Climate projections for the Mediterranean region indicate increasing heat and water scarcity. Adaptation strategies in the West Bank have often been framed through what Mason et al. (p. 42) describe as a “technical-managerial” approach to climate vulnerability. As McKee illustrates, in the context of water scarcity in the occupied Palestinian territories, desalination technologies are frequently presented as a “win-win” solution, concealing the underlying issues of distributive justice in water allocation. This technocratic framing tends to overlook the broader political context, leading to fragmented, short-term interventions that may be misaligned with local priorities, reinforce dependence on international assistance, and justify external involvement.
The management of environmental risk is not only taken out of the colonial context, but part of a broader political agenda of creating a compliant Palestinian Authority that supports European and US interests and embraces market liberalism.
The ongoing occupation in the West Bank is not only inseparable from climate change vulnerability, but rather constitutive of it. Movement restriction, land fragmentation, and lacking infrastructure and resources, decreases the territory’s adaptive capacity, increasing the vulnerability of the people. Decolonization, therefore, is not a separate issue to adaptation to climate change, but rather a condition for it.
Sources:
Mason, M., Zeitoun, M., & Mimi, Z. (2012). Compounding vulnerability: Impacts of climate change on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Journal of Palestine Studies, 41(3), 38-53. https:||doi.org/10.1525/jps.2012.XLI.3.38
McKee, E. (2022). Toward a political ecology of water solutions. Journal of Palestine Studies, 51(4), 97-103. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48800569
Jarrar, S. (2014). No justice, no adaptation: The politics of climate change adaptation in Palestine. Relations Internationales, 157, 95-110. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=4905259