Download 1 Climate Change Discourse, Rights, and the Poor: Scientific

Climate Change Discourse, Rights, and the Poor: Scientific Knowledge, International
Political Discourse, and Local Voices
“Climate change threatens sustainable development and all eight Millennium Development Goals.
The international community agreed at the beginning of the new millennium to eradicate extreme
hunger and poverty by 2015. Yet, today, climate change is already responsible for forcing some fifty
million additional people to go hungry and driving over ten million additional people into extreme
poverty. Between one-fifth and one-third of Official Development Assistance is in climate sensitive
sectors and thereby highly exposed to climate risks (Climate Change Impact: The Anatomy to A Silent
Crises; Global Humanitarian Fund (2009:4)”
Introduction, statement of the problem, and objective of the project
Climate change as a scientific issue is now a widely accepted global challenge. Narratives of
climate change are becoming central to development discourse, and increasingly frame
understandings of other global challenges, such as poverty and health. In this project we ask
how the new climate change narratives affect approaches and responses to the poor and their
rights, particularly as regards their social rights related to resources profoundly affected by
climate change impacts such as water and food. We focus our analysis on the international
development discourse as well as a concrete country, South Africa, in partnership with
scholars who are currently involved in building new knowledge on the issues. With this
project, we aim to strengthen the competence of Norway as it increasingly becomes a key
player on the relations between climate and poverty; we aim to improve the knowledge base
on Norway’s bilateral relations with South Africa. The project will contribute to a better
understanding of the challenges for development aid cooperation to be responsible towards
both the environment and the poor. We also aim to build partnerships with South African
scholars and generate possible input for similar debates on the continent.
As an emergent discourse on climate change is rapidly building, especially regarding
responses to and assessment of the impacts of climate change, some fundamental questions
arise: What narratives on poverty are being ‘used’ by different actors in relation to climate?
How do national level narratives differ or are influenced by global discourses? Which claims
have more epistemic and political weight? Whose voices are privileged? How do activists on
social rights and poor people’s empowerment incorporate and relate to emerging concerns
with climate change? How do climate change narratives of various voices in the development
debate relate to scientific knowledge on climate change? How is climate change science
knowledge used by political actors? What are the political understandings informing earth
system science discourse? How are these questions dealt with by key global actors in relation
to South Africa and by South African actors? We address these questions through an
integrated approach centred on analyzing and understanding the polyphonic (multi-voiced)
nature of climate change debate. We seek to analyze the framing of the issues, by using
various complementary discourse analysis methodologies seeking an understanding of ‘key
concepts’, ‘voices-actors’, and ‘epistemic weight of knowledge claims’.
Background: climate change and the poor
Changes in the climate are already leading to radical changes in ecosystems, agriculture, sea
level rise, ocean acidity, food production, access to fresh water, rainfall, etc. The human
consequences of climate change impact will be enormous and we already have serious human
impact today.1 As Lester Brown rightly phrases it, at stake is the survival of civilization.2 We
1
According to the Human Impact Report, Climate Change-The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis, every year climate
change leaves over 300,000 people dead, 325 million people seriously affected, and economic losses of US$125
billion. 4 billion people are vulnerable, and 500 million people are at extreme risk. These figures represent
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also have sufficient knowledge to be quite assured that those who would suffer the most are
those who are already suffering the negative impacts of other global challenges, such as the
financial/economic crises, ongoing conflicts, environmental degradation and loss of
biodiversity; those without voice or power, assets or access to energy, lacking insurance for
flooding or for destruction caused by severe weather events; those with poor or no housing
and lacking access to health, education, clean water and under conditions of food and labour
insecurity, or those whose agricultural systems have already been negatively affected by
global patent regulations, among many other factors. Those already getting and likely to get
the worse impacts of climate change are then those less capable to respond. Moreover, and
very significantly, they are those who have contributed less to the problem in the first place:
poor and vulnerable people; those who have benefited less from modernization and
industrialization and those who have little carbon footprint.3 The countries most likely to
suffer the most severe consequences are the poorest and vulnerable regions of the planet. And
the financial/economic crisis is deepening poverty. Thus the challenge of climate change
builds over an unlevelled playing field marred by gross inequalities and past failures to
eradicate severe poverty, reduce inequalities, give voice and power to vulnerable people and
generate a global society that benefits from sustainable modernization, industrialization,
progress in technology and energy sources.
However, the climate challenge also happens and builds on top of some achievements:
a long learning process about what are some of the fundamental elements that can help create
fair and socially cohesive developed societies, protect people from harms and shocks, and
restore voice and agency to poor and marginalized individuals and groups. This includes an
increasingly strong human rights discourse in relation to both poverty and development; legal
developments giving effect to socioeconomic rights; and rights based activism where social
movements and activist groups driving forward these processes have succeeded in giving
voice to disempowered people.
Within the human dimensions of global environmental change literature and ethics of
climate change there is some emerging work on framings relating climate change, poverty and
rights.4 Some global development actors are also rapidly building publications (we list some
in later sections). But substantive knowledge analyzing the diverse framings of climate
averages based on projected trends over many years and carry a significant margin of error. The real numbers
could be lower or higher, Geneva: Global Humanitarian Fund (2009:1).
2
Brown, L (2008) Plan B 3.0, Earth policy Institute, New York and London: Norton.
3
This claim does not entail a denial of negative impacts on the environment by poor people, rather it focuses on
their minimal contributions to green house gasses and their not having benefited from the good outcomes of what
has caused the climate change crises.
4
A sample of recent texts on climate change with direct reference on how is it framed in relation to the poor and
rights are: Adger, N. I. Lorenzoni and K. O’Brien, eds. (2009); Adapting to Climate Change: Thresholds, Values
and Governance; Cambridge University Press; ‘Water, Human Rights and Social Conflict: South African
Experiences’ – Law, Social Justice and Global Development, 10, 1, February 2008,
http://www.go.warwick.ac.uk/elj/lgd/2008_1/bond_dugard.‘A Water Policy Revolution?’ – Global Social Policy,
7, 2, June 2007, pp.143-146. Caney. S. ‘Climate Change, Justice and the Duties of the Advantaged’, Critical
Review of International Social and Political Philosophy vol.12 no.3 (2009) and 'Human Rights, Responsibilities
and Climate Change' in Global Basic Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) edited by Charles Beitz
and Robert Goodin, pp.227-247; Heltberg,R. Jorgensen, S. and Siegel, P. B., Climate Change: Challenges for
Social Protection in Africa (July 24, 2008). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1174774;Leichenko, R.
And K. O’Brien (2008) Double Exposures: Environmental Change and Globalization, Oxford: Oxford UP;
O’Brien, K. A.L St.Clair and B. Kristoffersen eds. (forthcoming) Ethics, Climate Change and Human Security,
Oxford: Oxford UP. Lawon, V. and A. St.Clair, Poverty and Global Environmental Change, International
Human Dimensions of Environmental Change Programme (IHDP) Update Issue 2, 2009 at
http://www.ihdp.unu.edu/article/724; St.Clair, A. “Climate Change and Poverty: The responsibility to protect”
in Ethics, Climate Change and Human Security, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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change impacts in relation to poverty are lacking, and there is no literature analyzing the
diverse discourses on the interface between climate poverty and right perspectives, and how
this impacts on the development of law and policy.
Background: Research project and the team
With this research project we focus on rights based development and poverty perspectives in
international development policy. We mention in the project plan below a series of texts and
reports emerging from various global development organizations and donors that will be the
target of the study. We focus furthermore on legislation and policy processes at the national
level, as well as on socio-economic and environmental rights based activism and litigation.
The focus on South Africa is seen as a first step in what will eventually (through follow up
projects) be a comparative investigation. We see this as an ideal ‘pilot site’. South Africa is a
global player, in terms of the natural resources at its disposal, its unique earth system features
and phenomena, and in leading policy development for adapting to global change for
developing nations more generally. But even while it shares the same view as many emergent
market countries – that advanced economies have an ecological debt and have emitted gasses
in the past that permitted them their “development” – South Africa is also amongst the 20
countries in the word responsible for 90% of emissions, the only one on the African continent.
South Africa is a ‘test case’ for the rest of the continent and other areas of the globe
because it has developed responses at the political and scientific level to tackle climate change.
It has knowledge capacities in earth system science, and a long tradition of critical
development perspectives that not always coincides with global discourses. South Africa has
an important trajectory in terms of social rights. It has a young constitution that reflects the
principles of second generation human rights, legislation and policy efforts to give them effect,
and a tradition of rights based activism, including social rights litigation.
A key set of questions are therefore: to what extent is the now forming discourse in
South Africa in both science and development different from the dominant global discourse?
How does scientific knowledge relate to and how is it used by diverse actors from social
scientists to policy planners to activists and legal experts? How do different actors in South
Africa incorporate climate change in their work and concerns, how are the inevitable conflicts
addressed? We ask these questions particularly in relation to conflicts on water resources.
This includes investigation of emerging new knowledge on transformation of the Southern
Ocean, highly vulnerable to acidification from uptake of anthropogenic CO2, which is
increasingly being shown to influence biological and biogeochemical processes with
consequences for climate feedback, marine ecosystems and fisheries. It also includes the issue
of water use and household water distribution.
The principal investigators and several of the reference group members of this project
in both Norway and South Africa have previously collaborated in meetings held in Cape
Town and Bergen during 2009 with the goal of developing a collaboration between the
Bjerknes Center, University of Bergen (UiB), the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), and South
Africa’s newly created African Centre for Climate and Earth System Sciences (ACCESS).
The goal of this collaboration is to contribute to the establishment of a southern African
science and education based programme. This programme will generate appropriate local and
regional knowledge, integrate research between earth system science, social science and the
humanities in order to inform strategies to deal with climate change. A central aspect of this is
to pay particular attention to pro-poor development and the requisite innovation for
sustainable development. The development of this collaboration has been supported by the
University of Bergen and has involved dialogue with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. The present project, Climate Change Discourse, Rights, and the Poor: Scientific
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Knowledge, International Political Discourse, and Local Voices, develops some of the key
research questions that came to the forefront as fundamental to move further in the debate on
responding to environmental challenges in the developing world context; challenges that are
specific to South Africa but with a potential to offer lessons to other countries and regions.
The team
The team brings to the project experience on scientific and political discourse analysis, ethics
and human rights as part of the discourse of global development actors, critical poverty
studies and sociology of knowledge, critical development studies and sustainable
development, political science and constitutional law, socioeconomic rights litigation and
activist critique and action. Several members of the reference group bring in addition
expertise on earth system science.
Core research partners, Norway
* Asuncion Lera St. Clair, is associate professor 5 at the Dept. of Sociology, UiB and
Scientific Director of the Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP)-International
Social Science Council (ISSC); general research fields are ethics, epistemology, sociology of
knowledge and social studies of science (with a focus on expertise), critical poverty studies,
development ethics and climate ethics. She heads a large research project with the institute of
African Studies of the University of Ghana, has been core member of large projects
investigating human rights and ethical ideas the multilateral system. She is the former director
of the Bergen Summer Research School on global development challenges; co leader of the
Worldwide University Network Group on Critical Global Poverty Studies and Vice President
of the International Development Ethics Association.
* Kjersti Fløttum, professor at the Dept of Foreign Languages, UiB; general research fields
are text linguistics, discourse analysis, semantics and pragmatics, linguistic polyphony. She is
heading two large research projects, collaborating nationally and internationally: “Cultural
Identity in Academic Prose” (KIAP) and the interdisciplinary “Understanding linguistic
complexity in political discourse” (EURLING). Fløttum is former Vice-Rector for
international relations at UiB and was central in establishing the SANORD Centre (Southern
African-Nordic Centre) in Cape Town. She is Project Leader of the Bergen Summer Research
School on Global Development Challenges.
* Siri Gloppen, professor at the Dept of Comparative Politics, UiB and research director at the
CMI. Her research fields include political theory; comparative democratisation, constitutionmaking and constitutionalism, legal system and rule of law development, the role of courts in
social transformation, transitional justice. Main empirical focus is South Africa and southern
and east Africa. She currently heads an international and interdisciplinary research project on
“The Right to Health though Litigation? Can court-enforced health rights improve health
policy and priority setting in poor countries?”
Core research partners South Africa:
* Patrick Bond, Development Studies; School of Development Studies and Director of the
Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban;
* Jackie Dugard, Social science, development studies and human rights; Senior Researcher
School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand
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St.Clair was positively evaluated with full professor competence by the Norwegian National committee the end
of July 2009. The formal approval of this qualification is pending the meeting of UiB social sciences faculty
board late September 2009.
4
* Clifford Shearing, Political science and law, professor and Chair of Criminology, Law
Faculty, University of Cape Town; Chair in African Security and Justice, National Research
Foundation (NRF). Member of ACCESS
Norwegian reference group:
* Richard Belleby, Earth system science, Bjerknes Centre;
* Trine Dahl, Linguistics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration
* Helge Drange, Earth system science, Bjerknes Centre/University of Bergen
* Thorvald Gran, political science, administration and organization theory, University of
Bergen
* Eystein Jansen, Earth system science, Bjerknes Centre/University of Bergen
South African reference group:
* Pedro Monteiro, Earth system science, Senior Researcher South African Council for
Scientific and Industrial Research ( CSIR); Professor University of Cape Town.
* Mark Swilling, political Science, Sustainable Development in the School of Public
Management and Planning, and Academic Director of the Sustainability Institute at the
University of Stellenbosch.
* Gina Ziervogel, Human geography, environmental sustainability, adaptation and
vulnerability and food security; Lecturer Department of environmental and Geographical
Science, University of Cape Town.
International reference group:
* David Battisti, Earth system science, University of Washington, USA;
* Pilar Domingo, Political science, Overseas Development Institute, UK
* Kathryn Hochstetler, Political Science, University of Waterloo, CA
* Vicky Lawson, Poverty studies and human geography, University of Washington, USA;
Core institutions
University of Bergen, with main research priorities within marine research (including climate
research) and global development research; hosting Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research
(BCCR), national centre of excellence; developing new cross faculty initiative on “Climate,
health and poverty”.
The Chr. Michelsen Institute is Norway’s largest development research institute with a longstanding tradition for policy relevant research. Of particular relevance to this study is the
research on natural resource management, public sector reform, and the Courts in Transition
programme, focusing on the political role of courts; on the relationships between social rights
litigation and policy; and on courts and marginalized groups.
Integrated methodological approach
As climate change debate builds at a high speed, we hear a multitude of voices: a lot of actors
are getting involved around addressing the challenges, setting priorities for new knowledge,
and framing key questions and actions. Whose voices are these? To what extent do they have
shared understandings of the challenges? Are they listening to each other? And how are they
‘translating” each other’s knowledge? Whose voices are heard? Whose voices are more
legitimate and credible? And who benefits from the dominant discourse?
In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to study how climate knowledge,
which has its origin in “objective” scientific discourse, is transmitted to public and political
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argumentative or action oriented discourse. How do actors at different levels construct
discursively their climate politics? With an integrated methodology we aim to hear and
unpack this polyphonic discourse. We want to analyze and examine the relationship between
global development discourses and discourses of local South African actors, both
governmental and non-governmental. At each level we want to look at the relationship
between political arguments and scientific knowledge.
One of the most important challenges of integrated research is at the methodological
level. We do not claim to have solved these challenges, but in this project we propose what
we see as a promising integrated approach centred around the framing of the issues at stake
and various complementary discourse analysis methodologies, which seek an understanding
of ‘key concepts’, ‘voices-actors’, and ‘epistemic weight of knowledge claims’. Even though
linguistic research from the two last decades shows clearly that the traditional conception of
scientific discourse as objective or neutral is outdated and that scientific reporting becomes
continuously more rhetorical and thus more similar to political discourse, it is obvious that
there are differences between scientific and political discourse.6 One reason is that a central
purpose of scientific discourse is (or should be) to describe and explain facts and findings
while the purpose of political discourse is to convince or to persuade the receivers to some
kind of action.
In this project, we will study a selection of documents, observation data and interview
material produced by different actors at different levels (international and national): These fall
in two main categories
1) Documents which take climate research findings as their point of departure for
emphasising the need of adaptation and political action, such as documents from the
IPCC, global development actors, the European Union and National level plans in
both Norway and extensively in South Africa. We analyse these documents in their
interface with poverty. We analyze them in the ways they relate or do not relate to
social and human rights.
2) Documents which take the social rights of the poor as the starting point while
engaging with the challenge of climate change. These include among others legal
documents and interviews with activists.
The purpose of the discourse study is to find out how climate is framed in relation to
rights views on poverty, how they are included or excluded as a consequence of adaptation to
climate change, and how they are presented. Our discourse analysis will start with a thorough
description of the situation in which the analysed documents are produced (where, when, by
whom, to whom). This is necessary in order to understand the relation between, on the one
hand, attested verbal utterances produced by specific actors and, on the other hand, the
political circumstances in which these utterances appear (the relation between text and
context).7 And this is also related to their epistemic weight, credibility and legitimacy.
The second step will be divided in three parts, which in their turn must be related to
each other and to the situation description: one thematic, one on linguistic forms, and one on
knowledge claims:
6
See St. Clair, A, 2006a. “The World Bank as a Transnational Expertised Institution,” Journal of Global
Governance 12 (1); 2006b. “Global Poverty: The Co-Production of Knowledge and Politics,” Journal of Global
Social Policy 6 (1). Fløttum, K., T. Dahl & T. Kinn. 2006. Academic Voices. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John
Benjamins.
7
Chilton, P. & C. Schäffner 2002. Politics as Text and Talk. Analytic approaches to political discourse.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Wodak, R. & P. Chilton 2005. A New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse
Analysis. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
6
1. The thematic part will consist of a content analysis which will contribute to
answering the question about which challenges are included as a consequence of adaptation to
climate change. In this part the “unsaid” will be an important issue. For example, the absence
of direct references to possible conflict between welfare and social rights with environmental
concerns may be indicative of a particular trajectory of the forming climate change discourse,
and of how donors and global organizations view their role as experts on the poverty front.
The unsaid can be completely absent or implicitly indicated (see below on polyphonic
analysis).
We will also consider the use of what could be called “key concepts” and “key phrases
relating concepts (boundary concepts)” in the climate/poverty narrative, such as scientific
evidence, impact, growth, adaptation, mitigation, development, human rights, social rights,
entitlements, capabilities, inequality, conflicts of rights, human security, economic growth,
human development, food security, access to water, acidification of oceans in relation to the
poor or to food, vulnerability, expertise, responsibilities, duties, fairness, unfairness,
destitution, and retribution.
These concepts and sets of concepts may be considered as “boundary objects” or
“boundary concepts”, concepts that “straddle a shifting divide between science and global
politics.”8 They may enable different users to understand one another without necessarily
having a unique meaning for all the actors; they are tools for attempting to stabilise different
tensions which arise between different opinions and users; however, because of this constant
redefining, they also become fuzzy concepts which convey unclear messages.9
2. The second part, on linguistic forms, will be specified in accordance with a series of
questions focusing on the presentation of the mentioned challenges. :
A. To what extent is the linguistic form multi-voiced; which voices are included and
which are excluded, who are responsible for what is expressed, and how does this “play of
voices” orient the discursive argumentation? Political discourse is particularly multi-voiced,
or polyphonic, in the sense that politicians (must) take into consideration and often
incorporate in their statements a wide range of opinions, arguments and perspectives (voices)
stemming from different groups and communities. A polyphonic approach, with voice as a
methodological concept, allows an investigation of this particular aspect, and creates a basis
for exploring who is included or excluded in the identified voices, and what is explicit and
what is implicit. In the polyphonic play, different voices are given the floor, if not explicitly
(for example by citation), then implicitly by some distinctive mark signalling polyphony.10 An
obvious example is polemical negation as in the utterance Norway will not join EU where one
implicit positive voice (‘Norway will join EU’) is refuted by another voice, manifested
through the negation not. Other examples of implicit polyphony are argumentative
connectives linking two voices in specific semantic-pragmatic relations (however, but, thus,
because, since, and others).
B. How do epistemic modifiers nuance political messages?
Epistemic expressions modify utterances in relation to certainty (of course) or uncertainty
(perhaps). They are also polyphonic in that they indicate two different voices (the
modification itself and the modified utterance or expression).
8
St.Clair, A. (forthcoming) ‘Human Development and Capability as Boundary Objects’ " in The Very Act of
Counting, Ann R. Saetnan, Svein Hammer, and Heidi Mork Lomell (eds.), London and New York: Routledge.
See also McNeill and St.Clair (2009) Global Poverty, Ethics, and Human Rights: The Role of Multilateral
Organisations, New York and London: Routledge.
9
Fløttum, K. (in press). EU discourse: polyphony and unclearness. Journal of Pragmatics, 2009.
10
Fløttum, K. & D. Stenvoll 2008. Blair speeches in a polyphonic perspective. NOTs and BUTs in visions on
Europe. Journal of Language and Politics, Vol 8(2), 269-286.
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C. How do opinion markers indicate political position?
Examples are in our view, I/we believe, we claim/it is claimed/argued, they think.
D. What is the role of personal and indefinite pronouns in a we/self versus they/other
perspective (inclusion/exclusion)?
Personal and indefinite pronouns are explicit markers of voice. However, they are complex,
frequently due to unclear reference, especially as regards who are included/excluded in the
reference of the pronouns. A case in point here is the first person plural we, very frequent in
political speeches, with a large potential of referential extension. Another is the indefinite one.
Personal pronouns are especially interesting when they combine with position verbs and thus
constitute opinion markers (see above). Another aspect to examine in this context is the nonuse of personal pronouns, or the use of impersonal expressions (evaluative or not) (it seems, it
is said, it is natural/important/crucial)
E. How are metaphors and metonymies used argumentatively and to what extent do
they represent the doxa, the general opinions? Political discourse displays frequent use of
images, metaphors and metonymies (cases in point are body metaphors such as the heart of
Europe and place name metonymies in expressions such as Kyoto decided …). In the
polyphonic framework, the analysis will address the questions of the extent to which such
images represent general opinions or specific and limited voices and the ways in which these
voices are argumentatively engaged. The investigation will consider the theoretical notion of
“metaphor scenario”11, in accounting for the type of complexity these linguistic features
create. The analysis will also consider the use of metonymies, e.g. place names for complex
issues, decisions and statements. It has been argued that metonymisation can facilitate
communication among elites but function as obstacles to debate and understanding, especially
between elites and citizens/public opinion.
3. Finally, we use epistemology, sociology of knowledge and social studies of science and
technology principles and qualitative social science methodologies, to complement the
linguistic analysis and reach a deeper understanding of the polyphonic voices and how they
reflect power-relations. In earlier work we have analyzed how one of the fundamental drivers
of specific poverty discourse are knowledge claims that have expert power often rooted in
institutional legitimacy. The nature of knowledge claims is inextricably linked to the
epistemology of particular fields. The natural sciences typically present hard facts and
objective truths, while the so called softer disciplines within social sciences and the
humanities tend to represent less concrete and finite knowledge. By comparing how different
disciplines construct and promote their knowledge claims, we aim to contribute to an
increased understanding of how knowledge is constructed in the fields involved.12 But this
also has a political edge to it. Knowledge claims are today linked to epistemic communities,
knowledge networks and knowledge organizations that translate into legitimacy and
credibility. Thus the linguistic tools explained above – complemented by sociological and
political science perspectives – will also be used to determine knowledge claims, in relation to
expertise and political power. Courts of law represent arenas in which competing knowledge
claims explicitly confront each other, and where the conflicting imperatives of climate change
11
Musolff, A. 2006. Metaphor scenarios in public discourse. Metaphor and symbol 21(1), 23–38.
12
Knowledge fields advance through the modification of existing and accepted research. There are at least three
processes through which this takes place: a) new knowledge units are added to existing knowledge; b) existing
units are altered, for example by complementing accepted research; c) existing ’facts’ are replaced or rejected.
These processes represent different degrees of academic conflict. (See T. Dahl 2008. Contributing to the
academic conversation: A study of new knowledge claims in economics and linguistics. Journal of Pragmatics
40 (7), 1184-1201.
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and social rights are most likely to come to a head. Legal mobilisation around resources
affected by climate change (such as water), litigation processes and court judgments are thus
particularly interesting to analyse.13
We consider the overarching polyphonic approach to be fruitful for the present project
because it covers a wide range of relevant language phenomena (mentioned above) that are
frequent in (quasi-)political language use. And we think that this also holds for legislation and
litigation language. This type of linguistic polyphonic approach can serve as guide in listening
to voices and complement qualitative social science methodologies, and thus provide a
coherent theoretical-methodological framework.
Material for analysis
At the global level we analyze a selection of important documents published by various key
actors. The following are examples of the documents which will be studied:
Poverty and Climate Change: Reducing the Vulnerability of the Poor though Adaption, a
OECD Report prepared in collaboration with various bilateral and multilateral donors; and a
follow-up document called the 2006 OECD Declaration on Integrating Climate Change
Adaptation into Development Co-operation (OECD 2006). We will identify relevant
documents related to the emerging donor driven National Adaptation Plans of Action (NAPAs)
and their integrations with Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). We will also analyze
relevant documents and reports related to the promotion of Clean Development Mechanisms,
the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF). We will consider relevant aspects of the United
Nations Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) and
emergent tools and methodologies to assess climate vulnerabilities (OECD 2008).
At the donor level we focus on Norway and the United Kingdom; on the Norwegian
White paper ‘Climate, Conflict and Capital’, and on DFID’s new white paper Eliminating
World Poverty: Building our Common Future. We will do a thorough analysis of the
forthcoming World Development Report 2010 on Climate Change and Development, and
relevant work in some World Bank specific units such as the social development department
as well as work related to South Africa. We also look at the Human Development Report 2008
Fighting Climate Change: Human solidarity in a divided world, and some of the work
emerging from Oxfam on poverty and climate change linkages.
At the national level, South Africa is in the process of developing comprehensive
plans for addressing climate change. A National Science Plan under the heading of Global
Change Grand Challenges has already been developed. One of five of these challenges is
climate change. South Africa aims to be a leading contributor internationally to climate
change knowledge. It also aims to link social science research and concerns with development
and poverty reduction as a key priority. We will study relevant documents in this context
(national and local levels). In addition we will look into emergent legislation and policy
13
We will here draw on previous analyses of what makes poor people’s legal voices effective, and when
litigation processes result in successful implementation of human rights. See for example, Gloppen, "Legal
Enforcement of Social Rights: Enabling Conditions and Impact Assessment” Erasmus Law Review (forthcoming,
2009); S. Gloppen, “Litigation as a strategy to hold governments accountable for implementing the right to
health. Health and Human Rights: An International Journal (2008); Volum 10.(2)”; S. Gloppen and R. Sieder,
“Courts and the marginalized: Comparative perspectives” Int J Constitutional Law 2007 5:183-186. (2007); S.
Gloppen, “Courts and Social Transformation: An Analytical Framework” in R.Gargarella et al. (eds.) Courts and
Social Transformation in New Democracies. An Institutional Voice for the Poor?, Aldershot/Burlington:
Ashgate pp. 35-59 (2006); S. Gloppen: ”Social Rights Litigation as Transformation: South African Perspectives”
in P. Jones and K. Stokke (eds) Democratising Development: The Politics of Socio-Economic Rights in South
Africa. (Nijhof Law Specials) Brill Academic Publishers (2005)
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related to climate change, water, and food. Finally, we will document and analyze social
rights activism and mobilization in these issues, including documents from the courts.
Milestones and Action plan
2010: We start the project with a workshop in South Africa, for the whole team, with the
purpose of identifying further the fundamental documents and activist groups and cases that
would form the study. The last day will be dedicated to dialogue with stakeholders.
This first year will see the identification of a postdoctoral candidate and the search for
alternative funding for 2 additional doctoral candidates. We will start designing and carrying
out field work and actual documents analysis.
2011: In addition to continuing the work from the previous year, we organize a workshop in
Bergen and initiate a policy dialogue with Norwegian and other global actors. We continue
with field work and stakeholder roundtables. We initiate drafting and submission of a
proposal for the publishing of a monograph.
2012: We focus on the writing of academic publications, in addition to intensifying the work
with stakeholders. We seek funding and organise a major international conference presenting
results of the project and guidance for further research.
Dissemination plan and communication with users
The project leaders commit to the following outputs:
4 Policy Briefs and Stakeholder meetings to reach out to policy users and activist groups.
We aim to reach out to the wider public though media
Regarding academic outputs: We aim to produce at least 3 peer review articles in
international journals.
- Article 1 will be a concept paper on analyzing climate change as a polyphonic discourse
- Article 2 will be about the case of how key global players address the issues
- Article 3 will be about the tensions between climate change and social rights in South
Africa, presenting results on the cases around water or food issues
We will produce a co-authored monograph, published by an internationally renowned
publisher.
The Post Doctoral candidate will produce a series of articles for international peer reviewed
journals.
Last, we will organize roundtables that bring diverse actors to discuss a concrete case related
to water and to food as well as workshops bringing together scholars from the disciplines
relevant to concrete cases.
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