) The lectures and exercises on ethics and ethical deliberation in planning and policy that we have developed to build capacities for ethical deliberation will similarly be useful and valuable within other contexts. |
Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy Environment Government Democracy and Justice |
Description | The City of Cape Town have expressed a commitment in adopting as part of their work and training beyond the timeframe of this project the training sessions (lectures and exercises) and the deliberative framework developed in this project. |
First Year Of Impact | 2021 |
Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice |
Impact Types | Policy & public services |
Description | Enhanced skills of Cape Town's municipal climate team |
Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
Impact | The Cape Town municipal climate team has become more aware of ethical issues arising in their work and are better able to identify ethical issues and take them into account within municipal climate planning. This will ensure that municipal climate plans are more responsive to socioeconomic needs and circumstances. |
Description | Supporting Just Response and Recovery to COVID-19 in Informal Urban Settlements: Perspectives from Youth Groups in Sub-Saharan Africa |
Amount | £135,689 (GBP) |
Funding ID | AH/V006525/1 |
Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 11/2020 |
End | 10/2021 |
Description | City of Cape Town Authorities |
Organisation | City of Cape Town |
Country | South Africa |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | Worked with Directors at Cape Town city government to shape climate adaptation planning policy and to incorporate justice considerations across city government policymaking. Designed training course for use within city government. Our research included in Cape Town City Stakeholder Management Guidelines document, in city government project management courses, and in a draft position city government paper on a 'Just Transition for Cape Town'. |
Collaborator Contribution | Sharing of policy issues |
Impact | Ongoing collaboration around ethics and cliamte adaptation |
Start Year | 2020 |
Description | APA Eastern Environmental Philosophy Session |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Questions and discussion afterward |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Expert presenter (Morten Byskov) at the UKRI COP26 Adaptation and Resilience East Africa |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | The UKRI COP26 Adaptation and Resilience East Africa brought together researchers and policymakers in East Africa to discuss recent advancements in resilience and adaptation research. Dr. Byskov was an expert contributor as part of this event, presenting on "Climate-Related Health Risks in Urban Slums: Introducing the Multi-Dimensional Injustice Framework for Climate Adaptation Planning" |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ukri-towards-cop26/climate-adaptation-and... |
Description | Series of sessions with the Cape Town municipal climate team |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | We undertook a series of dialogues with the Cape Town municipal climate team. In this series, we gave lectures on different topics related to ethical deliberation on climate issues, including on introduction to ethics, ethical deliberation and philosophical methods, distributive justice, and procedural justice. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
Description | Talk at University of Manchester |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | Presentation on empathy and justice to academic researchers and postgraduate students |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | Talk for UK Consortium for Development Research |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Talk for UKCDR to policymakers and UKRI funders and academics on impact of research, questions and discussion |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |