Climate Change Adaptation: Operational Taxonomy and Metrics (original) (raw)
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Universal Metrics to Compare the Effectiveness of Climate Change Adaptation Projects
Handbook of Climate Change Adaptation, 2014
Adaptation to climate change is increasingly supported through international financing. In contrast to mitigation, where the effectiveness of policy action can be measured through the metric "tonnes of CO 2 equivalent reduced", no universally accepted metric for assessment of adaptation effectiveness exists. Without such a metric, adaptation finance vehicles such as the Adaptation Fund under the Kyoto Protocol encounter challenges when trying to compare the adaptive effect of ongoing or proposed projects in order to achieve an efficient allocation of their funds. The first experiences with adaptation funding show a tendency to use intermediate outcome indicators but no final impact metrics, similar to the state-of-art in development funding. This might lead to a backlash against adaptation funding by electorates in the North if the funding cannot show clear results. We assess two possible candidates for generic adaptation effectiveness metrics: 1) wealth saved from destruction through climate change impacts, and 2) disability-adjusted life years saved (DALYs), which are widely used in public health policy analysis. Apart from those two metrics we propose to use no-harm assessments in the environmental and cultural field. We discuss uncertainties encountered in applying these metrics, including the uncertain link between commonly reported outcome indicators and our metrics for saved wealth and health. The two metrics are tested by assessing five adaptation project proposals. Finally, we line out some ideas to handle these uncertainties, e.g. the use of regularly updated sectoral methodologies and agreed climate and economic models.
Elements of a frame of reference for evaluating adaptation to climate change
The Ouranos Consortium awarded a grant to the Centre de recherche et d’expertise en évaluation (CREXE) of the École nationale d'administration publique (ENAP) for a research project originally titled "Development of indicators for the evaluation of planning related to adaptation to climate change (ACC).” The aim of the project scope was to propose a frame of reference on ACC evaluation that would simplify the organization of knowledge on the subject. This frame of reference presents all elements to consider when evaluating adaptation planning. It involves, on the one hand, modeling the ACC problem and, on the other, identifying the many indicators in the literature pertaining to adaptation and situating them in relation to this problem. This report is based first on a good understanding of the variables having an influence on the planning processes leading to the definition and implementation of ACC. Next, from a literature review in both the ACC and evaluation field, we suggest a number of general indicators of ACC performance that let us evaluate the processes that lead to the identification, planning and implementation of adaptation measures. The project then examined two focus areas of intervention in Québec-Canada (forestry and the built environment and infrastructure in Southern Québec) to illustrate how these indicators could be used in these context of activities.
Assessing the role of adaptation in evaluating vulnerability to climate change
Climatic Change, 2000
Three types of adaptation can influence significantly a system's prospective longevity in the face of climate change. The ability to cope with variation in its current environment can help a system adapt to changes over the longer term. The ability to take advantage of beneficial changes that might coincide with potentially harmful ones can play an even larger role; and focusing attention on maximizing a system's sustainable lifetime can highlight the potential for extending that time horizon and increasing the likelihood that an alternative structure might be created. A specific economic approach to adaptation demonstrates that research can serve two functions in this regard. Research can play an important role in diminishing future harm suggested by standard impact analyses by focusing attention on systems where adaptation can buy the most time. It can help societies learn how to become more robust under current conditions; and it can lead them to explore mechanisms by which they can exploit potentially beneficial change. Research can also play a critical role in assessing the need for mitigating long-term change by focusing attention on systems where potential adaptation in both the short and long runs is so limited that it is almost impossible to buy any time at all. In these areas, switching to an alternative system or investing in the protection of existing ones are the last lines of defense. Real "windows" of tolerable climate change can be defined only by working in areas where these sorts of adaptive alternatives cannot be uncovered.
Climatic Change, 2020
The Paris Agreement put adaptation prominently on the global climate action agenda. Despite a surge in research and praxis-based knowledge on adaptation, a critical policy roadblock is synthesizing and assessing this burgeoning evidence. We develop an approach to assess the multidimensional feasibility of adaptation options in a robust and transparent manner, providing direction for global climate policy and identifying knowledge gaps to further future climate research. The approach, which was tested in the IPCC Special Report on 1.5 °C (SR1.5) to assess 23 adaptation options, is underpinned by a systematic review of recent literature, expert elicitation, and iterative peer review. It responds to the challenge of limited agreement on adaptation indicators, lack of fine-scale adaptation data, and challenges of assessing synergies and trade-offs with mitigation. The findings offer methodological insights into how future assessments such as the IPCC Assessment Report (AR) six and regio...
A three-tier risk assessment process for climate change adaptation at a local scale
Climatic Change , 2019
Formal structures for evaluating climate change risk are important components of adaptation decision-making. In this paper, we present an accessible, cost-effective and user-tested climate change risk assessment framework which allows organisations to systematically apply a risk management process aligned with international standards to identify and manage their climate change risks. It is delivered through ‘CoastAdapt’, a resource supporting climate change adaptation in Australia. This three-tier framework offers four benefits to the adaptation process. First, it allows organisations to identify climate change risks and integrate them with their mainstream risk management process. Second, it makes optimal use of an organisation’s limited adaptation resources by taking a tiered approach, so allowing an organisation to start from a low knowledge base using minimal resources and, only if required, then move to more complex and resource-intensive risk assessment processes. Third, it introduces a time-dependent vulnerability rating which recognises the particular characteristics of climate change risks—that they are long term and associated with a considerable degree of uncertainty. Finally, it takes into account business inter-dependencies that can exacerbate impacts but be overlooked in a sector-based impacts evaluation. In this paper, we highlight the appropriate context in which to use each risk assessment tier, explore key technical differences among the three tiers, describe performance testing and present one case study of application. We discuss the benefits of this tiered risk assessment approach in the context of broader adaptation planning.
Are we adapting to climate change? Research and methods for evaluating progress
2009
Adaptation is rapidly becoming a mainstream policy response for addressing biophysical and social vulnerabilities to climate change. Significant capital resources are currently and will continue to be invested in autonomous and anticipatory adaptation processes across a range of geopolitical scales. However, the institutional arrangements for the evaluation of adaptation processes, policies and measures are still in their developmental infancy. Therefore, though adaptation is undoubtedly proceeding, mechanisms for the development of an evidence base for evaluating its success are lacking.
A risk management approach to climate change adaptation
This paper addresses ways in which climate information can be used to manage climate change risks. The aim is to maximise decision-making on adaptation by managing uncertainty. Many governments, including those of New Zealand and Australia, have endorsed risk management as the principal method for assessing adaptation options for climate change. The methods they recommend are developed from the standard approach to climate impact assessment, which is largely predictive in nature. While useful, this approach can be integrated with others. Incorporating predictive and diagnostic approaches, the use of planning horizons linked to types of adaptation and likelihoods expressed as the probability of exceeding a given level of outcome are proposed as methods to improve decision-making. Using the likelihood of exceeding given levels of warming as a proxy for local risks, adaptation and mitigation can be weighted (i.e., hedged) as risk management strategies at the national scale. Adaptation can be defined as the principal strategy for managing unavoidable climate change to 2030, after which hedging between adaptation and mitigation increases in relevance. A whole of climate approach needs to be taken at the local level because it is the scale at which impacts occur and where most adaptation will take place. This involves linking current climate and adaptive responses with future projections, and addressing short- and long-term fluctuations in natural climate variability and the consequences thereof. Planned adaptations may need to account for potential abrupt climate changes. A case study example for Victoria, Australia, shows that a recent step change in regional climate to warmer and drier conditions is larger than the worst-case model-based projections for 2030-2050. This has altered the current baseline and makes information about how climate is changing more important than the model-based projections. Projected changes in extremes over time using the changing baseline have been shown to be useful for planned, incremental adaptation. For anticipatory adaptation over the longer term, balancing the costs of adapting and the penalties of not adapting across a range of possible outcomes, ‘climate proof’ and ‘win-win’ options may be identified. For adaptations contingent on particular outcomes, some of which may involve system failure, a portfolio of actions and the ability to respond quickly to changing circumstances may be more robust than adapting to a ‘most likely’ outcome.
Research Square (Research Square), 2023
This paper maps global responses to the imminent climate change catastrophe by categorising climate adaptation tools according to their stated objectives and speci city. Categorisation is useful in that it exposes popular discourse on climate adaptation, clari es the developmental, climate-proo ng or impact focus of development cooperation organisations towards climate adaptation, and draws contradistinctions between climate adaptation approaches in developed and developing countries. Systematic review of scienti c and grey literature yielded peer-reviewed journal articles and an inventory of over one-hundred and thirty-two (132) climate adaptation tools. Secondary data analysis method was used to develop a continuum/framework to categorise fty (50) selected climate adaptation tools according to their stated objectives and speci city. Findings reveal that climate adaptation initiatives can occur on a wide scale ranging from purely developmental activities to actions that directly confronts the impacts of climate change. Most climate adaptation initiatives are carried out using climate-proo ng tools. Climate-proo ng traditional socioeconomic development might undermine genuine climate adaptation efforts. Also, there is an acute shortage of information provision tools that furnishes the user with localised information about climate change. This might have negative implications for rural and localised development planning. In conclusion, this categorisation will provide useful recommendations for the development and implementation of future climate adaptation tools in a sub-Saharan African context.
Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 2018
Climate change risk assessment involves formal analysis of the consequences, likelihoods and responses to the impacts of climate change and the options for addressing these under societal constraints. Conventional approaches to risk assessment are challenged by the significant temporal and spatial dynamics of climate change; by the amplification of risks through societal preferences and values; and through the interaction of multiple risk factors. This paper introduces the theme issue by reviewing the current practice and frontiers of climate change risk assessment, with specific emphasis on the development of adaptation policy that aims to manage those risks. These frontiers include integrated assessments, dealing with climate risks across borders and scales, addressing systemic risks, and innovative co-production methods to prioritize solutions to climate challenges with decision-makers. By reviewing recent developments in the use of large-scale risk assessment for adaptation policy-making, we suggest a forward-looking research agenda to meet ongoing strategic policy requirements in local, national and international contexts. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy’.