Climate change impacts on housing and property rights in nigeria and panama toward a rights- based approach to adaptation and mitigation

The aim of this chapter is to examine the crosscutting linkages between fundamental human rights - in this case the right to housing and right to property - and water-related impacts of climate change. The interrelationship between water stresses, water resources management and human rights raises particularly profound concerns when climate change and variability are taken into consideration. Several studies demonstrate that climate change will likely increase the unpredictability and incidence of extreme weather events including droughts in some locations and increased flooding, hurricanes, storm surges and sea level rise in others (IPCC, 2012). Such impacts will compound existing vulnerabilities within countries, with negative effects on poverty eradication, livelihoods viability and enjoyment of human rights (O’Brien and Leichenko, 2002; UNDP 2007; ICHRP, 2008). Drawing on examples from Nigeria and Panama, we show that climate change impacts are magnified both by social inequality and human rights infringements and also by the uneven distribution of the burdens of adaptation and mitigation. Adaptation to global climate change will impose large costs on societies (economic, social, cultural and political), so it is essential that already marginalized groups not bear a disproportionate share of the impacts and costs. In this chapter, we identify some of the crucial equity issues that countries have to wrestle with as they adapt or mitigate to the water-related impacts of climate change. This includes addressing the discriminatory dimensions of some climate change responses, especially concerning the protection of vulnerable groups; ensuring equity in public expenditure on climate actions; and regulating state and private actors’ actions. In this book, a theoretical framework is proposed to help understand adaptation to climate change through water resources management (see Ch. 1, Figure 1.1). Issues such as environmental health, social equity and the livelihood security, which are central concerns in this chapter, are considered in this causal loop diagram as stocks that can be increased or decreased through a range of flows such as climate change-induced floods and actions taken to adapt or mitigate climate change. As highlighted in the introductory chapter, stocks are connected in loops, often meaning that A impacts B, but that B also impacts A. These reinforcing and balancing relationships are explored in our case studies. We show that poor housing and land rights regimes can amplify the vulnerability of the poor to climate-induced flooding and to flooding resulting from dams built as Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects. Impacts from such events can further impoverish the poor and minority groups, thus making them more susceptible to harm from future events. We draw on the theoretical framework to discuss and analyse constraints for adaptation to climate change in our study communities in Nigeria and Panama. We focus on equity and livelihood dimensions and also identify adaptation strategies and the effectiveness of these strategies in coping with climate change-related impacts. Using human rights as an analytical lens, we discuss the barriers and bridges to developing and strengthening coping and adaptive capacities in poor and marginalized communities.