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Volume 2
Environment Pollution and Climate Change
ISSN: 2573-458X
Climate Change 2018 &
Global ENVITOX 2018
October 04-06, 2018
Page 42
conference
series
.com
October 04-06, 2018
London, UK
16
th
Annual Meeting on
Environmental Toxicology and Biological Systems
&
5
th
World Conference on
Climate Change
JOINT EVENT
Carolyn (Tally) Palmer, Environ Pollut Climate Change 2018, Volume 2
DOI: 10.4172/2573-458X-C1-001
Too slow and too difficult? participatory governance as a lever for climate change adaptation
Statement of the Problem:
Interventions for development, sustainability, and/or climate change adaptation have a history of
ambiguous outcomes and outright failures. How can interventions, and especially those that involve government, research and
stakeholders, including local residents, result in sustainable outcomes that persist beyond the intervention, and move towards
climate change behavior-change in the practice of all participants?
Methodology & Theoretical Orientation:
The underpinning methodology is transdisciplinary (TD). Critical realism provides
a theoretical foundation for discerning causal mechanisms in complex systems using the full range of disciplinary enquiry. The
concept of complex social-ecological systems (CSES) provides a lens to forefront the role adaptation and feed-back. Expansive
learning provides the mechanisms to guide processes of co-learning and the co-development of knowledge. Strategic adaptive
management provides practical on-the-ground steps for stakeholders to participate in an adaptation process. The governance system
in each particular CSES provides the contextual possibility of a process that will persist. Participatory governance brings the vitality
and relevance of civil society. Eight case studies to probe the challenging question of whether painstaking on-the-ground trust–
building; activating participatory governance processes; and engaging in reflexive praxis, can catalyze change towards climate change
adaption, specifically focusing on water scarcity.
Conclusion & Significance:
The selected approach is slow, with many pitfalls. There are not many examples of unequivocal success.
However, we can demonstrate learning, begin to understand failure more deeply, and most importantly share “narratives of hope”.
Pace of progress and the difficulty of persevering. These “narratives of hope” are the landmarks to encourage perseverance until a
bigger body of evidence emerges and principles of practice are refined. We have enough examples of participatory governance being
a key lever for ongoing change towards climate change adaptation to suggest it is worth persevering. The approach is easy to criticize
– especially in terms of the pace of progress and the difficulty of persevering with these processes. These “narratives of hope” are the
landmarks to encourage perseverance until a bigger body of evidence emerges and principles of practice are refined.
Carolyn (Tally) Palmer
Rhodes University, South Africa