Bridge over troubled waters: conceptualizing climate-induced displacement in time of maladaptation

Climate change adaptation (CCA)—the process of adjusting to the effects of climate change to moderate harm or exploit opportunities—is an important component of our climate change response. While CCA is often seen as positive, the Global Stocktake and literature have shown that adaptation interventions have been fragmented, localised, ineffective, and creates new vulnerabilities. They have the potential, therefore, to produce unintended consequences and become maladaptive. In particular, while CCA and disaster risk reduction actions often aim to keep people in place, some interventions have caused displacement. We conceptualized the term “climate change adaptation-induced displacement” to capture this phenomenon. In this paper, we articulate the processes that led to its emergence by bridging the scholarly literature on climate mobilities, forced displacement, durable solutions, and CCA. We illuminate these with two case studies from Southeast Asia: one on the maladaptive outcomes of post-disaster resettlement as durable solutions to internal displacement following Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013, and the other on the displacement outcomes of infrastructure investments and land use decisions as adaptation strategies in Cambodia for Indigenous Peoples. These cases highlight the troubling prospects for current adaptation thinking that often contribute - intentionally or unintentionally - to displacement.