Climate Adaptation Efficacy and Adequacy Determined

The Paris Agreement aims to substantially reduce global GHG emissions to limit temperature rise beyond 1.5°C or preferably below 2°C. It also establishes an international goal on climate adaptation – to enhance adaptive capacity, build resilience, and reduce vulnerability to climate change.

A report from the World Bank shows that climate adaptation investments have increased by 35% in recent years, but more is still needed to address the human and economic impacts of climate change.

As a response to the Paris Agreement and, more recently, the Glasgow climate pact deal, climate adaptation investments will grow in the following years.

The Paris agreement wanted to ensure an ‘adequate adaptation response’ to meet the ‘global temperature goal’, thereby enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening climate resilience, and reducing vulnerability to climate change, ultimately contributing to sustainable development.

According to the study, the Paris Agreement further requires nations to contribute to periodic stock takes on progress towards the Paris Agreement goals, including reviewing the adequacy and effectiveness of adaptation and support provided for adaptation and assessing overall progress made in achieving the global goal on adaptation. So, how should we define the efficacy and adequacy of adaptation?

Researchers reviewed the adaptation literature to define climate adaptation effectiveness and identified eleven frames used to conceptualise effective climate adaptation.

These 11 frames are broadly grouped into two categories: “Process-based” frames, which denotes ways of implementing and achieving effective adaptation: (1) community-based adaptation, (2) ecosystem-based adaptation, (3) adaptive governance, (4) transformation, (5) equity/justice, and “Normative” frames which are goal-oriented, denoting ‘desirable’ adaptation outcomes: (6) improved well-being, (7) enhanced resilience, (8) reduced vulnerability, (9) avoided maladaptation, (10) sustainable adaptation, and (11) efficiency/utilitarian.

“This paper unpacks these frames and their implications for effective adaptation (EA), in a bid to motivate adaptation researchers and practitioners to consider the pros and cons of a particular lens before applying it. As we show through empirical examples from Kenya, Mali, Namibia, and India, assessing EA through a particular frame leads to variable evidence on adaptation outcomes”.

Furthermore, the study states that the “eleven frames of EA are put forth as a contribution to the growing’ adaptation science’ literature that is critically examining how heuristics and metrics used to conceptualise and measure adaptation effectiveness have real-world implications on adaptation outcomes”.

To read the entire study, click the link below: