IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/climat/v176y2023i3d10.1007_s10584-023-03482-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Addressing unavoidable climate change loss and damage: A case study from Fiji’s sugar industry

Author

Listed:
  • Moleen Monita Nand

    (The University of Adelaide)

  • Douglas K. Bardsley

    (The University of Adelaide)

  • Jungho Suh

    (The University of Adelaide)

Abstract

Climate change loss and damage (L&D) presents an existential threat to the Fiji Islands. This case study examines how rural Indo-Fijian sugarcane farming communities face challenges in minimising, averting, and addressing L&D from cyclones. In-depth semi-structured interviews (n = 68) were conducted with 40 sugarcane farmers in two Indo-Fijian sugarcane communities, Barotu and Toko settlements in Western Viti Levu, Fiji, and with 28 key stakeholders from government ministries, academia, and climate change response services. Despite implementing climate change adaptation measures, Fiji’s sugar industry has faced devastating L&D from frequent and severe cyclones. Much of the climate change L&D to crops, property, and income was irreversible and unavoidable. Non-economic loss and damage (NELD) was found insurmountable in both field sites, including the loss of homes and places of worship, cascading and flow-on effects as well as the heightening of uncertainty, fear, and trauma. Evidence suggests that L&D, including NELD, is highly context specific, and UNFCCC’s broad NELD categories do not fully capture L&D at the local level. The systematic documentation of L&D within vulnerable communities would improve understanding of L&D, including NELD, and assist to facilitate the mobilisation of immediate support and action to address L&D in countries that lack the capacities to respond independently. This paper recommends crucial policy interventions such as livelihood diversification, integration of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, land tenure policy reforms, and the operationalisation of the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage.

Suggested Citation

  • Moleen Monita Nand & Douglas K. Bardsley & Jungho Suh, 2023. "Addressing unavoidable climate change loss and damage: A case study from Fiji’s sugar industry," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 1-20, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:176:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s10584-023-03482-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s10584-023-03482-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-023-03482-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10584-023-03482-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kumari, Reshmi & Nakano, Yuko, 2016. "Does land lease tenure insecurity cause decreased productivity and investment in the sugar industry? Evidence from Fiji," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 60(3), July.
    2. Neef, Andreas & Benge, Lucy & Boruff, Bryan & Pauli, Natasha & Weber, Eberhard & Varea, Renata, 2018. "Climate adaptation strategies in Fiji: The role of social norms and cultural values," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 125-137.
    3. Kirstin Dow & Frans Berkhout & Benjamin L. Preston & Richard J. T. Klein & Guy Midgley & M. Rebecca Shaw, 2013. "Limits to adaptation," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 3(4), pages 305-307, April.
    4. Mansur,Aisha & Doyle,Jesse Jon Gerome & Ivaschenko,Oleksiy, 2017. "Social protection and humanitarian assistance nexus for disaster response : lessons learnt from Fiji's Tropical Cyclone Winston," Policy Research Working Paper Series 113710, The World Bank.
    5. Karen McNamara & Shirleen Prasad, 2014. "Coping with extreme weather: communities in Fiji and Vanuatu share their experiences and knowledge," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 123(2), pages 121-132, March.
    6. Reshmi Kumari & Yuko Nakano, 2016. "Does land lease tenure insecurity cause decreased productivity and investment in the sugar industry? Evidence from Fiji," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 60(3), pages 406-421, July.
    7. Karen E. McNamara & Guy Jackson, 2019. "Loss and damage: A review of the literature and directions for future research," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 10(2), March.
    8. David Gawith & Adam Daigneault & Pike Brown, 2016. "Does community resilience mitigate loss and damage from climaterelated disasters? Evidence based on survey data," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(12), pages 2102-2123, December.
    9. Christian Huggel & Ivo Wallimann-Helmer & Dáithí Stone & Wolfgang Cramer, 2016. "Reconciling justice and attribution research to advance climate policy," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 6(10), pages 901-908, October.
    10. Ivo Wallimann-Helmer, 2015. "Justice for climate loss and damage," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 133(3), pages 469-480, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Seung Beom Seo & Hee Won Jee & Jaepil Cho & Chansung Oh & Yeora Chae & Sera Jo & Jina Hur, 2024. "Assessment of the flood damage reduction effect of climate change adaptation policies under temperature increase scenarios," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 1-22, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giovanni Bettini & Giovanna Gioli & Romain Felli, 2020. "Clouded skies: How digital technologies could reshape “Loss and Damage” from climate change," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(4), July.
    2. Vu, Ha Thu & Goto, Daisaku, 2020. "Does awareness about land tenure security (LTS) increase investments in agriculture? Evidence from rural households in Vietnam," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    3. Emily Williams, 2020. "Attributing blame?—climate accountability and the uneven landscape of impacts, emissions, and finances," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 161(2), pages 273-290, July.
    4. Nida Akram & Muhammad Waqar Akram & Hongshu Wang & Ayesha Mehmood, 2019. "Does Land Tenure Systems Affect Sustainable Agricultural Development?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-15, July.
    5. Rachel Clissold & Ellie Furlong & Karen E. McNamara & Ross Westoby & Anita Latai-Niusulu, 2023. "How Pacifika Arts Reveal Interconnected Losses for People and Place in a Changing Climate," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-19, April.
    6. Emma Lees, 2017. "Responsibility and liability for climate loss and damage after Paris," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 59-70, January.
    7. Janesh Sami, 2020. "Time Series Dynamics of Sugar Export Earnings in Fiji with Multiple Endogenous Structural Breaks: Implications for EU Sugar and Industry Reforms," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 18(1), pages 169-189, March.
    8. Adewale Henry Adenuga & Claire Jack & Ronan McCarry, 2021. "The Case for Long-Term Land Leasing: A Review of the Empirical Literature," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-21, March.
    9. Richard Taylor & Ruth Butterfield & Tiago Capela Lourenço & Adis Dzebo & Henrik Carlsen & Richard J. T. Klein, 2020. "Surveying perceptions and practices of high-end climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 65-87, July.
    10. Schipper, E.L.F. & Tanner, T. & Dube, O.P. & Adams, K.M. & Huq, S., 2020. "The debate: Is global development adapting to climate change?," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 18(C).
    11. Sumya Naz & Tasin Islam Himel & Taufiqur Rafi & Sazzadul Islam & Saleha Bushra Neha & Syeda Tabassum Islam & Md Mahmud Hasan & Nur Mohammad Ha-Mim & Md. Zakir Hossain & Khan Rubayet Rahaman, 2024. "Investigating Loss and Damage in Coastal Region of Bangladesh from Migration as Adaptation Perspective: A Qualitative Study from Khulna and Satkhira District," World, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-28, January.
    12. Maaz Gardezi & J. Gordon Arbuckle, 2019. "Spatially Representing Vulnerability to Extreme Rain Events Using Midwestern Farmers’ Objective and Perceived Attributes of Adaptive Capacity," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(1), pages 17-34, January.
    13. Fanning, Andrew L. & Hickel, Jason, 2023. "Compensation for atmospheric appropriation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119717, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Yinrong Chen & Yanqing Qin & Qingying Zhu, 2023. "Study on the Impact of Social Capital on Agricultural Land Transfer Decision: Based on 1017 Questionnaires in Hubei Province," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-22, April.
    15. Hoffmann, Roman & Wiederkehr, Charlotte & Dimitrova, Anna & Hermans, Kathleen, 2022. "Agricultural livelihoods, adaptation, and environmental migration in sub-Saharan drylands: A meta-analytical review," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 17(8).
    16. Guy Jackson, 2023. "Environmental subjectivities and experiences of climate extreme-driven loss and damage in northern Australia," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(7), pages 1-21, July.
    17. Michelle Scobie, 2020. "International aid, trade and investment and access and allocation," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 239-254, June.
    18. Zagaria, Cecilia & Schulp, Catharina J.E. & Malek, Žiga & Verburg, Peter H., 2023. "Potential for land and water management adaptations in Mediterranean croplands under climate change," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    19. Furong Chen & Yuyuan Yi & Yifu Zhao, 2023. "The Effect of Social Capital at the Community and Individual Levels on Farmers’ Participation in the Rural Public Goods Provision," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-17, June.
    20. Qiangsheng Hu & Xiaorong He & Hongbing Zhu & Peihong Yang, 2023. "Understanding Residents’ Intention to Adapt to Climate Change in Urban Destinations—A Case Study of Chang-Zhu-Tan Urban Agglomeration," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-16, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:176:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s10584-023-03482-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.