a values-based approach to adaptation: insights from the ......a values-based approach to...

A Values-Based Approach to Adaptation: Insights from the PLAN Project

Karen O’Brien

Department of Sociology and Human Geography

University of Oslo, Norway

Adaptation to climate change • Adaptation is not just a ”list” of activities – it is a social

process;

• It takes place through actions that reduce vulnerability (or enhance resilience) in response to observed or expected changes in climate and climate variability;

• Influenced by exterior, objective factors (systems and behaviors), and also by interior, subjective factors (culture, values, beliefs);

• Adaptation is already taking place, but seldom in response to climate change alone;

• Not all adaptations are sustainable, and some may increase the vulnerability of others, and of future generations.

PLAN: Overarching research questions

• How do social processes influence the

capacity to adapt to climate change?

• What are the limits to adaptation as a response to changing climate conditions?

• What are the implications of these limits

for human security?

1. Contexts for Climate Change Adaptation in Norway

2.The Process of Local Adaptation

3. New Public Management Reforms and the Energy Sector

4. Urban Planning and Waterfront Development

5. The Limits to Adaptation as a Social Process

6. An Innovative Geographic Information System (GIS)

Adaptation

• Responses to climate change impacts depend on what the effects of climate change mean to those affected.

• What is considered as effective and legitimate adaptation depends on what people perceive to be worth preserving and achieving.

• How to adapt to climate change therefore hinges on the values underlying people’s perspectives on what the goals of adaptation should be.

Values-Based Approach

• Acknowledging that people see the world differently and may prioritize different values makes it clear that climate change cannot be assessed, interpreted, and responded to in one particular way.


• A focus on values and worldviews draws attention to the possibility that efforts to satisfy one group’s values through climate policies and responses can create conflicts with the values of other groups.


• Values and worldviews change over time, and this suggests that present-day actions or inactions may be seen and judged quite differently by future generations.


• Climate change itself is a challenge to worldviews and belief systems, which may in turn lead to value changes. Climate change is likely to become increasingly visible and evident in the coming decades, and it is likely that generations growing up in years ahead will have a very different understanding of human–environment relationships.

Values and Worldviews

• What types of values and worldviews are represented within our study, and among the population in Norway?

• How do these different worldviews influence attitudes towards adaptation, and prioritized strategies?

• Where might we expect to find value conflicts in adapting to climate change?

Values and Worldviews • Worldviews describe the

basic assumptions and beliefs that influence people’s perceptions of the world, their behavior, and their decision-making criteria;

• People’s conscious beliefs about the world are closely linked to value priorities

• Traditional, modern and postmodern worldviews are most dominant in the world today.

Values in Norway

• Traditional: rural areas, nature, family

• Modern: individualism, economic development, material wealth, technology, scientific progress

• Post-modern: Rejection of social hierarchies, promotion of equity across gender and class, and between rural and urban areas.

Snow cover changes in Norway

• Winter temperature increases of 2.5 – 4oC by 2100;

• More winter precipitation in eastern Norway;

• 40% decrease in number of days with suitable skiing conditions by 2050 (compared to 1981-

1999 period)

Traditional values

• Snow cover is important to local and national identity

• Prioritized adaptations might preserve cultural heritage, traditional sectors, local knowledge;

• Challenge: to transform livelihoods and maintain identity

Modern values

• Snow cover as a medium for winter sports (an important economic sector)

• Prioritized adaptations might focus on snow-making technologies, indoor snow domes, artificially cooled ski tracks; new sports.

• Challenge: reconstruct or reinvent identity (identify new or niche markets)

Post-modern values • Snow cover as a

component of ecosystem integrity; distant impacts of climate change also a concern

• Prioritized adaptations might focus on adaptive management, building resilience, promoting sustainability.

• Challenge: promote mitigation as a form of adaptation

Example 1: Measuring values: Q methodology

• Systematic analysis of attitudes towards and views about a topic; origin: psychology (Stephenson

1953), political science (Brown 1980)

• Hybrid mixed method: qualitative-quantitative • Uses forced-choice ranking of set of

statements (or images) on a Likert-type scale • Uses correlation, factor analysis and rotation

to produce typified response sets to the topic in question

Outcome: Factors that represent the types of attitudes (values and worldviews) held by the participants on the topic.

How does it work?

• Assembly of statements that represent the ‘concourse’ on a topic – all possible attitudes and views; sourced from – Interviews

– Literature

– Public media

• Participant is instructed to rank statements into a forced-choice grid – Prioritising of strongly agree/disagree statements

– Statements eliciting indifference form the middle ground

An example grid – 32 statements

-3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3

I disagree I agree

Examples:

Attitudes towards climate change in Norway • “Klimaendringer er ikke en trussel mot

menneskeheten.” • “Jeg stoler på at mydighetene tar ansvar for

vår felles framtid.” • “Det er ingen ting man kan gjøre og derfor

velger jeg å ikke bekymre meg.” • “Jeg tror klimautfordringene er langt større

enn vi klarer å fatte.” • “Andre land kan komme til å merke alvorlige

klimakonsekvenser – ikke Norge.”

• Can climate change responses take into account a range of values that correspond to diverse human human needs and multiple perspectives and worldviews?

• Can climate change responses take into account a range of values that correspond to diverse human needs and multiple perspectives and worldviews?

• Whose values count?

Example 2: Integral Adaptation Tools

Believing is seeing

UL: Individual & Subjective

(feelings, emotions, worldviews, etc)

Individual mindset

Behaviour

Culture Systems

Indiv

idual

Colle

ctive

Subjective Objective

Experience

Behaviour

Culture Systems

Indiv

idual

Colle

ctive


Interviews with people that live or

work in vulnerable areas about their

thoughts, feelings, emotions

Map Legend:

UL: Individual & Subjective

(feelings, emotions, worldviews, etc)

Individual mindsets

Psychological Dynamics

Emotions & Reactivity

Denial, Fear,

Confusion

Moral Awareness

GIS What I experience

Interviews with people that live or



Map Legend: Map Media: Interviews with people that live or



Sense of agency

Experience Behaviour

Culture Systems

Ind

ivid

ua

l C

olle

ctive


LL: Collective & Subjective

(shared feelings, customs, relationships)

Shared values and visions


Systems

Ind

ivid

ua

l C

olle

ctive


Map Legend:

Cultural heritage Bryggen,




Map Legend:

Cultural heritage Bryggen,





Systems

Indiv

idual Subjective Objective

Map Media:

http://www.stiftelsenbryggen.no/

GIS What we experience

Worldviews

Ethics & Justice

Naysayers

& Yeasayers

Religion

http://www.stiftelsenbryggen.no/

LR: Collective & Objective

(soc syst, politics, resource management)

Shared actions and structure


Culture Systems

Ind

ivid

ual

Colle

ctive






Culture

Ind

ivid

ual

Colle

ctive


Map Legend:

Areas vulnerable to SLR

Map Legend:

Areas vulnerable to SLR





Culture

Indiv

idual

Colle

ctive


GIS What we do

Ecological Analysis

Scientific Funding

International Dynamics

Map Media:

http://plan.uib.no

Urban Planning

http://plan.uib.no/


Culture Systems

Indiv

idual

Colle

ctive


UR: Individual & Objective

(objective reality; biological features)

Individual Actions



Individual Actions

Map Legend:

Vulnerable Buildings,

Experience

Culture Systems

Indiv

idual

Colle

ctive


Experience

Culture Systems

Ind

ivid

ua

l C

olle

ctive




Individual Actions

GIS What I do

Behavioural Changes

Physiological Impacts

Fossil Fuel

&

Energy Use

Biodiversity Issues

Map Legend:

Vulnerable Buildings,

Map Media:

Information about behavioral

changes in response to changes in

market and insurances

Result: An ”Integral

GIS” to assist in

adaptation decision-

making

Emerging Lessons from PLAN

• Communication

• Values and interests of key actors

• Cultural change

• Visioning the future

• Leadership

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