Climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction: Contested spaces and emerging opportunities in development theory and practice

The pursuit of adaptation to climate change, both theoretically and practically, has intensified considerably over the past decade in response to increasing awareness of the potential impacts of global climate change. Despite this momentum, the interaction of climate change adaptation with pre-existing strategies to reduce vulnerability and build resilience in the developing world has only recently received significant attention. Using the example of disaster risk reduction, this paper explores the developing interface between climate change adaptation and existing development methodologies that have overlapping interests. While it has been established that there must be greater collaboration between these fields, many questions remain surrounding the scope of such interaction. This paper reviews the literature on the relationship between disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation and then explores some unanswered questions and developing conceptualizations. An examination of the theoretical points of convergence and divergence raises a range of questions surrounding how climate change adaptation is conceptualized in both the academic literature and the policy environment. There is a rich space to consider pre-existing development pathways within the adaptation narrative. Enhancing adaptive capacity requires robust frameworks that more holistically engage the embedded structures that perpetuate both socio-economic and environmental vulnerability.