Insights into mainstreaming climate change adaptation: a study of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement

© 2015 Rebecca McNaughtThis thesis aims to understand how the global Red Cross Red Crescent Movement has attempted to mainstream climate change adaptation into its programmes. The need for and merits of mainstreaming as an approach to addressing the impacts of climate change are discussed in the literature on climate change adaptation. However, to date there are very little examples and critiques of this as an approach relating to humanitarian institutions. A theoretical framework derived from research on mainstreaming gender, disaster risk management and climate change is used as the foundation for analysing the mainstreaming efforts of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement. The methods for this analysis include document analysis, semi-structured interviews, participant observation and case study research. There are three components to the analysis: a chronology of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement’s mainstreaming efforts between 1999 and 2012; an analysis of the outcomes of a global climate change mainstreaming programme implemented over nearly six years in 64 countries; and a case study outlining the attempts of the Solomon Islands Red Cross to incorporate climate change considerations in its programmes. There are three key findings of this thesis. The first is that climate change communication with communities and the wider public, particularly in developing country contexts, is difficult and a barrier to mainstreaming climate change. Though the climate change adaptation literature acknowledges the important role of climate change communication and translation of climate information in mainstreaming, it doesn’t provide detailed empirical analysis of how this should be done in practice. The second is that mainstreaming is not expensive, but does require long-term, concerted investment. This need for a relatively low-cost, but long-term investment perspective, is not clearly highlighted in the literature on climate change adaptation. This is most likely because climate change adaptation is still in its infancy. The third major finding of this thesis is that mainstreaming is affected by fluctuations in organisational capacity, so organisational development is an important component of adapting humanitarian agencies to climate change. The thesis’ findings imply that the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement has an important role to play in communicating climate change to the wider public and the communities that it works with. In order to support this and the work of other actors globally, far more research, training and guidance on climate communications is required. Finally this thesis demonstrates that the broad commitments made by global institutions to mainstream climate change adaptation will require concerted long-term investments, including especially in organisational capacity