Global Evidence of Constraints and Limits to Human Adaptation

Constraints and limits to adaptation are critical to understanding the extent to which human and natural systems can successfully adapt to climate change. We conduct a systematic review of 1,682 academic studies on human adaptation responses to identify patterns in constraints and limits to adaptation for different regions, sectors, hazards, adaptation response types, and actors. Using definitions of constraints and limits provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we find that most literature identifies constraints to adaptation but that there is limited literature focused on limits to adaptation. Central and South America and Small Islands generally report greater constraints and both hard and soft limits to adaptation. Technological, infrastructural, and ecosystem-based adaptation suggest more evidence of constraints and hard limits than other types of responses. Individuals and households face economic and socio-cultural constraints which also inhibit behavioral adaptation responses and may lead to limits. Finance, governance, institutional, and policy constraints are most prevalent globally. These findings provide early signposts for boundaries of human adaptation and are of high relevance for guiding proactive adaptation financing and governance from local to global scales

Adaptation to climate change in the Ontario public health sector

Background: Climate change is among the major challenges for health this century, and adaptation to manage adverse health outcomes will be unavoidable. The risks in Ontario – Canada’s most populous province – include increasing temperatures, more frequent and intense extreme weather events, and alterations to precipitation regimes. Socio-economic-demographic patterns could magnify the implications climate change has for Ontario, including the presence of rapidly growing vulnerable populations, exacerbation of warming trends by heat-islands in large urban areas, and connectedness to global transportation networks. This study examines climate change adaptation in the public health sector in Ontario using information from interviews with government officials. Methods: Fifty-three semi-structured interviews were conducted, four with provincial and federal health officials and 49 with actors in public health and health relevant sectors at the municipal level. We identify adaptation efforts, barriers and opportunities for current and future intervention. Results: Results indicate recognition that climate change will affect the health of Ontarians. Health officials are concerned about how a changing climate could exacerbate existing health issues or create new health burdens, specifically extreme heat (71%), severe weather (68%) and poor air-quality (57%). Adaptation is currently taking the form of mainstreaming climate change into existing public health programs. While adaptive progress has relied on local leadership, federal support, political will, and inter-agency efforts, a lack of resources constrains the sustainability of long-term adaptation programs and the acquisition of data necessary to support effective policies. Conclusions: This study provides a snapshot of climate change adaptation and needs in the public health sector in Ontario. Public health departments will need to capitalize on opportunities to integrate climate change into policies and programs, while higher levels of government must improve efforts to support local adaptation and provide the capacity through which local adaptation can succeed

Adaptation to urban heat island effect in Vancouver, BC : a case study in analyzing vulnerability and adaptation opportunities

Climate projections for the City of Vancouver indicate that by mid-century extreme heat events that now occur about once every 25 years will triple in frequency, with summer temperatures beyond 24°C expected to occur twice as often as today. The July 2009 heat wave brought attention to the health risks of extreme heat for Vancouver’s socially vulnerable populations, further reinforcing the seriousness of anticipated climate changes for community health and comfort in Vancouver. This report has two goals: i) to conduct a preliminary assessment of heat vulnerability in the City of Vancouver and examine opportunities for mainstreaming adaptation to urban heat island effect into existing policies; and ii) to propose an analytical framework for further engaging in discussion about urban heat island risk under the Vancouver Adaptation Strategy. This framework is rooted in social vulnerability analysis and uses neighbourhood-level population characteristics to identify areas of the city with the highest health vulnerability to extreme heat. To pilot this approach, one study area in Grandview-Woodland is selected that exhibits above average urban temperatures and a concentration of social vulnerability. This framework can be applied to other neighbourhoods in the future. An analysis of existing regulations, policies, and guidelines indicates that Vancouver’s building design and public space guidelines were crafted with underlying assumptions about a consistently temperate and rainy climate, and so emphasize access to sunlight and weather protection primarily from rain. With climate change projections indicating a future of hotter and drier summers, these policies need to be re-examined and the assumptions underpinning them adjusted to accommodate a greater number of annual hot days. Nineteen recommendations are made for further study of urban heat island conditions in Vancouver and for mainstreaming heat adaptation into existing policies and regulations.Applied Science, Faculty ofCommunity and Regional Planning (SCARP), School ofUnreviewedGraduat

Climate change adaptation policy formulation among local governments: A policy instruments approach

The consequences of rising greenhouse gas emissions are already being experienced around the world in the form of increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events, fluctuating precipitation levels and prolonged droughts, changing patterns of vector-borne diseases, and growing pressures on species and natural habitats. Our ability to successfully adapt to the changing environment is one of the most significant challenges facing communities and governments in this century. Scientific interest in climate change adaptation has grown dramatically over the past two decades, and a distinct literature has emerged around adaptation policy that aims to understand why and how governments are engaging with adaptation. The growth of empirical adaptation research, however, has largely outpaced conceptual and theoretical development in our understanding of what defines adaptation as a policy issue. This is resulting in a fragmented literature that makes knowledge accumulation across studies challenging.The aim of this thesis is to advance the conceptual foundations of adaptation policy research by proposing an approach that is rooted in public policy theories on policy instrument choice. This research is guided by three overarching objectives:1.To overcome the ‘dependent variable problem’ in adaptation research, which is reflected in ambiguity over exactly what it is that adaptation policy scholars seek to understand and explain;2.To apply theory on policy instrument choice to explain emerging adaptation policy approaches at the local government level; and3.To continue developing comparative perspectives on adaptation policy research. Findings from this work indicate that emerging local adaptation policy approaches are highly complex in nature, with policy goals and instruments spanning a number of climate change impacts and administrative units. Policy instrument choices are influenced both by local and country-level contextual circumstances, underlining the influence of inter-governmental institutional arrangements on local policy development. Furthermore, differences in adaptation policy framing by local governments are observable across country contexts, which suggests that distinct adaptation policy approaches may be emerging across countries. Chapter 3 situates the analytical focus of this research on local governments within the emerging multilevel governance landscape of climate change adaptation that is being formalized through international climate change agreements. Chapter 4 of the thesis develops a conceptualization of adaptation policy that is grounded in the idea of policy mixes and demonstrates this approach by characterizing the nature of adaptation policy portfolios across 125 local governments in Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Chapter 5 seeks to explain policy instrument choices among these local governments using a model of policy implementation styles proposed in the policy instruments literature. Chapter 6 of the thesis turns to consider the current state of comparative research methods in adaptation governance research and proposes that the introduction of computational text analysis techniques, specifically topic modelling, can contribute new perspectives in adaptation policy research. Chapter 7 of the thesis uses topic modelling to identify adaptation policy frames from the local policy documents analyzed in Chapters 4 and 5. Chapter 8 concludes the thesis with a reflection on key findings and contributions, policy implications, and needs for future research.Les conséquences de l'augmentation des émissions de gaz à effet de serre se font déjà ressentir dans le monde entier, sous forme d'événements météorologiques extrêmes de plus en plus fréquents et intenses, de fluctuations au niveau des précipitations et des sécheresses prolongées, de changements à l’étendue des maladies à vecteur et de pressions croissantes sur des habitats naturels. Notre capacité à nous adapter avec succès à un environnement en mutation est l'un des défis les plus importants auxquels les communautés et les gouvernements doivent faire face au cours de ce siècle. L’intérêt scientifique pour l’adaptation aux changements climatiques a considérablement augmenté, et une littérature distincte est apparue autour des politiques d’adaptation qui visent à comprendre pourquoi et comment les gouvernements s’intéressent à l’adaptation. Le but de cette thèse est de faire progresser les fondements conceptuels de la recherche sur les politiques d’adaptation en proposant une approche enracinée dans les théories des politiques publiques sur le choix des instruments politiques. Cette recherche est guidée par trois objectifs généraux:1.Surmonter le problème de «variable dépendante» dans la recherche sur l’adaptation, ce qui se traduit par une ambiguïté quant à ce que les spécialistes de la politique de l’adaptation cherchent à comprendre et à expliquer;2.Appliquer la théorie sur le choix des instruments de politique pour expliquer les nouvelles approches en matière de politique d'adaptation au niveau des administrations locales; et3.Continuer à développer des perspectives comparatives en matière de recherche sur les politiques d’adaptation.Les résultats de ces travaux indiquent que les approches politiques émergentes en matière d’adaptation locale sont de nature très complexe, avec des objectifs et des instruments politiques couvrant un certain nombre d’impacts des changements climatiques et d’entités administratives. Les choix d’instruments politiques sont influencés à la fois par les circonstances contextuelles locales et nationales, soulignant l’influence des arrangements institutionnels intergouvernementaux sur l’élaboration des politiques locales. En outre, les différences de formulation des politiques d'adaptation par les gouvernements locaux sont observables d'un contexte national à l'autre, ce qui suggère que des approches distinctes en matière de politique d'adaptation pourraient émerger d'un pays à l'autre.Le chapitre 3 place l’accent analytique de cette recherche sur les gouvernements locaux dans le paysage émergent de la gouvernance à plusieurs niveaux de l'adaptation aux changements climatiques, en cours de formalisation dans le cadre des accords internationaux sur les changements climatiques. Le chapitre 4 développe une conceptualisation de la politique d’adaptation fondée sur l’idée de mélanges de politiques et démontre cette approche en caractérisant la nature des portfolios de politiques d’adaptation de 125 administrations locales au Canada, en Allemagne, aux Pays-Bas, au Royaume-Uni et en France. Le chapitre 5 cherche à expliquer les choix d’instruments politiques de ces administrations locales en utilisant un modèle de styles de mise en œuvre des politiques proposé dans la littérature sur les instruments politiques. Le chapitre 6 aborde l’état actuel des méthodes de recherche comparatives en recherche sur la gouvernance de l’adaptation et propose que l’introduction de techniques d’analyse de texte computationnelles, en particulier la modélisation de thèmes, puisse apporter de nouvelles perspectives à la recherche sur les politiques d’adaptation. Le chapitre 7 utilise la modélisation par sujet pour identifier les cadres de politique d’adaptation à partir des documents de politique locale analysés aux chapitres 4 et 5. Le chapitre 8 conclut la thèse par une réflexion sur les principaux résultats et contributions, les implications politiques et les besoins en matière de recherche future

Unpacking symbolic policy-making for the first Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement

The first ever Global Stocktake is scheduled to conclude during COP28 and aims to assess progress on climate change mitigation, adaptation, and the means of implementation. However, the Global Stocktake runs the risk of overestimating progress by overlooking the symbolic dimensions of climate change adaptation policy

Adaptation financing for projects focused on food systems through the UNFCCC

<p>Investments in adaptation are required to reduce vulnerability and strengthen the resilience of food systems to the impacts of climate change. For low-income nations, international financing plays a central role in supporting adaptation. In this article, we document and examine adaptation projects targeting food systems financed through funding bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). We find that between 2004 and 2015, 3% (<i>n</i> = 96) of adaptation projects supported through the UNFCCC explicitly focused on the production, processing, distribution, preparation and/or consumption of food, with US$546 m mobilized through funding bodies directly and US$1.44bn through co-financing. Agriculture is the most common sector supported, with extreme weather events the primary climate change-related impact motivating nations to apply for adaptation financing. The majority of actions are documented to adapt the food production component of food systems, with limited focus within projects on the full range of food system vulnerability and the implications on food security.</p> <p><b>Key policy insights</b></p><p>Enhanced international adaptation financing targeting food systems is needed, and in particular financing to address limited adaptation readiness</p><p>Supported food system projects should include holistic assessments of the entire food system in order to prioritize sector and food system component issue areas for short- and long-term efficiency</p><p>To better analyse food system linkages and aid in the prioritization of adaptation activities, adaptation-directed funds should consider placing a higher emphasis on a cross-sectoral approach within projects</p><p>Linkages between official development assistance and adaptation-directed funds could help optimize financing for food systems and mainstream food system adaptation efforts</p><p></p> <p>Enhanced international adaptation financing targeting food systems is needed, and in particular financing to address limited adaptation readiness</p> <p>Supported food system projects should include holistic assessments of the entire food system in order to prioritize sector and food system component issue areas for short- and long-term efficiency</p> <p>To better analyse food system linkages and aid in the prioritization of adaptation activities, adaptation-directed funds should consider placing a higher emphasis on a cross-sectoral approach within projects</p> <p>Linkages between official development assistance and adaptation-directed funds could help optimize financing for food systems and mainstream food system adaptation efforts</p