Paris climate deal and adaptive social protection

THE Paris deal on climate change has already created substantial optimism across the world. It is mainly due to three high notes of the deal, at least two of which are tangible in nature. First, all the parties will try to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, nonwithstanding whether a country is a big emitter or not. Second, it endorsed a commitment for "zero net" GHG emissions in the second half of this century. Third, the parties will "pursue efforts" to limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C. Realisation of world leaders and vested corporate interest about the concerted need for addressing climate change is perhaps the biggest achievement so far in the context of COP21. Nevertheless, the ongoing pace of the climate change process is unlikely to alter with these important three steps, and countries like Bangladesh would continue to remain significantly vulnerable to disasters in the coming decades.       

Indeed, the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP, 2009) recognises that the country ranks fifth among ten countries in the world most vulnerable to climate-induced disasters. To address climate adversities, it also identifies the expenditure and revenue or finance sides of climate fiscal funds, and suggests developing a transparent and sustainable climate fiscal policy. The budgetary policy framework serves as a key element of the Climate Fiscal Framework (CFF) in developing, favourable circumstances for climate fiscal policy without hampering the existing public financing mechanism. Thus, CFF is commensurate with the BCCSAP, which adopts an integrated approach to climate change, disaster risk reduction and social protection, as these are intrinsically interwoven with covariate shocks. The social protection programmes are therefore imperative to have built-in mechanisms to factor in the adversities of climate change, since those adversely affect the poor and climate-vulnerable communities through various channels in the risk-vulnerability chain. 

The Bangladesh Climate Public Expenditure and Institutional Review (CPEIR) prepared in 2012, and the CFF prepared in 2014, were considered in identifying Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as one of the "Champions of the Earth". These documents worked out the expenditures on "social protection" directly related to climate change, while the others they referred to as "livelihoods" were assigned different climate change weights. Unfortunately, the documents do not systematically demonstrate which "social protection" and "livelihoods" programmes were identified as "climate change relevant" at national level, although they ascertain and analyse expenditures relevant to climate change at a local level. The major programmes relevant to climate change that they mention are Food for Work, and Test Relief and Employment Generation Programme for the Ultra-Poor (formerly known as '100-day Employment Scheme'). Covariate shocks from climate-induced disasters have been implicitly embedded in the country's recently published National Social Security Strategy (NSSS). The NSSS also recognises the significance of reducing risks and vulnerabilities emanating from climate change and disasters. Thus, there is an implicit overlapping between climate change interventions along with related expenditures and the social protection (security) programmes. Since every programme mentioned in the NSSS are unlikely to address the adversities and reducing discomforts of climate change, there is a need to derive the profound implications of "adaptive social protection" for both CFF and NSSS. Quite surprisingly, the NSSS and CFF documents did not clearly define Adaptive Social Protection for mobilising climate change financing.

Therefore, a well-defined Adaptive Social Protection programme should be at the heart for allocating funds for social protection programmes. The CPEIR reveals that the definition of climate change expenditures usually excludes social security programmes that make it difficult to work out the public expenditure for climate change in the context of social protection. Indeed, adaptive social protection is an integrated approach to encompass climate change, disaster risk reduction and social protection. However, neither the CFF nor the proposed NSSS have come up with a clearly defined selection of adaptive social protection programmes. Therefore, it is imperative to develop a robust and acceptable set of criteria to identify the programmes that can contribute to the development of resilience to the impacts of climate change. An appropriate definition of "Adaptive Social Protection" is important to fathom the actual climate change expenditure in Bangladesh.

NSSS and CFF do not fully overlap in the government's current approach to classify social protection programmes. The term "social protection" is also debated in the literature, and perceptions do not completely match with the practices and policy documents. In Bangladesh, social safety net programmes (SSNPs) are divided into social protection and social empowerment programmes. In the budget 2015-16, the total allocation for SSNPs is Tk. 375.46 billion, in which the allocation for social protection is Tk. 269.58 billion (72 percent of total SSNP budget). However, as high as 42 percent of the total allocation for social protection is dedicated to "Pension for Retired Government Employees and their Families", although social protection programmes are perceived to be designed mainly to protect the poorest, marginalised and most vulnerable groups including climate-vulnerable populations. It also reduces the scope of allocation for adaptive social protection as majority of the programmes are climate change insensitive. 

Some social empowerment and development programmes, such as the emergency cyclone recovery and restoration programme, the water supply and sanitation project in cyclone prone area, and coastal climate resilient infrastructure improvement project, are helpful in generating employment and protecting livelihoods of the climate and disaster vulnerable populations, but they are excluded from the social protection programmes. Therefore, a robust working definition of adaptive social protection is needed, which has to be accepted by policymakers, practitioners, civil society, academia, and media through debates and discussions. It will help segregate the programmes related to climate change, social protection and livelihood programmes.

The Paris deal reminds us that the onus is on our part to reduce emissions and financially protect the millions of climate-vulnerable populations, many of whom engage in carbon sequestrating ecosystem services and ozone-depleting activities. It is, thus, high time that adaptive social protection is introduced in Bangladesh. 

The writer is Senior Research Fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS).