Dealing with climate change on small islands: Toward effective and sustainable adaptation

Front matter

Dealing with climate change on small islands: Towards effective and sustainable adaptation?

Carola Kl6ck, Michael Fink (eds.)

Towards effective and sustainable adaptation?

Part I: Governing And Funding Long-term Adaptation

Failing adaptation in island contexts: The growing need for transformational change

Contrasting potential for nature-based solutions to enhance coastal protection services in atoll islands

Distributing scarce adaptation finance across SIDS: Effectiveness, not efficiency

Sustainable development and climate change adaptation: Goal interlinkages and the case of SIDS vi Table of contents

6 Adaptation planning in Caribbean Small Island Developing States: A literature review 123

Part Ii: Cultures, Perceptions, And Knowledges

7 Comparing perceptions of climate-related environmental changes for Tuvalu, Samoa, and Tonga 143

8 From apathy to agency: Exploring religious responses to climate change in the Pacific Island region 175 Hannah Fair 9 Climate change and livelihood practices in Vanuatu 195

10 Extreme weather events in Small Island Developing States: Barriers to climate change adaptation among coastal communities in a remote island of Fiji 217

Part Iii: Migration And (im-)mobility

11 Climate change displacement: Towards ontological security 251 Carol Farbotko 12 Moving to dangerous places 267

13 Adaptation and the question of migration: Directions in dealing with climate change in Kiribati 293

This book is truly a collective piece of work. It is the result of the collective efforts of many people, and we are truly grateful for the continuous support and fruitful exchange with the many colleagues and people that were involved in the book’s creation in one stage or another. We very much enjoyed working with everyone involved, and learnt a great deal in the process of making this volume.

The book has its origin in a symposium with the same title — “Dealing with Climate Change on Small Islands — Towards Effective and Sustainable Adaptation?”. The symposium brought together over 30 scholars and practitioners working in and on small islands across the world’s oceans. Over three days, we discussed the challenges and specificities, but also achievements and lessons learnt, of climate change adaptation in small island contexts. The symposium was held in Hannover, Germany, in July 2018, with financial and logistical support of the Volkswagen Foundation. We are grateful for the financial support from the Volkswagen Foundation that made the workshop — and hence the present volume — possible in the first place. In particular, we are indebted to Anke Harwardt-Feye for her invaluable help in organising the symposium. Hellena Debelts and Kerstin Gebhardt from the University of Göttingen also were essential to making the meeting a success. They managed all logistical and organisational aspects of the wotkshop. Last, but certainly not least, we would like to thank all workshop participants for the fruitful, intense and enjoyable discussions and exchange in Hannover —and for pushing us to publish the workshop contributions in an edited volume.

The contributions to this edited volume originated from presentations at the Hannover workshop, and then were written, re-written, revised and improved for publication. We would first like to thank the contributing authors, who were very patient and supportive over the past year, and who revised their chapters multiple times. We would also like to thank all reviewers who read and commented earlier versions of the chapters. Each chapter underwent a single-blind peer review proviii Acknowledgements cess, whereby two experts, including both workshop participants and external experts, provided an overall evaluation and helpful suggestions for improvement. Valuable suggestions for improvements also came from Caitlin Gordon- Walker, our copy editor. She read through the entire book and carefully edited each chapter for language, style and clarity. We are extremely grateful for her professional support. We would also like to acknowledge the financial resources provided by the Center for International Studies at Sciences Po Paris that allowed us to rely on a professional copy editor. Finally, the production team at Göttingen University Press and in particular Jutta Pabst accompanied the production of this book from an early stage and helped see the manuscript through to publication.

Paris and Gottingen, 15 October 2019 Carola Klock and Michael Fink

Contributing authors

Christian Baatz is assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy at Kiel University and postdoctoral researcher in the Cluster of Excellence “The Future Ocean’ where he leads a research project on how to fairly prioritize international adaptation finance. He is also working on a monograph on compensating climate change victims in developing countries. Beyond climate change, his research interests include moral, justice and human rights theory, environmental ethics as well as conceptions of sustainable development.

Hilary Bambrick is an environmental epidemiologist and bioanthropologist researching the health impacts of climate change, including adaptation at all scales from small communities to national systems. She has worked in Australia, the Pacific, Asia and Africa, and is a strong advocate for rapid transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy. She currently is Professor and Head of the School of Public Health and Social Work at Queensland University of Technology.

Katharina Beyerl is a psychologist with a focus on environmental psychology. She holds a PhD in geography from Humboldt Universitat zu Berlin (Germany), and has been working at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany since 2012. She studies perceptions of the socio-ecological crisis and coping strategies in order to support a transition to more sustainable lifestyles.

Michel Bourban is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in philosophy and environmental ethics at Kiel University. He is working on a project focusing on the allocation of adaptation finance in SIDS from a climate justice perspective. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Lausanne and from the University of Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV).

x Contributing authors

Virginie K.E. Duvat is professor of coastal geography at La Rochelle University, France. She has contributed as a Lead Author to the IPCC WGI Small Islands Chapter and is currently involved in ARO. Her research focuses on the drivers of environmental change, trajectories of vulnerability and adaptation in small islands.

Hannah Fair is a postdoctoral researcher in Anthropology at Brunel University (UK), and holds a PhD in Human Geography from University College London (UK). Her research has focused on religious and activist responses to climate change in the Pacific Island region and she currently researches wild conservation and interspecies compassion in the Anthropocene.

Carol Farbotko is a cultural geographer with research interests in climate change adaption, migration and the politics of climate risk. She holds a PhD from University of Tasmania and works as a Research Scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia. She also holds adjunct positions with University of Sunshine Coast, Griffith University and University of Mel bourne.

Michael Fink is a cultural geographer doing research on vulnerability and adaptation to climate change and natural hazards in the Pacific Islands region. He graduated from the University of Bonn (Germany) and holds a PhD from the University of Göttingen (Germany). He recently worked as a lecturer at the Unitversity of the South Pacific (Fiji) and at the University of Gottingen.

Ximena Flores-Palacios is a Bolivian independent researcher and development practitioner who has dedicated her professional career to development issues. She holds a PhD in Public Policy from the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, and has worked in senior positions for national and international organisations, including UN Agencies, such as FAO, IFAD, UNDP and ECLAC.

Elfriede Hermann is professor at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Göttingen. She has conducted research with the Ngaing of Papua New Guinea, the Banabans of Fiji, and the inhabitants of Kiribati. The foci of her research are emotions, identifications, belonging, historicity, ethnicity, migration, cultural transformations, social resilience and cultural perceptions of climate change.

Desirée Hetzel is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat in Munich, Germany. In 2015, she conducted fieldwork in Port Vila, Vanuatu, working with young climate change activists. Her current research, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), focuses on human-environment relations and climate change in Vanuatu.

Contributing Authors xi

Wolfgang Kempf, PhD, is currently a research fellow at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Göttingen. He has conducted field work among the Ngaing of Papua New Guinea, the Banabans of Fiji, and in Kiribati. His research interests include migration, resettlement, religious transformation, assemblage theory and climate change.

Priya Kissoon is a lecturer in Human Geography at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus. Her research specialises in issues of the meanings of home, residential mobility, and displacement particularly, though not exclusively, in the Caribbean. Priya holds a PhD from King’s College London.

Carola Kléck is assistant professor of political science at the Centre for International Research (CERI) at Sciences Po Paris. Her work examines climate change adaptation and negotiations from a SIDS perspective. Carola holds a PhD from ETH Zurich (Switzerland) and has held positions at the Universities of Gothenburg (Sweden), Antwerp (Belgium) and Gottingen (Germany) before joining Sciences Po.

Camari Waqanivalu Koto is an educator with more than fifteen years of tertiary level teaching experience, firstly at The University of the South Pacific (USP) and presently at the College of the Marshall Islands. Her research interests lie in the general field of the Pacific Islands’ socio-economic development, community livelihood practices and institutional roles and environmental management. She also examines these topics for the case of Fiji for her Master’s thesis.

Alexandre K. Magnan is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Development and International relations (IDDRI, France). He is also Associate Research Fellow at LIENSs laboratory (La Rochelle University, France) and member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; SROCC and AR6 reports). He is developing research on vulnerability and (mal)adaptation to climate change in coastal areas, especially in small islands.

Harald A. Mieg is (honorary) professor of Metropolitan Studies and Innovation at Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin and also affiliated to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich. His research focuses on planning processes in cities and research methodologies, and his main book publication is The Social Psychology of Expertise, published in 2001.

Stefano Moncada holds a Stefano Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Malta. He lectures and conducts research in the areas of development, poverty, and climate-change. Prior to joining academia, Stefano worked in the Italian Parliament as policy analyst. Stefano is affiliated with the Institute for European Studies, is a member of the board of the Islands and Small States Institute of the University of xii Contributing authors

Malta, and acts as expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Karen E. McNamara is a human geographer undertaking research on the impacts of, and responses to, environmental change on people’s livelihoods throughout the Asia-Pacific region. She holds a PhD (Geography) and Bachelor of Environmental Science from the University of New South Wales, and has since worked at a number of universities before taking up her current role at the University of Queensland.

Patrick D. Nunn is Professor of Geography at the University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia) and previously worked for 25 years at the University of the South Pacific. He has spent several decades researching climate change and sustainability issues in island contexts.

Arno Pascht is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat in Munich, Germany. His current research project, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), focuses on climate change reception and cultural transformations in Vanuatu. Previously, he has worked on a project about changing land tenure and the tole of chiefs in the Cook Islands.

Adelle Thomas is a human-environment geographer whose research focuses on adaptation, limits to adaptation and loss and damage for SIDS. As a Bahamian scholar and resident, she brings a unique perspective to the lived experience of climate change for SIDS. She is currently Senior Research Associate at Climate Analytics and Visiting Researcher at University of the Bahamas.

Michelle Scobie is a lecturer and researcher at the Institute of International Relations at The University of the West Indies (UWT), St. Augustine and Co-Editor of the Caribbean Journal of International Relations and Diplomacy. Her research areas include international law, international environmental law and developing states’ perspectives on global and regional environmental governance. Her most recent publication is the book Global Environmental Governance and Small States: Architectures and Agency in the Caribbean.

Eberhard H. Weber is Associate Professor at The University of the South Pacific. He has worked for the past 35 years on issues around food and livelihood security, tural and urban development, migration, resources management and development in South and South East Asia as well as the Pacific Islands region. Eberhard Weber holds a PhD in Development Geography from the University of Freiburg, Germany, and has taught in Germany as well as in India and Thailand.

Dealing with climate change on small islands: Towards effective and sustainable adaptation?

Small islands are so-called hotspots of climate change. Here, the adverse effects of sea-level rise, increasing temperatures, and changing weather patterns are already felt, making adaptation urgent (Mimura et al., 2007; Nurse et al., 2014). But while small islands may be uniquely impacted by the adverse effects of climate change, they are also uniquely resilient. Small islands are not only at the forefront of climate change impacts, they are also at the forefront of climate change responses. Island societies have long histories of resilience, of surviving, if not thriving, in resource-limited, dynamic, and isolated environments (Campbell, 2009; Nunn & Kumar, 2018). Over generations, sometimes over millennia, they have developed a wide range of practices to deal with climate variability and extreme weather events and incorporated them into cultural practices, myths, and songs. From this perspective, islands are traditionally “sites of resilience” (Campbell, 2009, p. 85) and “agents of knowledge production and territorial transformation” (Ratter, 2018). Accordingly, islanders “must be looked to and supported as inspiring champions of livelihood resilience and adaptation to climate change and disasters,’ as De Souza and colleagues (2015, p. 1) write (see also e.g. Barnett & Campbell, 2010). Small islands hold valuable lessons for both adaptation success and adaptation failure. Not every historical experience and traditional coping strategy is helpful for

Cite this article: Klöck, C. & Fink, M. (2019): Dealing with climate change on small islands: Towards effective and sustainable adaptation? In: Kléck, C. & Fink, M. (eds.): Dealing with climate change on small islands: Towards effective and sustainable adaptation? (pp. 1-15). Gottingen: Gottingen University Press. https://doi.org/10.17875/gup2019-1209 dealing with current and future climate change, and not every so-called adaptation measute is effective. Quite to the contrary, some would argue that most adaptation interventions have failed in small island contexts (Nunn & Kumar, 2006). Why is this the case? What has worked, when, and why? Where do we see adaptation to climate change occurring in small island states? What types of measures are taken, by whom, and why?

The present volume seeks to explore adaptation to climate change in small islands across the world’s oceans. We want to focus attention on the resilience, strengths, and agency of small island states — which may better be referred to as “big ocean sustainable states,’ or “BOSS” (UNESCO, 2017) — but at the same time acknowledge the specific challenges that climate change poses to small islands. As the contributions to this volume highlight, islands are extremely diverse, in terms of geophysical, cultural, and socio-economic characteristics, climate change impacts, as well as perceptions of and responses to change, at different levels. This diversity confirms the need for context- and place-specific solutions; one-size-fits-all solutions do not exist. Nevertheless, we consider that the diverse experiences of islands hold valuable lessons: small islands can learn from one another — and we can all learn from small islands.

This inter-island and inter-regional exchange has so far been marginal. While the specific circumstances of small islands have received significant political and academic attention (Mimura et al., 2007; Nurse et al., 2014), much of this research focuses on single case studies; comparative work across different islands is relatively rare (Klöck & Nunn, 2019). The present volume adds to recent efforts at bringing together individual case studies (Moncada, Briguglio, Bambrick, & Kelman, 2018; Walshe & Stancioff, 2018). We recognise the need for dialogue: across geographical scales and regions; across academic disciplines; as well as across the science—policy divide. The volume therefore brings together scholarship on and from the three island regions: the Caribbean, the Pacific, and the Indian Ocean. The contributions in this volume include work from geography, anthropology, political science, psychology, and philosophy. Empirically, the focus is on the Pacific — where most small island research is located (Kl6ck & Nunn, 2019) — but some chapters also focus on the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, or small islands in general.

The volume has its roots in a workshop held in July 2018 in Hannover, with financial and organisational support from the Volkswagen Foundation. Over three days, more than 30 workshop participants discussed the challenges and opportunities of climate change adaptation; commonalities and differences between islands and island regions; research gaps; as well as venues for dialogue between policy and practice (Klöck, Debelts, & Fink, 2019). Many of the workshop contributions are included in the present volume, in revised form. We would like to express our gratitude to all workshop participants for the intense and fruitful discussions in Hannover, and in particular thank all contributors to this volume — their contributions, as authors and/or as peer reviewers, ate much appreciated.

Three areas of concern structure the present volume: governing long-term adaptation; the role of culture, knowledge, and perceptions; and migration and (im)mobility. In the remainder of this introduction, we outline why these areas are of particular relevance to small island states, and how the contributions to this volume address some of the research gaps in these areas.

1 Governing and funding long-term adaptation

For a long time, vulnerability and adaptation have been dominated by the systemic hazards approach, or a focus on physical exposure and technical solutions (Adger, 2006; Bassett & Fogelmann, 2013). In contrast, the social vulnerability approach highlights (lack of) human agency as critical for vulnerability and takes into account socio-economic drivers of vulnerability. It thus emphasises sensitivity to climate change impacts and adaptive capacity, in the terminology of the hazards approach (Keck & Sakdapolrak, 2013; Mikulewicz, 2018). From this perspective, adaptation is first and foremost a political process (Eriksen, Nightingale, & Eakin, 2015). Further, adaptation is long-term and transformational, in the sense of addressing underlying social, economic, and political drivers of vulnerability. Adaptation thus goes beyond short-term coping, and requires holistic approaches; rather than tackling physical climate change impacts in isolation, adaptation seeks to address inequities and improve the wellbeing of people and societies (Klepp & Chavez- Rodriguez, 2018).

Such a critical approach, or political ecology lens, foregrounds many of the inherent difficulties and challenges of adaptation. These include for example tensions between typically short-term political considerations, and the long time horizons of effective and transformational adaptation. A specific challenge of adaptation in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) relates not only to the often-times lacking political will to implement long-term adaptation measures, but also to the human and financial constraints. These are particularly acute in the context of small islands with their small populations, economies, and administrations. Adaptation hence often depends on the availability of external (aid) funding, which comes with its own challenges, including the short time horizons of aid-funded (pilot) projects, significant year-to-year fluctuations of flows, and considerable administrative burdens for planning and reporting (Barnett & Campbell, 2010; Overton, Prinsen, Murray, & Wrighton, 2012; Dornan & Pryke, 2016).

Part I of this volume explores some of these constraints, as well as ways to overcome them, from diverse vantage points. In the first chapter, Patrick D. Nunn and Karen E. McNamara examine why adaptation interventions in island contexts often fail, and explore how more long-term transformational change could be achieved.

The authors start from the assumption that many coastal areas — where most settlements, infrastructure, and economic activities are concentrated in small islands — will likely become uninhabitable over the coming decades. Although relocation away from the most vulnerable to less vulnerable locations is thus unavoidable, most responses to sea-level rise, coastal erosion, and flooding to date have sought to ‘protect’, that is, to stabilise the current coastline and maintain current settlements and infrastructure, through seawalls and other hard coastal protection measures. While such hatd measures may work in more iconic and wealthier locations, such as capital cities, they often fail in rural and poorer locations, as is the case in many SIDS, where financial and technical resources are limited, where climate change perceptions and decision-making largely follow spiritual and traditional approaches, and where short-term concerns dominate.

In this context, ‘retreat’ rather than ‘protect’ seems the more sustainable, effective and long-term response — and hence can be classified as ‘transformational’ change. However, relocation away from exposed (coastal) areas is problematic, for a number of reasons, despite there being cases of success and even avoidance altogether. Because of this, and based notably on the experience of Fiji, where several villages have been, or are in the process of being, relocated, the authors identify factors that can make relocation successful, and hence transformational. In particular, the affected population needs to drive the entire relocation process, from the planning through to the implementation as well as monitoring and evaluation phases.

Virginie K. E. Duvat and Alexandre K. Magnan also consider relocation to be inevitable under some conditions, but their chapter at the same time points out that local adaptation is still often possible, even in the context of atolls, which are among the areas most vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change.

Their chapter strongly calls for nature-based solutions (NBS) to maintain, strengthen, and re-establish natural ecosystems, notably the atoll reef-island system. Empirical data from the Maldives — which is one of four countries worldwide that consists exclusively of low-lying atolls — shows that NBS can work: healthy coral reefs protect the coast and supply sediment to islands where (i) sediment transport pathways are kept clear and (ii) accommodation space remains available along the coast for sediment accumulation. However, on many islands, human activities have undermined the coastal protection services delivered by the reef ecosystem. The degree of undermining of these services by human disturbances currently largely determines the degree to which atoll islands are able to respond to climate-related pressures. Those islands that are still able to withstand sea-level rise (due to limited human undermining of these services) will likely continue to do so for at least the next few decades. The more disturbed the island, the lower the potential for NBS, and the higher the need for alternative solutions, including engineered solutions and — from the middle of the 21* century — internal and international migration under worst-case scenarios

There is a continuum of adaptation strategies for atolls that must be place-specific and tailored to the specificity of each island. The authors conceptualise this continuum as a five-pillar adaptation pathway, along which the role of NBS decreases, while the role of engineering and migration increases.

Most adaptation measures depend on the availability of external financing. While such funding is increasing, it is insufficient to meet adaptation needs. How then should such scarce finances best be distributed? Christian Baatz and Michel Bourban examine this question of distribution from a justice perspective, and argue for democracy as an appropriate additional criterion.

Research and politics consider that adaptation financing needs to be allocated to ‘particularly vulnerable’ countries, such as the SIDS. However, this vulnerability criterion is problematic for various reasons (such as the difficulty of measuring it), and therefore needs to be complemented with additional criteria. Cost effectiveness — maximising impact — is proposed in this context, but Baatz and Bourban demonstrate that this criterion is also problematic and difficult to measure. Instead, the authors argue for democracy. Democratic countries do not only tend to use funding mote effectively, but also allow affected populations — those who are entitled to funding by virtue of their jeopardised human rights — to participate in decision-making on how funding is spent. Democracy, as measured for example by V- Dem indices, could thus also guide the allocation of adaptation financing, and influence not only how much financing vulnerable countries receive, but also to what extent that financing is conditional.

Beyond finance, political will as well as administrative capacity constrain effective adaptation, in particular in small islands, where small population sizes translate into small administrations. Harvesting synergies would be beneficial but is rare in practice, as the chapter by Michelle Scobie shows. The chapter uses the example of St. Lucia to identify interlinkages between issue-areas and levels of governance that can help overcome silos and address multiple goals at once.

Much (environmental) policy-making and implementation happens in silos, despite potential similarities and synergies. For example, climate change has much to do with disaster risk reduction or (sustainable) development more broadly. At the same time, policies are formulated at different levels, in global negotiations, regional programmes, or national plans. Interlinkages can help connect these processes and levels. In her review of policy documents at different levels, Scobie finds many thematic points of convergence, but also different priorities. Regional (Caribbean) and national (St. Lucian) documents put more emphasis on some areas such as finance, but use the language of global agendas, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, not least to attract funding. Even if many cross-references and similarities are implicit only, there are efforts to overcome thematic silos. In this context, St. Lucia dissolved its climate change unit, in an effort to integrate climate change into each ministry’s work.

Finally, Adelle Thomas examines research on adaptation planning, also in the Caribbean. Her chapter draws on the Caribbean Climate Risk and Adaptation Tool, CCORAL, developed by the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre.

The CCORAL is a widely used policy tool that seeks to mainstream climate change into planning activities across the region. Based on this tool, Thomas conceptualises an adaptation planning cycle: within the wider adaptive space, or overall context, adaptation thus follows six distinct steps, from vulnerability and risk assessment through to monitoring and evaluation. To what extent are these steps followed? Through a review of peer-reviewed literature, the chapter seeks to identify strengths and gaps in academic research that can in turn inform future research and adaptation planning and practice.

While there is a growing body of literature that examines adaptation, including adaptation planning, in the small islands of the Caribbean and beyond, this literature does not pay equal attention to the various elements of the adaptation policy cycle. A large number of studies assess climate change risks, impacts, and vulnerabilities, for specific countries and/or for specific sectors. Several studies also examine the overall adaptive space, and highlight in particular the role of perceptions and availability of data as constraints to adaptation. In contrast, very few studies, if any, examine how — and why — stakeholders identify adaptation options, or select and prioritise among these. Similarly, relatively little is known about implementation, and even less about the long-term effects and effectiveness of implemented measures. Although studies mention the importance of monitoring and evaluation, the literature review finds no study that specifically examines monitoring and evaluation methods and practices, beyond some technical reports. The chapter thus concludes with a call for more research into those elements of the adaptation planning cycle that have received scant academic (and possibly political) attention, but ate just as important for effective and sustained adaptation as the first step of risk and vulnerability assessment.

2 Cultures, perceptions, and knowledges

Just as the climate is changing, so are island societies. Social, economic, and cultural changes are omnipresent, and interact with environmental changes — indeed, these two spheres are closely interrelated and sometimes even conceptualised as one (see Pascht and Hetzel below). This perspective aligns with the political understanding of adaptation outlined earlier. Adaptation is about risks, and therefore about values: What risks are acceptable? What is at risk? How should these risks be avoided, and at what costs? The answers to these questions are all mediated by culture (O’Brien & Wolf, 2010; Adger, Bamett, Brown, Marshall, & O’Brien, 2013). This cultural perspective, though neglected in much adaptation research, makes visible differences across and within islands, countries, and regions (Adger et al., 2013), for example in how people perceive changes. Such perceptions are

Dealing with climate change on small islands i crucial to understanding responses, for people will only act upon climate change if they perceive it as a risk (Lee, Markowitz, Howe, Ko, & Leiserowitz, 2015). Beyond risk perception, action also requires perceived adaptive capacity: people need to feel empowered and able to act (Grothmann & Patt, 2005). Such feelings of empowerment shape, and are shaped by, discourses and narratives. Hence, alternative framings to the widespread gloom-and-doom scenario of inevitable inundation are needed to facilitate agency.

Culture is also intimately related to local knowledge — also referred to as traditional or indigenous knowledge (Lauer, 2017; Nalau et al., 2018). Particularly in the Pacific, island societies have accumulated a large body of local knowledge to deal with climate variability, which is constantly changed and adjusted (Lauer, 2017). While there is consensus that such local knowledge and experiences hold valuable lessons for, and need to be integrated into, climate change adaptation, we should be careful not to view local knowledge as a panacea, and integrating it with Western science as necessarily easy and effective (Mercer, Dominey-Howes, Kelman, & Lloyd, 2007).

Part II of this volume engages with a cultural understanding of climate change adaptation, and explores the role, variation, and effects of cultures, perceptions, and knowledges, with a focus on the Pacific.

First, Katharina Beyerl, Harald A. Mieg, and Eberhard Weber analyse perceptions of climate-related environmental changes in three Pacific island countries: Tuvalu, Samoa, and Tonga. Their chapter is premised on the assumption that risk perceptions matter, but that to date we have not paid enough attention to variations in perceptions. Accordingly, the chapter focuses on variation in perception across and within the three case countries.

Their large-N survey shows that respondents across the three countries have noticed changes in their environment, ranging from higher temperatures to sea-level rise, increased flooding, as well as changes in flora and fauna, and that they expect that most trends will intensify in the future. Yet, respondents’ perceptions vary in terms of the specificity and severity of observed changes. For example, drought and sea-level rise were particularly prominent in Tuvalu, while increases in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events have been noted more strongly in Samoa and Tonga.