Transcription

• #Host

  Ecology and Empowerment, a F3E network podcast. Adapting agriculture in order to face climate change.

• Guillaume Quelin

  Hello, my name is Guillaume Quelin and I'm a project manager specialized in climate change at the gret, which is a French non-governmental organization for development. I'm specifically in charge of questions related to climate change with gret's own thematic areas. For example, I have colleagues working on access to water, on agriculture, and we study how to integrate the evolution of the environmental context in order to deal with climate change. So, it's not only about providing answers to current environmental needs, but also about responding to environmental needs that will exist in 10, 20, 30 years'time due to climate change. Ultimately, it's a matter of questioning this evolution of environmental needs. This year, one experience made a strong impression on me. I spent one month in Guinea and I stayed in regions where climate risks were high, with more frequent droughts, fewer rainy seasons and increasingly uncertain rainfall. To deal with this evolution, various spontaneous, autonomous and individual adaptations can be seen, either through the purchase of motor pumps, for those who could afford it, or through the deforestation of land near riverbanks to get closer to remaining water resources. Another example is also that of women who nowadays have to fetch water even though the water is becoming more and more remote and they have to go more frequently. Most of this spontaneous adaptation depends on women. Finally, all these spontaneous adaptations will lead to consequences. For example, motor pumps will progressively diminish the water resource for those who don't have a motor pump. People who clear the river bay will destroy the ecosystems that preserve the water resources and this will have economic, environmental and even social consequences with the increase of water-related inequalities. After making this assessment, we started questioning how we could transform these spontaneous and individual adaptations into collective ones in order to limit the different economic, societal and environmental impacts associated with them. We observed that human beings are capable of living in Greenland and in the desert, and what's at stake isn't so much adapting to a different climate, because people who have the economic and social resources will always be able to get by. The challenge is to empower those who suffer from increasing inequalities, those who don't have money. This is where I see the fundamental relationship between ecology and empowerment. It means trying to find a collective answer to climate change, which is top-down, when human beings naturally tend to find an individual bottom-up solution.

• #Host

  Read more about Guillaume Quelin and his article, Climate inequalities and responsibilities - Let's take collective action, in Ecology and empowerment.