WE NEED CENTRAL PLANNING
Study finds global climate change adaptation actions are too uncoordinated
Impacted individuals and households have borne the main burden of adaptation to the consequences of climate change. A new survey of the literature reveals that systematic networking of various actor groups has generally been insufficient
Peer-Reviewed PublicationIMAGE:
FIGURE FROM THE STUDY: RESULTS OF THE CHI-SQUARE TEST CALCULATING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE OBSERVED AND THE EXPECTED FREQUENCY OF EACH COMBINATION OF ACTOR AND ADAPTATION ROLE. POSITIVE RESIDUALS (GREEN) INDICATE A HIGHER OBSERVED FREQUENCY OF AN ACTOR–ROLE COMBINATION, AND NEGATIVE RESIDUALS (PURPLE) INDICATE A LOWER-THAN-EXPECTED FREQUENCY.
HTTPS://WWW.NATURE.COM/ARTICLES/S41558-023-01824-Z/FIGURES/1
view moreCREDIT: CREDIT TO THE STUDY AUTHORS
How are governments, organizations, companies, and individuals dealing with the impacts of global warming? Indeed, who are the actors, when it comes to reducing climate risks, such as droughts, floods, and forest fires? What do the individual actor groups contribute? And where and how are they already working together in a systematic fashion?
A new study provides the first global analysis of actors engaged in climate adaptation and the roles they are playing. For the publication, an international team of scientists assessed more than 1,400 scientific studies on the subject of climate change adaptation. The results show that there are, across the globe, many gaps in distribution of roles and responsibilities for adaptation. Above all, there is a lack of adaptation that profoundly transforms societies, infrastructure, and risk management in response to the massive impacts of climate change. Further, there is a lack of comprehensive collaborations between various state and non-state actors.
“Comprehensive, fair, and forward-looking adaptation is successful when formal organizations and the various other actor group are integrated at all levels,”
says Dr. Jan Petzold, geographer at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany and lead author of the study.
“Our study indicates, however, that adaptation to climate change still tends to be isolated and uncoordinated, with individuals or households the most prominent actors implementing adaptation,”
says Dr. Alcade Segnon, co-author and scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, Senegal. “This situation shows how urgent and important comprehensive adaptation is.”
To date, affected individuals and households have been left to do the heavy lifting of implementing actual adaptation. This is particularly so in the Global South, where individuals and households have had to carry the principal burden of adaptation. By contrast, these groups are hardly involved at all in the design and implementation of institutional changes. It should be noted, however, that the situation differs in urban and non-urban areas. Whereas in rural areas, individual households are the prime actors and there is little in the way of coordination, state actors tend to organize adaptation much more frequently in cities. According to the study, the private sector has engaged in comparatively little adaptation to date and is scarcely involved in joint measures with other actors.
“When it’s primarily individual persons like farmers big and small who are engaging in this work worldwide, this is a sign that collaborations between various actor groups are lacking. For sustainable adaptation projects, however, this would be a necessary condition,”
says Jan Petzold. Many interventions such as the climate-adapted restructuring of forests, the conversion of farmland into uncultivated floodplains, the adjustment of urban infrastructure, or even resettlement from coastal areas urgently require coordinated concepts.
“The results reveal that we need a more intensive and explicit debate on the question as to who should take on which tasks in adapting to the consequences of climate change. This may look very differently from one locality to the next, but it should be organized and structured,”
says Professor Matthias Garschagen, who holds the Chair of Human Geography and heads the Teaching and Research Unit for Human Environment Relations at LMU, and helped coordinate the study. “It’s not only since the massive forest fires, heatwaves, and flood events of the past few months that we’ve known how serious the effects of climate change are. In the most recent IPCC report, we emphasized that all stakeholders must therefore pursue climate change adaptation all the faster, more thoroughly, and with greater coordination, if we are to effectively counter the expected further increase in climate change impacts. Our study shows how we’ve to date struggled to do this globally, and it points out where the gaps are greatest. This knowledge is vitally important to support actors on the road to more effective and more coordinated adaptation.”
“The unique model of AICCRA (Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa) for research and innovation development helping to bridge the “missing middle” between science and action is addressing the gaps identified in the study” says Dr Alcade Segnon, who also the Science Officer for AICCRA in West Africa. “AICCRA works to build and deepen the partnerships between a whole range of organisations and stakeholders to deliver climate-smart innovations in agriculture for African farmers. The stronger partnerships fostered between scientists, researchers, the private sector and public institutions will help collectively identify ‘best-bet’ innovations that help farmers adapt and speed up their deployment”. AICCRA is supported by a grant from the International Development Association of the World Bank and led by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT.
JOURNAL
Nature Climate Change
ARTICLE TITLE
A global assessment of actors and their roles in climate change adaptation
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
12-Oct-2023
Around the globe, climate adaptation lacks coordination
How are governments, organizations and individuals dealing with the effects of global warming?
IMAGE:
IN 2023, FARMERS IN NAMIBIA TESTED DIFFERENT VARIETIES, IN THIS CASE SOYBEANS, FOR THEIR RESISTANCE TO INCREASING WATER SHORTAGES.
view moreCREDIT: UHH/CLICCS/K.JANTKE
Viewed globally, it is above all individuals and households that are pursuing adaptation to the impacts of climate change; systematic networking of the various groups affected is lacking. This is the conclusion reached by an international team of experts from Universität Hamburg’s Cluster of Excellence for climate research (CLICCS) and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU). Their meta-study was just released in the journal Nature Climate Change.
For their meta-study, the 30 authors analyzed more than 1,400 academic studies on climate change adaptation. By doing so, they offer the first global overview of which groups of actors are pursuing adaptation – and how. Their findings show that the global distribution of tasks lacks cohesion. Above all, there are few concepts designed to better prepare societies, infrastructures and risk management for the impacts of climate change. Extensive collaborations between various government and non-government actors are also lacking.
“Our study indicates that climate change adaptation continues to be largely isolated and uncoordinated,” says Dr. Kerstin Jantke, a co-author and environmental researcher at Universität Hamburg’s Cluster of Excellence CLICCS. “That’s disproportionate to how pressing and vital this challenge is.”
Dr. Jan Petzold, the study’s first author, sees a need for action: “Comprehensive, just and forward-thinking adaptation can be considered to be successful when not only official organizations but also a broad range of groups at all levels are involved.” Petzold, currently a geographer at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, was a member of the Cluster of Excellence CLICCS until the fall of 2021.
To date, primarily individuals and households are taking measures to adapt to climate change impacts, especially in the Global South; very few of them are integrated into institutional frameworks. However, there is also an urban-rural divide: While individual households are largely active in rural areas, government actors tend to coordinate adaptation in cities. In many cases, the role of governments – global, national and regional – consists in ratifying, planning and financing adaptation measures, while small households are who do most of the technical implementation. According to the study, the scientific community’s involvement in adaptation measures is limited, while that of the private economy is virtually non-existent.
“If, around the globe, it’s predominantly individuals like farmers and smallholders who are doing the heavy lifting, it also shows us the lack of cooperation between different groups of actors – which is a prerequisite for sustainable adaptation projects,” says Jan Petzold. Coordinated concepts are indispensable for far-reaching measures like the climate-aware restructuring of forests, transforming farmland into floodplains, planning new urban infrastructures, and relocating coastal communities.
Involving different groups of actors can also help avoid undesired effects of adaptation measures. “If I only design a given measure to address a single, pressing problem, it could make the situation worse in other areas,” says Kerstin Jantke. For example, levees and dams designed to protect from flooding could destroy coastlines and wetlands, reducing biodiversity or natural CO2 sinks. Consequently, comprehensive measures should ideally be oriented on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), helping ensure it offers solutions that are tenable in the long term.
Publication
Petzold J, Hawxwell T, Jantke K, Gonçalves Gresse E, Mirbach C, (…) Garschagen M (2023): A global assessment of actors and their roles in climate change adaptation; Nature Climate Change; DOI: 10.1038/s41558-023-01824-z
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01824-z
https://www.cliccs.uni-hamburg.de/about-cliccs/news/2023-news/2023-09-20-anpassungen-klimawandelfolgen
The 30 authors contributing to the study hail from eleven different countries. Eight authors are researchers at Universität Hamburg’s Cluster of Excellence for climate research (CLICCS).
Contact
Dr. Kerstin Jantke
Universität Hamburg
Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN)
Cluster of Excellence “Climate, Climatic Change, and Society” (CLICCS)
Email: kerstin.jantke@uni-hamburg.de
Tel: +49 (0) 40 42838 2147
Dr. Jan Petzold
Department für Geographie
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
E-Mail: jan.petzold@lmu.de
Tel.: +49 (0) 89 / 2180 - 4180
Stephanie Janssen
Public Relations / Outreach
Universität Hamburg
Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN)
Cluster of Excellence “Climate, Climatic Change, and Society” (CLICCS)
Email: stephanie.janssen@uni-hamburg.de
Tel: +49 (0) 40 42838 7596
JOURNAL
Nature Climate Change
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Meta-analysis
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Not applicable
ARTICLE TITLE
'A global assessment of actors and their roles in climate change adaptation
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
12-Oct-2023
COI STATEMENT
No conflict of interests.
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