28 May, 2019

Tracking global climate change adaptation among governments

Authors

Lea Berrang-Ford, Robbert Biesbroek, James Ford, Alexandra Lesnikowski, Andrew Tanabe, Frances M. Wang, Chen Chen, Angel Hsu, Jessica J. Hellmann, Patrick Pringle, Martina Grecequet, J.-C. Amado, Saleemul Huq, Shuaib Lwasa and S. Jody Heymann

Fishing net

This article provides an overview of the challenges of adaptation tracking and propose a comprehensive conceptual framework for assessing adaptation progress by governments that is scalable over time and across contexts.

The Paris Agreement and Katowice Climate Package articulate a clear mandate for all parties to undertake and document adaptation progress. Yet persistent challenges have prevented substantive developments in tracking adaptation and the assessment of adaptation actions and their outcomes.

Here, we provide an overview of the challenges of adaptation tracking and propose a comprehensive conceptual framework for assessing adaptation progress by governments that is scalable over time and across contexts. The framework addresses the core components of adaptation assessment (vulnerability, goals and targets, adaptation efforts, and adaptation results) and characterizes subcomponents focused on adaptation effort (leadership, organizations and policy).

In particular, we highlight how critical insights can be uncovered by systematically tracking policy efforts over time, and discusses novel approaches to data collection.

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