Democratic Practices in Climate Change Adaptation
Scientific Reports
Grades10, 11, 12, APCivics, Geography
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
Provided by weADAPT
What it is
- This report examines how the Environmental Democracy in Adaptation framework, built on the pillars of participation, transparency, and justice, has been applied to climate adaptation programs in six African countries.
- It presents country-by-country findings on how well adaptation programs involve communities in decision-making, share information, and provide accountability, and identifies persistent gaps such as top-down design and limited community influence over strategy.
- It offers recommendations for deepening participation, enhancing transparency, advancing justice, and scaling locally led adaptation, with roles for parliamentarians, funders, and civil society.
Teaching tips
Classroom Implementation:
- Use a jigsaw routine to have student groups read about one of the six countries (choose whether to use the executive summary or full report, based on desired depth and duration) and then report their findings.
- Discuss why the three pillars—participation, transparency, and justice—are important for democratic decision-making.
Extensions:
- Have students analyze the three pillars of environmental democracy and apply them as evaluation criteria to a local or school climate adaptation project.
- Alternatively, design a classroom or school protocol for democratic decision-making based on the three pillars and test it out with an environmentally-friendly adaptation.
- Ask students to compare how funder regulations and governance structures shaped outcomes across countries, then debate what makes adaptation programs legitimate and effective.
Related Resources:
- Use this 4-minute video to present a scenario of climate injustice and discuss how the three pillars could have prevented these issues.
- Use this unit plan to dive deeper into climate justice through sociocultural, economic, and ecological lenses and develop a community action project.
From the scientist review
This resource investigates democratic participation in climate adaptation projects in six African nations. Throughout, climate justice is a central focus. Full reports for each country and a several additional research papers are linked. This resource deeply explores climate adaptation, a critical strategy in responding to the climate crisis, and is recommended for teaching.
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