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<\/a>...even if they can't make progress here.<\/p><\/div>\n
Durban is certainly not alone in this regard. The environment-development issue is frequently portrayed in dichotomous terms, where it is strictly a choice of one over the other. International negotiations have mainly focused on mitigation, contributing greatly to this black-and-white perception through talks of limiting the amount of greenhouse gas emissions permissible for development. In this context, it is hard to fault developing countries for their priorities.<\/p>\n
What can we do? Well, the first thing is to give more weight in the discussion to adaptation measures, stressing what Roberts calls \u201cthe importance of building local knowledge and capacity about climate change risks and adaptive responses\u201d (Roberts 2008, 521). This will break the false dichotomy by revealing the degree to which development depends on addressing climatic factors.<\/p>\n
Helping people realize this connection will cause a shift to a more balanced perspective in which eliminating poverty and inequity must involve consideration of negative climate impacts to be successful, especially since the least well-off in society are the most at risk from climate change \u2013 and the best place to do this educating is \u201con the ground\u201d where people will face these challenges in their local communities. Durban\u2019s government is headed in the right direction, though it remains to be seen whether its pace will be sufficient. Another item for our list of research observations to make in just a few short weeks.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Works Cited:<\/span><\/p>\nRoberts, D., 2008. \u201cThinking globally and acting locally \u2013 institutionalizing climate change at the local government level in Durban, South Africa,\u201d Environment & Urbanization<\/em> 20(2):521-537.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Timothy Damon ’12
\nWith a population of more than 3.5 million people and an area of more than 2,300 km2, Durban is one of the most significant urban and economic centers in South Africa. A port city, it is on the front lines of climate change \u2013 at risk from storm surge and sea-level rise in addition to heat waves and air pollution. The local government has initiated some steps to address these hazards, but the widespread poverty and economic inequity of the area have thus far pushed the environment to a lower priority than development.
\nAs Debra Roberts describes in \u201cThinking globally, acting locally\u201d, the post-apartheid government\u2019s policy shift to emphasize poverty eradication has resulted in great tension \u201cbetween the need to introduce environmental issues and concerns into planning and decision-making processes (often for the first time) and the need to expedite development to address significant socioeconomic needs\u201d (Roberts 2008, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":839,"featured_media":1451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19448,40558],"tags":[1482,34302,34192,42577,1567,40552,34235,42592,1573,2874,25668],"class_list":["post-1445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-change-2","category-climate-change-politics","tag-adaptation","tag-climate-negotiations","tag-cop17","tag-debra-roberts","tag-developing-countries","tag-durban","tag-governing-climate-change","tag-local-governance","tag-mitigation","tag-south-africa","tag-timothy-damon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/839"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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