The governance of adaptation: choices, reasons, and effects. Introduction to the Special Feature

Abstract

ABSTRACT. The governance of climate adaptation involves the collective efforts of multiple societal actors to address problems, or to reap the benefits, associated with impacts of climate change. Governing involves the creation of institutions, rules and organizations, and the selection of normative principles to guide problem solution and institution building. We argue that actors involved in governing climate change adaptation, as climate change governance regimes evolve, inevitably must engage in making choices, for instance on problem definitions, jurisdictional levels, on modes of governance and policy instruments, and on the timing of interventions. Yet little is known about how and why these choices are made in practice, and how such choices affect the outcomes of our efforts to govern adaptation. In this introduction we review the current state of evidence and the specific contribution of the articles published in this Special Feature, which are aimed at bringing greater clarity in these matters, and thereby informing both governance theory and practice. Collectively, the contributing papers suggest that the way issues are defined has important consequences for the support for governance interventions, and their effectiveness. The articles suggest that currently the emphasis in adaptation governance is on the local and regional levels, while underscoring the benefits of interventions and governance at higher jurisdictional levels in terms of visioning and scaling-up effective approaches. The articles suggest that there is a central role of government agencies in leading governance interventions to address spillover effects, to provide public goods, and to promote the long-term perspectives for planning. They highlight the issue of justice in the governance of adaptation showing how governance measures have wide distributional consequences, including the potential to amplify existing inequalities, access to resources, or generating new injustices through distribution of risks. For several of these findings, future research directions are suggested.

Stimulating Learning through Policy Experimentation: A Multi-Case Analysis of How Design Influences Policy Learning Outcomes in Experiments for Climate Adaptation

“…We also found that although not reaching particularly high scores, boundary experiments produced more goal convergence and understanding of mindsets than the other two types. Climate adaptation is a wicked policy issue that involves significant uncertainty and divergent framings, as well as deep uncertainty about the rate of change in the ecological system [2]. It is reasonable to assume that future solutions will require the input of many different actors and knowledges, and the combining of different understandings.…”

“…To identify solutions that work, it is suggested that policy actors employ a "learning-by-doing" approach, where an idea is executed and evaluated to understand its impacts and reduce uncertainty [1]. Climate adaptation requires the production of new knowledge to understand the impacts of climate change, new knowledge about the impacts on the ecological system of society's response to those changes, and insights into how actors perceive and understand the changes that are happening [2]. Governance systems that enable learning will make better use of this knowledge and understanding and build adaptive capacity [3], improve their decision making, and potentially enable policy change [4,5].…”

Beyond inputs and outputs: Process‐oriented explanation of institutional change in climate adaptation governance

“…More simply, this involves efforts to reduce risks and vulnerabilities expected under climate change. For example, Huitema et al (2016) place the role of creating and building institutions as a central task in climate adaptation governance but observe that "little is known about how and why these choices are made in practice, and how such choices affect the outcomes of our efforts to govern adaptation. In general, however, institutional development is typically considered to be difficult to realize and remains poorly understood.…”

“…extremely difficult (Dovers & Hezri, 2010;Huitema et al, 2016). Urban governance typically involves densely networked institutional arrangements and dispersed responsibility and authority, spanning multiple jurisdictional levels within and beyond the urban territory (Bulkeley & Betsill, 2013).…”

Conceptualizing Dimensions and Characteristics of Urban Resilience: Insights from a Co-Design Process

“…Utilizing bottom-up, negotiatory processes to specify dimensions and characteristics of the urban resilience concept can be regarded as a promising strategy for reducing subjectivity. Conceptualization using negotiation-based, knowledge co-design, and co-production approaches can also facilitate operationalization of the resilience concept, including design, implementation, and monitoring stages [20].…”