Climate Adaptation Governance Research Articles

The fragmentation of climate change adaptation – the Sweden case

Purpose This paper aims to challenge the view of Sweden’s climate leadership by problematizing its domestic climate adaptation governance and highlighting the need for a more holistic view of adaptation. The paper highlights aspects that are troublesome for not only the built environment along coastlines but also the future of Sweden’s standing as a climate leader. The paper concludes with recommendations addressing the key areas of climate adaptation fragmentation in Sweden and calls for a more holistic view of adaptation, and one that takes into account resources, collaboration and coherence of governance vision. Design/methodology/approach The paper is a comprehensive analysis of internal governance processes in climate change adaptation. It is based on an extensive literature review and semi-structured interviews at the local level – i.e. municipalities – who have the primary responsibility for adaptation to climate change in Sweden. Findings Findings point to three-fold concerns. First, there is a lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities in adaptation among municipalities, regions and governmental agencies. Second, the gap between available finance and actual needs for climate change adaptation presents a major challenge when channels and pathways are not clear either. Finally, some adaptation strategies on both the local and national scales may be maladaptive in the long term. Originality/value Sweden consistently ranks highly in different climate performance indices and has acquired an international reputation as a climate leader. The paper challenges this narrative. Through a closer look the paper’s findings reveal a more fragmented picture of climate adaptation governance in the country with a myriad of unresolved questions and ad hoc solutions, where adaptation challenges are more pronounced and manifest in the built environment along the coastlines.

Co-producing representations of summer rainfall in Bangladesh

Climate adaptation governance increasingly investigates the cultural capacities of communities to cope with climate variability and change. This paper reports on research of the symbolic representations of summer rainfall in the cultural repertoires guiding diverse institutionalised fields of activity in Sylhet Division. The research conducted interviews and co-created ‘cognitive maps’ with communities, to critically reflect on their changing seasonal symbols. The study revealed a common stock of summer symbols in Sylhet communities, which individuals reconfigure for strategizing and justifying particular practices. Symbols are stable but not static. As people’s uses of knowledge systems change—moving toward scientific representations—so too does their use of symbols. Moreover, environmental and climatic changes, such as a drying summer, are undermining long-held semiotic templates. Many local and traditional signs no longer hold, leaving communities without cultural templates for timely seasonal action. This work highlights the importance of cultural frameworks for organising communities’ seasonal adaptation, and the imperative for critically revisiting frameworks in rapid flux.

A Framework for Assessing Climate Adaptation Governance on the Caribbean Island of Curaçao

It is becoming increasingly clear that Caribbean islands are very vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as sea level rise, longer periods of droughts, loss of biodiversity, more extreme weather events (flooding and hurricanes), and increased freshwater demands. Addressing these issues encourages good climate change adaptation governance. So far, however, the literature has not discussed what good governance could mean in this context. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to address this knowledge gap by developing an assessment framework and showing its usefulness. The framework is based on a review of the literature and is applied in an assessment of adaptation practices in Curaçao. The assessment is based on a review of Curaçao policy documents and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders. We found that the developed framework was useful for obtaining a better insight into the quality of adaptation governance on Caribbean islands, and that in the Curaçao practices, the good governance principles of transparency and inclusiveness are better elaborated in comparison to connectivity, accountability and government effectiveness. We conclude the paper with some reflections on the potential of the framework and some suggestions for further research.

A bridge over troubled water? Flood insurance and the governance of climate change adaptation

Floods are one of the most commonly occurring natural hazard events globally, and present a significant threat to the UK from climate change. Operating since 2016, Flood Re is an industry-government initiative, set up with the goal of reforming the flood insurance market in order to provide universal, affordable cover for UK households. Principally providing reinsurance services to insurers and including mutualisation arrangements, it aims to withdraw from the market in 2039, having paved the way for risk-reflective pricing without subsidy. Drawing on the theoretical work of Francois Ewald, and empirical data from interviews with 12 key stakeholders and documentary analysis, this paper traces a shift in Flood Re’s insurantial imaginary, exemplified by the development of several solutions which go beyond its initial remit of providing reinsurance to private insurers. Findings show that this shift has been driven by the growing realisation that climate change is not merely a complicating factor for the ability to achieve a thriving insurance market, but demands a paradigmatic change in the governance of flood risk. We argue that Flood Re has an opportunity to adopt a leadership role in the governance of climate adaptation, but that it must be expanded to include a wider variety of stakeholders covering land-use planning, housing, consumer and community representatives. That a market for flood insurance that delivers on risk reduction and affordability for all can be brought about without structural reform to the industry nor a strong role for the state, is a delusion in light of climate change.

The “Adaptation Paradox” and Citizen Ambiguity over Government Climate Policies: Survey Findings from Bangladesh

National governments in the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations are using domestically sourced and international funding and expertise. However, local governments are where citizens in many developing countries turn to solve problems. Using results from a nationally representative sample in Bangladesh, one of the most climate-vulnerable nations in the world, we examine citizens’ perspectives about the responsibility of different levels of government to address climate change problems. Inasmuch as Bangladeshi survey respondents do draw distinctions, they trust local governments more than the national one. However, local governments tend to be relatively weak vis-à-vis the national government: political and financial resources are concentrated there, and the national government has access to the resources of international financial institutions. Furthermore, respondents tend to view local officials as embedded community networks more than as formal government agents. We conclude that better public communications across levels of government with vulnerable communities are needed if these communities are to protect themselves from extreme weather events, access services, and reap the benefits of “polycentric” climate adaptation governance across a full range of levels.

Decoding climate adaptation governance: A sociotechnical perspective of U.S. airports

Inadequate governance is considered a major barrier for implementing policy, particularly those concerning global and complex challenges such as climate change adaptation. Literature in adaptation policy point to the lack of methods that monitor and assess how decision-making takes place and by whom. Based on a review of over 200 policy documents, this article benchmarks for the first time, the current airport climate adaptation regime in the United States and applies a sociotechnical system framework to scrutinize institutional capacity to address climate change impacts. An innovative policy review system is designed to decode how airport policies create conditions to use climate data as decision-relevant information and produce adaptation actions. Potential climate-cognizant policies are identified and characterized based on their target, timescale, and governance mode. Review results show that the assumption of climate stationarity is widespread. However, there is high potential for technical and, especially, organizational airport policies to incorporate climate science and adaptation pathways. Results also uncover governance barriers related to institutional path-dependence that include: (1) conflicting rationales between adaptation and reliability values, and (2) overpowering technical policies and market governance. These barriers perpetuate scale-mismatch between airport policies and expected impacts from climate change. Finally, we highlight the latent capacity for collaborative governance to advance adaptation regimes in airports and other multiscalar complex infrastructure systems. Our proposed methods and review results identify pathways to enhance institutional capacity for designing and operationalizing transformative adaptation policies.

Ratemaking as Climate Adaptation Governance

Electric utilities are directly affected by, and in some cases are a source of, many pressing climate adaptation challenges: wildfires, vulnerable infrastructure, extreme storms, and drought. The state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is one of the most consequential government agencies guiding the electricity sector's response to climate change. Rate-regulated utilities may not charge ratepayers for new capital investments without PUC approval. When PUCs decide which costs are eligible for rate recovery, they also define which risks utilities seek to manage and which hedging strategies they use to do so. This Article argues that the foundational principles of ratemaking allow the state PUC to manage many aspects of electricity sector adaptation planning, coordination, and implementation. The Article begins with an overview of ratemaking for electric utilities and identifies how the process is an exercise in risk management. The Article then explains how a risk governance perspective can position the PUC to explicitly incorporate climate adaptation into ratemaking procedures as well as help coordinate adaptation policy across multiple agencies.

How to tackle complexity in urban climate resilience? Negotiating climate science, adaptation and multi-level governance in India.

As the world’s population is expected to be over 2/3rd urban by 2050, climate action in cities is a growing area of interest in the inter-disciplines of development policy, disaster mitigation and environmental governance. The climate impacts are expected to be quite severe in the developing world, given its urban societies are densely packed, vastly exposed to natural elements while possessing limited capabilities. There is a notable ambiguity and complexity that inhibits a methodical approach in identifying urban resilience measures. The complexity is due to intersection of large number of distinct variables in climate geoscience (precipitation and temperature anomalies at different locations, RCPs, timeline), adaptation alternatives (approach, priority, intervention level) and urban governance (functional mandate, institutional capacity, and plans & policies). This research examines how disparate and complex knowledge and information in these inter-disciplines can be processed for systematic ‘negotiation’ to situate, ground and operationalize resilience in cities. With India as a case, we test this by simulating mid-term and long-run climate scenarios (2050 & 2080) to map regional climate impacts that shows escalation in the intensity of climate events like heat waves, urban flooding, landslides and sea level rise. We draw on suitable adaptation measures for five key urban sectors- water, infrastructure (including energy), building, urban planning, health and conclude a sleuth of climate resilience building measures for policy application through national/ state policies, local urban plans and preparation of city resilience strategy, as well as advance the research on ‘negotiated resilience’ in urban areas

Super-bureaucracy in climate adaptation governance in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT State bureaucratic settings and associated governance patterns have an enormous impact on the planning and implementation of a country's climate development policy. Contextually, a typical superior bureaucratic framework with its decision-making power centred on climate adaptation projects funding prevails in Bangladesh. This paper deploys the concepts of Weberian bureaucracy and super-bureaucracy and its governance pattern to explore the power attributes of climate bureaus and associated bureaucratic practices and decision-making behaviour regarding adaptation funding in climate adaptation governance. The study employs all climate adaptation development projects (n = 573) financing in Bangladesh. The analysis finds that the general administration cadre employees rather than technical professionals are involved in multiple decision-making processes, including appraisal and approval and monitoring and evaluating projects holding powerful pivotal positions both centrally and locally. These super bureaus also expand their power resources in climate adaptation policy by governing big adaptation projects, keeping the project director position, and approving the said position. The power capabilities and interests of the super-bureaus accrue by creating new climate institutions too. The decision-making behaviour and governance pattern underpin a state of super-bureaucracy, which are not supportive enough of innovative policy-making through inclusive participation and collective decision-making for governing dynamic climate adaptation policy.

Climate Adaptation Strategies and Associated Governance Structures in Mountain Areas. The Case of the Alpine Regions

Adaptation to climate change raises important governance issues in terms of governance structures and mechanisms, stakeholders’ involvement, and links with the existing and wider-scale strategies. Notwithstanding the increasing attention at the global and European level, precise recommendations for the governance of climate change at the geographical macro-regional level are still lacking. Macro-regions span several states with some common morphological or climatic features and adopt wider-scale strategies which are not mandatory or do not take sufficient account of the specificities of any included regions. Each region is differently administered and adopts specific climate adaptation strategies for addressing just the challenges of the territories they govern, without considering the effects on the neighbouring ones. They also decentralize the climate policies towards the lowest levels of government, and this has increased the number of local bodies involved and promoted the participation of non-governmental players and citizens. Within the macro-regions, local climate conditions and their changes can be similar; however, their impacts can vary significantly at the individual territory level, and their effects can extend beyond traditional administrative boundaries. Dealing with these changes is particularly challenging in the Alpine area, which extends across 48 regions/autonomous provinces belonging to eight different European countries and is governed by three different international/transnational strategies. This territory represents a fragile ecosystem due to the current climate changes, which have influenced the climate conditions differently at the local level, as well as the richness of natural resources, and the opportunity to exploit them for economic reasons. South Tyrol (IT) is one of the autonomous provinces located in this area that is currently addressing the expected and unexpected impacts of climate change. Unlike other Italian Alpine regions, this region boasts a wider legislative autonomy, which enables the creation of more targeted climate adaptation policies and their decentralisation to the lowest level of administration, including the non-governmental players and citizens. As a result, the climate adaptation governance framework appears complex and hard to govern due to the plurality of actors and governmental levels at Alpine and regional/provincial levels. The present article sheds light on this framework, analysing specifically the three above-mentioned governance issues: governance structures, stakeholders’ involvement mechanisms, and links with the existing wider-scales strategies. While discussing these topics, it then refers specifically to South Tyrol for the case study. Based on the documental analysis of the climate adaptation strategies and resultant findings, the preferred governance mechanism for addressing the specific climate adaptation challenges of Alpine regions would involve adopting some of the regulations included in regional mono-sectoral plans. These regulations do not relate to wider-scale strategies at the macro-regional level and refer just to the administered territories. The participation of local institutions and citizens in defining and implementing these regulations is limited and not incentivized. Although important, interactions across Alpine, national, and sub-national policy domains are limited. These limitations are revealed in South Tyrol and partially also in other European Alpine regions.

Decentralization and the governance of climate adaptation: Situating community-based planning within broader trajectories of political transformation

Decentralized, “community-based” approaches to climate adaptation are now viewed as a key strategy to assist vulnerable populations confront global climate change. While these efforts are premised on the belief that citizen participation will lead to more effective climate responses, there remains limited empirical evidence of the relationship between local democracy and climate risk reduction. This paper asks: How, and through which processes, do local institutions emerge as more substantively democratic arenas to coordinate responses to climate risk and change? And how does the character of local democratic practice, in turn, influence the effectiveness of adaptive responses? To answer these questions, the paper analyzes the implementation of India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)—a substantial devolution of development resources to rural local governments in India—and its effects on climate risk reduction in the state of Himachal Pradesh. A primary dataset of 798 small-scale development projects in 35 villages shows that a majority of water-related interventions are helping to improve water access in the face of water stress, while benefits skew towards poorer and historically marginalized social groups. Drawing on intensive qualitative enquiry, the paper argues that these outcomes were made possible as the result of long-term political transformations in the region, which have paved the way for more inclusive — if often contested — participation in local decision-making processes. The analysis underscores the need to move beyond a narrow focus on institutional building to undertake longer-term investments in supporting more robust subnational democratic systems. The growing flow of resources dedicated to climate assistance has the potential to help drive such processes where the nascent conditions for democratic deepening are in place.

Using collaborative hackathons to coproduce knowledge on local climate adaptation governance

While coproduction of knowledge is growing in popularity in social sciences, and especially climate change research, we still need to better understand how to coproduce climate knowledge. In this paper, we explore how collaborative climate hackathons coproduce local adaptation knowledge, and what this method reveals about local climate governance. The data derives from two collaborative climate hackathons, called Klimathons, that attracted 73 and 98 participants in Bergen, Norway. The participants were practitioners and decision-makers from local, regional, and national institutions as well as researchers from natural and social climate sciences. The collaborative group work revolved around the challenges and solutions of local adaptation planning and uncovered how a diversity of key actors understand the local adaptation work in Norway. These interventions revealed that there are significant disagreements and divergent understanding of relevant laws, regulations and responsibility between practitioners working within the same governance system. Though the cross-sectorial interaction does not dissolve these divergences, they allow actors to renegotiate boundaries between divergent knowledge communities. The Klimathons helped us navigate the complexity of local climate adaptation by shifting the focus to how different actors make sense of and work on adaptation and showing the intertwining and interdependence of potential drivers for adaptation.

Rethinking urban adaptation as a scalar geopolitics of climate governance: climate policy in the devolved territories of the UK

ABSTRACT This paper exposes missing interconnections between the urban, national and international scales in the analysis of climate adaptation policy and territorial governance in the UK. Drawing upon the results of interviews with adaptation stakeholders in seven UK city-regions, it examines: (1) the increasing discursive alignment of the ‘urban’ and the ‘national’ in international climate adaptation policy and decision-making processes; and (2) the contradictions between urban and national climate policy discourses across the UK devolved territories. The paper identifies and accounts for an emergent scalar geopolitics of climate adaptation governance as urban climate actions and knowledges are enrolled in the UK state’s efforts to respond to broader international climate governance and policy imperatives. We call for further research on how adaptation knowledge is geopolitically mobilized at different scales of climate governance.

Governance of climate adaptation, which mode? An exploration of stakeholder viewpoints on how to organize adaptation

There are many normative answers on the question how to realize climate adaptation, ranging from pleas for the government to play a decisive role, to calls for refraining from action and relying upon spontaneous adaptation of both government and non-governmental actors. In this article, we present a Q methodological study, aimed at investigating the governance preferences among non-governmental actors in the Netherlands and the “narratives” they use to motivate these preferences. Our empirical results underline the fact that the question “how to organize adaptation”, is a controversial one. The results resemble the various positions in the current academic debate about the governance of adaptation, and add important insights and nuances to it. Many respondents feel that the current climate adaptation policy is too non-committal. The dominant viewpoint underscores a need for more rules and norms and the possibility to sanction organizations that do not adapt. Minority viewpoints show an urge to stimulate and support self-organization of partners, as well as a need for more action. However, financial and regulatory preconditions are needed to stimulate actors in order to see to the necessary investments. Policy-makers have to invest in mixing their policy instruments. Clearly, most nongovernmental actors are in favor of the government setting a framework with rules and norms for climate adaption. However, the viewpoints show that this is not sufficient. The government should facilitate networks, joint efforts and create the financial and regulatory preconditions to remove current barriers blocking adaptation measures.

Local narratives of change as an entry point for building urban climate resilience

Cities face increasing risks due to climate change, and many cities are actively working towards increasing their climate resilience. Climate change-induced risks and interventions to reduce these risks do not only impact urban risk management systems and infrastructures, but also people’s daily lives. In order to build public support for climate adaptation and resilience-building and stimulate collaboration between authorities and citizens, it is necessary that adaptation and resilience-building are locally meaningful. Thus, interventions should be rooted in citizens’ concerns and aspirations for their city. Urban policymakers and researchers have started the search for better citizen participation in adaptation. However, tools to connect the relatively strategic and long-term notions of adaptation to a gradually changing climate held by planners and scientists with how citizens experience today’s climate and weather remain elusive. This paper investigates the use of ‘narratives of change’ as an approach to elicit perceptions of past, present and future weather, water, and climate, and how these relate to citizens’ desired futures. We tested this by eliciting and comparing narratives of change from authorities and from citizens in the Dutch city of Dordrecht. Our analysis of the process showed that historical events, embedded in local memory and identity, have a surprisingly strong impact on how climate change is perceived and acted upon today. This contributes to an awareness and sense of urgency of some climate risks (e.g. flood risks). However, it also shifts attention away from other risks (e.g. intensified heat stress). The analysis highlighted commonalities, like shared concerns about climate change and desires to collaborate, but also differences in how climate change, impacts, and action are conceptualized. There are possibilities for collaboration and mutual learning, as well as areas of potential disagreement and conflict. We conclude that narratives are a useful tool to better connect the governance of climate adaptation with peoples’ daily experience of climate risks and climate resilience, thereby potentially increasing public support for and participation in resilience-building.

Locating climate adaptation in urban and regional studies

ABSTRACTThis paper adds new insights to the relationship between city-regionalism, the territorial logics of the competition state and how climate adaptation is located in state spaces. Whilst climate adaptation governance is positioned within national economic sectors, it highlights an emerging city-regional policy dimension to such governance. The spatial reconfiguration of climate change adaptation governance reflects a tension between three quite distinct processes: (1) the sector-driven territorial logic of the national competition state; (2) the emergence of city-regionalism as an adaptation governance response to increased competition; and (3) the assertion of ‘national’ political priorities in the implementation of climate adaptation across subnational territories. Future climate adaptation governance research needs to address the uneasy relationship between the rise of city-regionalism and the sector-led priorities of the competition state.

Beyond participation: when citizen engagement leads to undesirable outcomes for nature-based solutions and climate change adaptation

Scholars and practitioners are increasingly promoting so-called nature-based approaches for urban climate change adaptation. There is widespread consensus that they both support and require transdisciplinary approaches, notably by involving citizens in the change process and finding innovative ways to unite different actors’ efforts and capacities. However, there is little empirical evidence regarding the actual value of citizen involvement to sustainability in this field. Against this background, this paper examines whether (or not) current forms and conditions of citizen involvement help to create a platform to support nature-based solutions and ensure a transformative adaptation process. The results show that under current conditions, citizen engagement often hampers sustainable outcomes. In fact, current structures and mechanisms for mainstreaming nature and climate considerations into sectoral planning are limited and, furthermore, neglect citizen involvement. In addition, there is a blind spot with respect to personal spheres of transformation toward sustainability regarding citizens, civil servants, and decision-makers. Key constraints are power structures and the lack of cognitive/emotional and relational capacities required for improved democratic governance. If we are to tap into the potential of nature-based solutions to increase climate adaptation governance, we need targeted financial and human resources, and greater capacity to overcome current constraints and support all levels and phases of mainstreaming, notably planning, implementation, monitoring, and learning.

Environmental and climate policy integration: Targeted strategies for overcoming barriers to nature-based solutions and climate change adaptation

Nature-based adaptation planning is a challenging endeavor, not least because it requires transdisciplinary approaches to unite different actors' efforts and capacities. However, empirical knowledge on associated governance processes is scarce and fragmented. Against this background, this paper examines the integration of nature-based approaches for climate change adaptation into municipalities’ daily planning practices and associated governance. A city-to-city learning lab was established to systematically analyze selected urban development projects step-by-step, from the initial idea, to comprehensive and detailed planning, procurement, implementation, maintenance and follow-up. The results show the numerous constraints municipal staff face and how they use targeted strategies to overcome them and tap into existing drivers. We identify five, complementary strategies: i) targeted stakeholder collaboration; ii) strategic citizen involvement; iii) outsourcing; iv) the alteration of internal working structures; and v) concealed science–policy integration. Importantly, these strategies reveal an increasing need for relational approaches that, in turn, require individuals to develop the cognitive/emotional capacity to establish trust, communicate inclusively and promote social learning, while at the same time dealing with an increasingly complex and uncertain working environment. We conclude that tapping into the potential of nature-based solutions for climate adaptation governance requires more financial and human resources, and capacity development to support personal development, systematic mainstreaming and, ultimately, more sustainable development.

Beyond inputs and outputs: Process‐oriented explanation of institutional change in climate adaptation governance

AbstractClimate adaptation is a growing imperative across all scales and sectors of governance. This often requires changes in institutions, which can be difficult to realize. Explicitly process‐oriented approaches explaining how and why institutional change occurs are lacking. Overcoming this gap is vital to move beyond either input‐oriented (e.g., capacity) or output‐oriented (e.g., assessment) approaches, to understand how changes actually occur for addressing complex and contested governance issues. This paper analyses causal conditions and mechanisms by which institutions develop in climate adaptation governance. It focuses on urban climate governance through an in‐depth case study of Santiago, Chile, over a 12‐year period (2005–2017), drawing on primary and secondary data, including 26 semistructured interviews with policy, academic, and civil society actors. It identifies and explains a variety of institutional developments across multiple levels (i.e., programmatic, legislative, and constitutional), through a theory‐centric process tracing methodology. This reveals a multiple‐response pattern, involving several causal mechanisms and coexisting institutional logics. Findings suggest that although adaptation may be inherently protracted, institutions can nevertheless develop in both related and novel directions. Overall, the paper argues for a new research agenda on process‐oriented theorizing and analysis in climate and environmental governance.

Transnational municipal networks: Harbingers of innovation for global adaptation governance?

Few studies have examined transnational actors involved in global adaptation governance, despite their growing influence. This paper focuses on 100 Resilient Cities (100RC), a transnational municipal network (TMN) that has created governance instruments with potential for contributing to global adaptation governance. Despite their different nature from international actors (states and intergovernmental organizations), the distinct practices of TMNs and how they might influence global adaptation governance are uncertain. Vague claims suggest that TMNs are innovative, but what this innovation consists of remains unclear. Therefore, the research question here is: how do TMNs innovate in global adaptation governance? This paper strives to answer this question, by building an analytical framework to identify types and features of governance instruments, based on the literature on policy instruments, global environmental governance and global climate governance. It presents a case study of 100RC, based on an in-depth documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews. The results suggest that TMNs can be innovative, if they, like 100RC, create original governance instruments instead of using the existing tools of international or other transnational actors. While some of 100RC’s tools favour a more recent, soft and indirect approach, its considerable use of hard practices with significant obligation is particularly interesting considering the general characterization of TMNs as voluntary and soft. The governance practices of 100RC are thus not in stark contrast with those of international actors. Their diversity could provide inspiration for future action to improve the effectiveness of global climate adaptation governance, and the analytical framework developed here could be applied in further studies.