Distribution by Region

Distribution by Organisation Type, Document Type, Region and Year

Adaptation occurs mostly in documents published in Europe, followed by Africa, Asia, North America and Oceania with comparatively smaller contributions. Overall, the top five contributors in terms of occurrences are IGO, NGO, RC, NGO_Fed and Net organisations.

IGO and RC documents provide the greatest number of occurrences, primarily from general documents published in Europe. Occurrences from NGO and NGO_Fed were mostly obtained from activity reports published in Asia.

Net documents mostly generated occurrences in activity reports published in North America.

Adaptation...

• is a/an

  • issue

• • future/global challenge

  • area

• • approach

• necessity

• multi-sectoral priority

• development subfield

• one of the "triple wins"

• one of the three A's

• part of risk prevention

• part of resilience

• exercise in damage limitation

• has types by focus/area

• hard adaptation

• soft adaptation

• sector-based adaptation

• infrastructure

• health

• financial

• has types by actor/group

  • community-based adaptation

    • the definition of which is debatable and rarely discussed

  • child-inclusive CCA

• consists of measures

  • disaster preparation measures

• • economic measures

• • environmental & agricultural measures

• infrastructure measures

• communication & training measures

• has a contested relationship with

  • resilience

    • both appear together as sibling concepts

    • resilience is seen as part/result of adaptation

    • yet adaptation is also seen as part/result of resilience

• is combined with

  • disaster risk reduction & management

  • mitigation

  • development

  • anticipation

• requires

  • adaptive capacity

  • financial resources to be available locally

  • reduced bureaucratic burdens

  • the dispersion of climate change science information

  • sharing knowledge & building capacity together

  • assessing risks

  • early investments in infrastructure (before costs become untenable)

  • insurance for social protection (given climate change's disproportionate effect on the poor)

• is implemented nationally with

  • National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs)

  • National Adaptation Plans (NAPs)

  • both of which have been strongly critiqued

• focuses on vulnerable communities

  • to the extent that it is a euphemism for social injustice

• should be integrated with other approaches

• should be gender-inclusive

• is seen as a cultural imposition

  • on First Nations & local communities

  • and should be more culturally aware/rooted

• is ultimately limited after climate thresholds are reached

  • and may be substituted by mass migration

• the failure of which is referred to as

  • maladaptation

Adaptation: adaptation refers to human action taken to reduce exposure or sensitivity to hazard over the long term.

The process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects. In human systems, adaptation seeks to moderate or avoid harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. In some natural systems, human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate and its effects.363

Drawing on the definitions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),3 adaptation to (human-induced, or ‘anthropogenic’) climate change is understood to include all actions to reduce the vulnerability of a system (e.g. a city), population group (e.g. a vulnerable population in a city) or an individual or household to the adverse impacts of anticipated climate change. Adaptation to climate variability consists of actions to reduce vulnerability to short-term climate shocks (whether or not these are influenced by climate change) – for instance, as a city government ensures that the drainage system can cope with monsoon rains. Most of the measures for adapting to climate variability (which will be taking place in most well-governed cities) will also contribute to climate change adaptation (as a co-benefit).

Adaptation: The adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities.

• issue

  • regional common issue

  • key/vital issue

  • environmental justice issue

• challenge

  • future challenge

  • global challenge

• area

  • new area

  • policy area

  • area of climate action

• approach

  • disaster risk reduction (DRR) technique, project, program

  • framework component

  • mitigating measure

  • risk management mechanism

  • action against climate change

• necessity

  • global necessity

  • no-choice option

  • only option for limiting climate change damage

  • requirement for meeting targets

  • need in developing countries

• multi-sectoral priority

• development subfield

• one of the "triple wins"

• one of the three A's

• part of risk prevention

• part of resilience

• exercise in damage limitation

hard/soft categories

• hard adaptation

  • physical modifications

  • additional infrastructure, technology

• soft adaptation

  • adaptive management

  • improved flood & hydrological monitoring

  • emergency response plans

sector-based divisions

• infrastructure

  • repairing and maintaining the sea wall

• health

  • flood-proofing health clinics

  • sanitation and water

  • emergency response system

• financial

  • cash reserve

  • contingent capital

  • strengthening the primary insurance market

Community-based adaptation is a process that recognizes the importance of local adaptive capacity and the involvement of local residents and their community organizations in facilitating adaptation to climate change.19 The starting point for community-based adaptation is the individual and collective needs of the residents in a community and their knowledge and capacities. It is based on the premise that local communities have the skills, experience, local knowledge and motivation, and that – through community organizations or networks – they can undertake locally appropriate risk reduction activities that increase resilience to a range of factors, including climate change.

Child inclusive Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) tools were developed, designed and printed to strengthen the capacity of children within the education sector by mainstreaming climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction

• disaster preparation measures

  • improving disaster prevention capabilities

  • risk management

• economic measures

  • climate finance

  • family financial plan considering the stressors of climate change

  • introducing secondary means of income generation

• environmental & agricultural measures

  • tree plantation

  • home gardening

  • nursery development

  • protection and conservation of forests and biodiversity

  • allowing natural regeneration of forests in degraded forest land

  • changed cropping pattern

  • watershed management

  • DRR and horticulture development with variety of resilience

  • crop diversification

  • mixed crop-livestock farming systems

  • changing planting and harvesting dates

  • using drought-resistant varieties and high-yield water-sensitive crops

  • growing different crops

  • more effective planning of land use

  • protecting ecosystem resources (grasslands, forests, water reserves)

  • selecting adapted seed varieties

• infrastructure measures

  • low carbon development

  • upgrading or building of disaster proof houses

  • elevated pigpens to cope with floods

  • upgrading/building septic tank toilets

  • community water pond, model ring well & water gate structures

  • drinking-water management

  • reconstruction of roads and embankments

  • re excavation of mini pond

  • irrigation channels excavation

  • PSF management

  • improving water-supply systems in rural areas

  • flood control

  • raising road levels

  • sealing more roads

  • installing coastal protection

  • building larger, stronger bridges & wharves

  • the readoption of vernacular building techniques

  • retreat, accommodation or infrastructural solutions to sea level rise

  • increases in reserve margins and other kinds of back-up capacity

  • attention to system designs allowing adaptation & modifications

• communication & training measures

  • increased knowledge sharing

  • capacity building programs

  • awareness raising campaign on climate change

  • awareness of raising of loss and damage

'Resilience' is an interesting label to describe the integration of CCA, DRR and PR, as it starts from people's own capabilities and potential.

NCA has made a shift in focus from reducing communities' vulnerabilities to climate change to increasing their resilience to it. This is a response to evidence that focusing solely on climate change mitigation and adaptation does not foster community resilience.

For example, 83% of reporting countries confirmed that they have or are developing CCA strategies and action plans and thirty-two (32) countries (89%) reported that they have established new DRR/DRM/CCA bodies specifically to deal with climate and disaster risks.

Thus, sending different teams to the field, each working separately either on DRR, on CCA or on PR projects, without linking with each other is a) very confusing for local communities who live in multi-risk environments and are simultaneously impacted by interrelated shocks, b) not very efficient for organizations who multiply efforts by working in the same area, towards the same goal, but with different conceptual backgrounds, approaches and sources of funding and c) masking some of the real issues.

The three domains have different time dimensions: while DRR looks at the past and how not to repeat it, CCA looks at a worst-case future scenario and how to prevent it. These time scales are not necessarily in people's cognitive framework, neither on the donor nor recipient side.

From 2013 onwards, there has been a growing convergence between DRR and CCA at project and institutional levels within AIDMI as well as its partners and stakeholder communities.

It is essential for any effective humanitarian work that CCA and DRR be jointly steered and guide by a single development framework

UNDP promotes both climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts since both are essential to meet the climate change challenge. On mitigation, UNDP's efforts include promoting greater energy efficiency in all sectors and uses, increased utilization of a wide range of renewable energies, increased energy access for the poor, policy reform and capacity development. On the adaptation side, UNDP supports countries as they work to integrate climate risks into national development policy and plans, develop financing options to meet national adaptation costs and share adaptation knowledge and experiences.

Measures against climate change are largely divided into adaptation and mitigation measures. Adaptation measures are undertaken in such sectors as disaster risk reduction (DRR), water and sanitation, and agriculture to make societies more resilient to changes associated with climate change. Mitigation measures, on the other hand, are designed to reduce GHG emissions or increase GHG removal from the atmosphere through carbon sinks in such sectors as energy, transport, solid waste management, and forestry in order to promote low-carbon societies.

Adaptive capacity is the ability to learn from experience and adjust responses to changing external conditions, yet continue operating.

This report launches an urgent appeal to accelerate and scale up actions to strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity in the face of changing climate variability and increasing extremes.

Adaptive capacity is the inherent capacity of a system (e.g. a city government), population (e.g. a low-income community in a city) or individual/household to undertake actions that can help to avoid loss and can speed recovery from any impact of climate change. Adaptive capacity is the opposite of vulnerability.

[....]

Elements of adaptive capacity include knowledge, institutional capacity, and financial and technological resources.

[....]

Low-income populations in a city will tend to have lower adaptive capacity than high-income populations because of their lower capacity to afford good-quality housing on safe sites.

The lack of adaptive capacity to deal with problems caused by climate variability and climate change is strongly related to the scale of what can be termed the adaptation deficit: the deficit in infrastructure and service provision and in the institutional and governance system that is meant to be in place to ensure adaptation.

National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) are among the few tangible products of multilateral cooperation on adaptation. Funded through the GEF’s Least Developed Countries (LDC) Fund, NAPAs are intended to identify urgent and immediate needs while at the same time developing a framework for bringing adaptation into the mainstream of national planning.

NAP Global Network: Launched by the United States with several partners at COP 20 in Lima, Peru, the NAP Global Network (NAP GN) aims to galvanize bilateral support for developing countries in their process to formulate and implement national adaptation plans .

According to Theodoros Skylakakis, Member of the European Parliament and former Special Representative for Climate Change of Greece (in an interview on 'Climate change and migration: impacts and policy responses'), " national adaptation plans are in their infancy due to the uncertainty inherent in the climate change phenomenon.

• issues

  • climate change science, impacts, DRR, mitigation and gender dimension and global and national policy responses to climate change

• key issues

  • risk reduction, poverty reduction

• regional common issues

  • efficient water supply system, disaster management

• triple wins

  • mitigation, development

• new areas

  • energy efficiency in buildings

• parts of risk prevention

  • disaster risk reduction

• parts of resilience

  • anticipation, absorption

• the three A's

  • anticipation, absorption

• multi-sectoral priorities

  • good governance

• global challenges

  • food, water, energy security, health

• actions against climate change

  • the creation of a low carbon society

• policy areas

  • cohesion, development, environmental impact assessment, the internal security strategy and research, health, nuclear safety and insurance initiatives

• needs in developing countries

  • climate change mitigation, assistance in establishing legal systems, support for peacebuilding and reconstruction

• mitigating measures

  • expanded social security programmes

• future challenges

  • food security

• areas of climate action

  • emissions mitigation, adaptation technology transfer, and climate finance

• DRR projects/programs

  • food security and environmental protection institutional capacity building, emergency response

• risk management mechanisms

  • insurance, social protection

The chart below represents the distribution of adaptation between 2005 and 2019 in terms of the number of occurrences and relative frequency of occurrences. It also allows you to view the distribution across Regions, Organisations and Document types.

Adaptation is becoming a euphemism for social injustice on a global scale. While the citizens of the rich world are protected from harm, the poor, the vulnerable and the hungry are exposed to the harsh reality of climate change in their everyday lives.

Policies must set aside funding and other assistance to help poor people adapt. Policy makers call this "adaptation," but it really means helping vulnerable communities become more resilient in the face of climate change.

A big challenge is the silo approach, where each department implements its own strategies and plans without collaboration with other departments. CCA is disproportionally emphasised at the cost of anthropogenic and developmental impacts.

A related concern is a common disconnect between DRR-CCA at the institutional, policy and financing levels, which consist of independent mechanisms for coordination and implementation, which often leads to conflict and confusion.

A major problem is that mitigation and adaptation options often differ in important ways. For instance, they tend to differ as to when benefits are realized (mitigation benefits lag in time, while adaptation benefits may be nearer term), where benefits are realized (mitigation is global while adaptation benefits are more localized) and what sectors are the focus of action (mitigation focused on GHG emitters or sinks, and adaptation focused on activities, infrastructure and population segments sensitive to impacts).

The Report suggests three main areas in which the international community can support and enable more effective urban mitigation and adaptation responses:

• Financial resources need to be made more directly available to local players [...]

• Bureaucratic burdens on local access to international support should be eased [...]

• Information on climate change science and options for mitigation and adaptation responses should be made more widely available [...]

Information. Many of the world’s poorest countries lack the capacity and the resources to assess climate risks [....]

Infrastructure. In climate change adaptation, as in other areas, prevention is better than cure. Every US$1 invested in pre-disaster risk management in developing countries can prevent losses of US$7 [....]

Insurance for social protection. Climate change is generating incremental risks in the lives of the poor. Social protection programmes can help people cope with those risks while expanding opportunities for employment, nutrition and education [....]

Golden, Audet and Smith (forthcoming, 2015) found that the term 'continuity' was preferable to 'adaptation' in the context of climate change among the First Nations people in Canada, because the former better matched their perspectives on how they relate to their land.

Unless much more attention and respect is given to people's own priorities, behaviours and belief systems, it is highly unlikely that DRR and CCA can make enough impact.

What 'community' or 'community-based' actually means in the context of internal divisions of class, gender, ethnicity and so on is rarely discussed in papers or reports on DRR and CCA activities.

Further, it is critical to include women as equal participants in any adaptation strategy. This will help to avoid contributing to differences in the relative vulnerability to climate change. Women can be supported through livelihood activities that are more tolerant and/or less vulnerable to an increasingly extreme and variable climate.

Have they succeeded? On balance the answer to that question is ‘no’. Twenty NAPAs have been produced to date. While many include excellent analytical work, the overall exercise suffers from four inter-related shortcomings:

• Inadequate financing [....]

• Underestimation of adaptation costs [....]

• Project-based bias [....]

• Weak links to human development [....]

This approach to adaptation is fundamentally based on the idea of adapting "in situ". Migration is somehow viewed as a failure to adapt. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, for example, has supported the development of National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPA) to help the Least Developed Countries to identify and rank their priorities for adaptation to climate change. However, none of the fourteen NAPAs submitted so far mention migration or population relocation as a possible policy response.

Agricultural crops, fish and seafood species, coral reef and forest ecosystems, and even human beings are all constrained by climate thresholds.285 Adaptation is no longer feasible once these thresholds are reached, and the implications of this are significant. For example, lack of possibilities for adaptation is the very reason why the likelihood of a person being displaced by a disaster is 60 percent higher today than it was four decades ago.286

In general, economic development helps reduce vulnerability to many of the consequences of climate change. In some cases, however, "development as usual" may inadvertently increase vulnerability. This is known as "maladaptation", and in order to avoid this, developing countries need to assess climate risks and vulnerabilities systematically and integrate potential "adaptation" measures in development policies, plans and projects.