Sixteen ways to adapt: a comparison of state-level climate change adaptation strategies in the federal states of Germany

Abstract

Climate change adaptation (CCA) to reduce or prevent negative climate change impacts and, in some cases, maximize potential benefits is a complex challenge demanding multi-level policy action. In federalist systems, sub-national governments are among key actors for enabling adaptation and their clear commitments can increase collaboration and innovation at the local level. Germany serves as a particularly insightful case for observing the variance among sub-national approaches due to its role as a “leader” in CCA at the national level. This paper provides the first systematic assessment of all sixteen state adaptation strategies in Germany and examines how German states are fostering adaptation, the extent to which their approaches vary, and which patterns have emerged. Based on a qualitative document analysis of over 30 documents, this assessment focuses on five indicators synthesized from literature climate policy analyses and on barriers and facilitating factors of adaptation. Results find that German state strategies are often non-committal sets of recommendations and identify three clusters displaying different degrees of institutionalization and guidance. While federalism allows for flexibility among state responses, the absence of federal mandates and policy standards allows some states to fall behind while others continue to develop their strategies to foster adaptation. These sixteen diverse approaches each have implications for adaptation governance at other levels.

Diffusion and upscaling of municipal climate mitigation and adaptation strategies in Germany

“…Germany represents a highly relevant country to study local climate policy diffusion and upscaling, given that many cities developed climate mitigation strategies from the 1990s onwards and have supplemented them with climate adaptation strategies during the last 10 years. Previous studies of climate plans and strategies in Germany and elsewhere have highlighted the importance of these documents for setting priorities, mobilising local resources and effecting policy change (Salvia et al 2021;King 2022). As climate change is still a voluntary activity for municipalities, any strategy that they adopt would not be the result of coercion by the federal or state-level.…”

Measuring climate change adaptation policy output: Toward a two‐dimensional approach

“…Table A4 in the Appendix contains all survey questions. The first indicator of the institutionalization dimension captures characteristics of advanced municipal adaptation planning (e.g., Aguiar et al, 2018;King, 2022;Reckien et al, 2018). It consists of three subindicators.…”

“…Our framework considers only formal institutions focusing on the strategic and organizational activities of governments because they can be readily observed. A widespread strategic activity of governments, and arguably one of the most visible policy processes in adaptation, concerns the preparation of adaptation plans, which have been a considerable research focus at the national (Biesbroek et al, 2010; Russel et al, 2020), subnational state (King, 2022; Rai, 2020), and municipal levels (Aguiar et al, 2018; Koski & Siulagi, 2016; Shi et al, 2015).…”

“…Therefore, plans are expedient to provide an integrated answer to the interdependent and cross‐sectoral challenge of adaptation, and they likely play an important role in the production and implementation of adaptation measures, as well as with a view to determining ultimate adaptation impacts (Siders, 2017). The extent to which plans cover different goals, sectors, and adaptation process steps and measures is therefore an important indicator of their quality and ambitiousness (e.g., Aguiar et al, 2018; Aylett, 2015; King, 2022).…”

Fatal incidents during the flood of July 2021 in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany: what can be learnt for future flood risk management?

“…with the former head of the fire brigade of the city of Münster on 28 June 2022). Initiated by such events, guidelines for assessing risks from pluvial floods were released in NRW (MULNV 2018) and the development of local pluvial flood hazard maps and respective risk management strategies has been funded by the state of NRW, which is also regarded as a pioneer in respect to climate change adaptation (King 2022).…”