Risk from responses to a changing climate

Abstract

Effectively responding to intensifying climate change hazards requires identifying risks arising from each response, as well as risks arising from the dynamic interactions between responses. Using examples of managed retreat and solar geoengineering, we illustrate the importance of understanding response as a determinant of climate change risk. We highlight a continuum of severity of response risks, both at the site of deployment and across temporally and geographically distant contexts. While responses might moderate a specific hazard, due to the complexity of climate change risk they may be ineffective at reducing net climate-related risk for any given actor or system. We also show how some responses to climate change affect vulnerability, exposure, and other responses to climate change independent of the targeted hazard and can lead to maladaptation. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of integrating climate change responses together with other determinants of risk to better inform climate risk management and guide research on the feasibility of individual response options.