Editing IPCC:AR6/SR15/Chapter-4 (section)

==== 4.2.2.2 Transformational adaptation ====

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In some regions and places, incremental adaptation would not be sufficient to mitigate the impacts of climate change on social-ecological systems (see Chapter 3). Transformational adaptation would then be required (Bahadur and Tanner, 2014; Pant et al., 2015; Gillard, 2016; Gillard et al., 2016; Colloff et al., 2017; Termeer et al., 2017) <sup>[[#fn:r50|50]]</sup> . Transformational adaptation refers to actions aiming at adapting to climate change resulting in significant changes in structure or function that go beyond adjusting existing practices (Dowd et al., 2014; IPCC, 2014a; Few et al., 2017) <sup>[[#fn:r51|51]]</sup> , including approaches that enable new ways of decision-making on adaptation (Colloff et al., 2017) <sup>[[#fn:r52|52]]</sup> . Few studies have assessed the potentially transformative character of adaptation options (Pelling et al., 2015; Rippke et al., 2016; Solecki et al., 2017) <sup>[[#fn:r53|53]]</sup> , especially in the context of warming of 1.5°C.

Transformational adaptation can be adopted at a large scale, can lead to new strategies in a region or resource system, transform places and potentially shift locations (Kates et al., 2012) <sup>[[#fn:r54|54]]</sup> . Some systems might require transformational adaptation at 1.5°C. Implementing adaptation policies in anticipation of 1.5°C would require transformation and flexible planning of adaptation (sometimes called adaptation pathways) (Rothman et al., 2014; Smucker et al., 2015; Holland, 2017; Gajjar et al., 2018) <sup>[[#fn:r55|55]]</sup> , an understanding of the varied stakeholders involved and their motives, and knowledge of less visible aspects of vulnerability based on social, cultural, political, and economic factors (Holland, 2017) <sup>[[#fn:r56|56]]</sup> . Transformational adaptation would seek deep and long-term societal changes that influence sustainable development (Chung Tiam Fook, 2017; Few et al., 2017) <sup>[[#fn:r57|57]]</sup> .

Adaptation requires multidisciplinary approaches integrating scientific, technological and social dimensions. For example, a framework for transformational adaptation and the integration of mitigation and adaptation pathways can transform rural indigenous communities to address risks of climate change and other stressors (Thornton and Comberti, 2017) <sup>[[#fn:r58|58]]</sup> . In villages in rural Nepal, transformational adaptation has taken place, with villagers changing their agricultural and pastoralist livelihood strategies after years of lost crops due to changing rain patterns and degradation of natural resources (Thornton and Comberti, 2017) <sup>[[#fn:r59|59]]</sup> . Instead, they are now opening stores, hotels, and tea shops. In another case, the arrival of an oil pipeline altered traditional Alaskan communities’ livelihoods. With growth of oil production, investments were made for rural development. A later drop in oil production decreased these investments. Alaskan indigenous populations are also dealing with impacts of climate change, such as sea level rise, which is altering their livelihood sources. Transformational adaptation is taking place by changing the energy matrix to renewable energy, in which indigenous people apply their knowledge to achieve environmental, economic, and social benefits (Thornton and Comberti, 2017) <sup>[[#fn:r60|60]]</sup> .

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