Climate Change and Transboundary Waters: A Study of Discourse in the Mekong River Commission

The study finds that the Mekong River Commission frames climate change policy as science-based and short-term, while expanding its discourse to include justice, security, and development to attract donor support. However, the authors argue that these discursive trends result in the production of studies and project scoping rather than substantive adaptive actions in the basin.

• Climate change policy strategies within the Mekong River Commission are presented as science-based actions, with a focus on short-term, human-dominated, and regionally based temporal horizons.
• The MRC has expanded its climate change discourse to include frames of justice, security, development, and integrated water resource management (IWRM), partly as a strategic move to secure donor funding.

APA

Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (2025). Climate Change and Transboundary Waters: A Study of Discourse in the Mekong River Commission. https://iai.int/es/pub_acad/climate-change-and-transboundary-waters-a-study-of-discourse-in-the-mekong-river-commission/

Chicago

Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research. Climate Change and Transboundary Waters: A Study of Discourse in the Mekong River Commission. 2025. https://iai.int/es/pub_acad/climate-change-and-transboundary-waters-a-study-of-discourse-in-the-mekong-river-commission/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research |title=Climate Change and Transboundary Waters: A Study of Discourse in the Mekong River Commission |date=17 January 2025 |url=https://iai.int/es/pub_acad/climate-change-and-transboundary-waters-a-study-of-discourse-in-the-mekong-river-commission/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{interamericaninstituteforglobalchangeresearch2025climate, author = {{Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research}}, title = {{Climate Change and Transboundary Waters: A Study of Discourse in the Mekong River Commission}}, institution = {Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research}, year = {2025}, month = jan, url = {https://iai.int/es/pub_acad/climate-change-and-transboundary-waters-a-study-of-discourse-in-the-mekong-river-commission/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }