Please join us for a lunch-time, weekly seminar series as we hear from and engage with various researchers and practitioners working at the cutting edge in the field of climate change impacts & adaptation.

When: Every Wednesday @ 1pm, starting 13 March 2013.

Where: Environmental and Geographical Sciences, Studio 5, Upper Campus, University of Cape Town.

4 April (Thursday) Joint Seminar with Environmental and Geographical Science

“Barriers to climate change adaptation: insights from South African cities”

An underlying assumption in climate change literature is that adaptation can be achieved with determined effort, ever-more precise scientific knowledge, and the right technology. Underpinning many policies and strategies for climate change responses is an understanding of adaptation as a linear and essentially apolitical process. However, it is clear that there are many different types of barriers to ensuring adaptation that is successfully conceptualized and implemented. This presentation draws on emerging work from a group of scholars that propose a more holistic framework of barriers to adaptation, interwoven with decision making under uncertainty and issues of social justice. Although there have been a growing number of studies addressing barriers to adaptation there has been no review of these studies.  The presentation touches on a review of empirical literature from Africa, both studies that explicitly adopt a barriers and limits lens as well as case studies in which these concepts emerged as part of the findings.  It then presents a brief case study of barriers to adaptation in two South African cities, eThekwini and the City of Cape Town, to illustrate the importance of assessing a range of barriers to adaptation including knowledge and informational, institutional and implementation. 

Bio: Gina Ziervogel is a geographer by training, with 10 years of experience in the field of adaptation and vulnerability to global environmental change. She is a Senior lecturer in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science at the University of Cape Town. She completed her DPhil in Geography at the University of Oxford in 2002 after completing her BSc at the University of Cape Town and her Honours in Environmental Water Management at Rhodes University. Her PhD research focused on climate information and its use, particularly among small-scale farmers in Lesotho. Since then she has continued exploring how people interact with their environment and manage climate variability in Southern Africa. She has recently focused on the barriers to effective adaptive management in both urban and rural settings, recognizing that responding to climate variability and change has to be contextualized in relation to other factors such as water, health, food security, poverty and governance.

 Who to expect next :

10 April: Joseph Darron “Robust approaches to adaptation”

17 April: Gregg Oelofse “Adaptation issues facing the City of Cape Town”

24 April: Lorena Pasquini “Local Government and Climate Adaptation”

Future Speakers :

Richard Calland “Financing Adaptation”

Tessa Oliver “The GEF Fynbos Fire project: Reducing the risks from wildland fire hazards associated with Climate Change in South Africa”

Susie Cunningham “Feeling the heat: consequences of rising temperatures for desert birds”

Sarshen Marais “Vulnerability mapping and EBA in Namaqua”

 

* Light snacks will be served on a first-come-first-serve basis