Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-8 (section)

==== 8.2.2.1 Characteristics of Responses ====

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Many of the observed responses to climate change aim to reduce exposure of people to climate-related hazards, such as flood defences, sea walls and embankments ( [[#Gralepois--2016|Gralepois et al., 2016]] ), rather than aiming specifically to address structural vulnerability to climate change, which means the root causes of vulnerability (e.g., [[#Mikulewicz--2020|Mikulewicz, 2020]] ; [[#McNamara--2021a|McNamara et al., 2021a]] ). Evidence suggests that responses to the impacts of climate change should consider the physical climate event, and also historical and institutional root causes that make people or systems vulnerable. However, addressing structural vulnerability must be balanced with the political context and the range of options available to people, communities or countries (see [[#8.3|Section 8.3]] ). Political frameworks need to consider both types of responses, to revive democratic debate and citizenship ( [[#Pepermans--2016|Pepermans et al., 2016]] ). In addition to reducing poverty and vulnerability, planned climate change responses must also be intersectoral, in order to increase their effectiveness. This requires higher levels of vertical and horizontal coordination and integration ( [[#GIZ--2019|GIZ, 2019]] ). Horizontal coordination encompasses, for example, the integrated coordination of responses to climate change across different sectors, which requires suitable governance structures and processes that allow for such a coordination ( [[#Di%20Gregorio--2017|Di Gregorio et al., 2017]] ; [[#Burch--2019|Burch et al., 2019]] ). Vertical integration is needed in order to ensure that effective responses also include different levels of governance and benefit from knowledge at different scales. The inclusion of local knowledge within national or provincial adaptation strategies requires such linkages and vertical coordination. Overall, there is an increasing body of literature that highlights the importance of improved integration and coordination also in order to promote a higher effectiveness of strategies and an improved consideration of social justice and climate justice when designing and implementing responses ( [[#Levy--2015|Levy and Patz, 2015]] ).

However, evaluating the effectiveness, social impacts and social justice of climate change responses is not uniform across locations, nations and regions for three principal reasons:

* Temporal dimensions of responses: effective and appropriate climate change responses require that strategies and responses are tested in a specific context and that ongoing learning and adaptive management is a necessary to avoid maladaptation or other unintended consequences ( [[#Eriksen--2021|Eriksen et al., 2021]] ),
* Goal of responses: responses may have distinct and locally specific goals, such as reducing vulnerability ( [[#Sarker--2019|Sarker et al., 2019]] ), which is distinct from increasing resilience ( [[#Alam--2018|Alam et al., 2018]] ). Vulnerability reduction and the increase of resilience (i.e., raising the ability to cope) are two different goals and often involve different processes.
* Level of responses: there is a need to ascertain the relevant level at which the responses are needed or expected (e.g., the individual level, community level, regional level). This analysis, however, also needs to consider the differential capacities of people, for example, the limited capacities of poor people or constrained capacities of most vulnerable countries (see also [[#8.3|Section 8.3]] ).

Effective responses to climate change impacts for one group could impose higher costs and negative consequences for other groups, in terms of shifts in exposure and vulnerability. This category of response is known as maladaptation. Maladaptation actions defined in the IPCC SR1.5°C ( [[#IPCC--2018b|IPCC, 2018b]] ) and in the Land Report ( [[#IPCC--2019a|IPCC, 2019a]] ) are the ones that usually have unintended consequences, and can lead to increased negative risk to poor population mostly in the Global South to climate hazards by either increasing GHG emissions or by increasing the vulnerabilities to climate change with diminished welfare, now and in the near future ( [[#Roy--2018|Roy et al., 2018]] ). For example, migration to urban centres can represent a significant adaptation opportunity for the migrants themselves, but can also increase the vulnerability of their community of origin or destination (e.g., through a depletion of the workforce or an addition pressure on environmental resources and infrastructure respectively) ( [[#Gemenne--2017|Gemenne and Blocher, 2017]] ). Some types of observed responses to climate change may not yield long-term benefits. For example, food imports during droughts or adverse climate conditions are not a fully adequate response, since they may alleviate a problem on the one hand (i.e., an imminent food shortage due to crop failure) but, on the other, lead to no long-lasting improvements in physical conditions and create new dependencies that can increase vulnerability in the long run ( [[#Zimmermann--2018|Zimmermann et al., 2018]] ).

In the AR5, the maladaptation outcomes emerge when climate change impacts and risks are disproportionately born by the poorest populations ( [[#Olsson--2014|Olsson et al., 2014]] ). Since then, most maladaptation evidence emerges as a consequence of failure to address root causes of vulnerabilities that emerge under high and multiple forms of inequalities. In fact, the literature shows that adaptation practices can indeed redistribute vulnerabilities and increase risks to already poor and marginalised people with risk to maladaptation outcomes mainly in the Global South countries ( [[#Atteridge--2018|Atteridge and Remling, 2018]] ).

The maladaptation outcomes also emerge when responses are not equitable at the policy level, and exacerbate the precarity of vulnerable populations by excluding them from benefits and support, while attending to the needs of people of the most enfranchised segments of society ( [[#Thomas--2019|Thomas and Warner, 2019]] ; Asplund and Hjerpe 2020). In Tanzania, the political marginalisation of pastoralist access to critical riparian wetlands and increasing expansion of agriculture may result in adaptation pathways that heighten risk for these groups, while reducing risk for others ( [[#Smucker--2015|Smucker et al., 2015]] ). Salim et al. (2019) found that adaptation to flooding in Jakarta privileges political economic elites, while poor infrastructure in poorest neighbourhoods exacerbates loss of assets, housing and displacements ( [[#Salim--2019|Salim et al., 2019]] ). In Bangladesh, intense and consecutive flooding led to national and regional adaptation plans, that resulted in maladaptive trajectories as local poverty context and precarities of properties were not carefully considered and disconnected from local autonomous practice ( [[#Rahman--2019|Rahman and Hickey, 2019]] ).

Overall, the assessment shows that understanding impacts of climate change should not be limited to the analysis of direct impacts or physical changes under different climatic conditions, but needs also account for the distributional effects that responses to climate change may imply. For example, responses implemented in order to benefit one sector or social group (e.g., farmers), should not undermine the well-being of others (e.g., pastoralists). Documented cases of maladaptation (see [[#Eriksen--2021|Eriksen et al., 2021]] ) hint that responses to climate change can exacerbate existing inequality in some cases and may discourage other types of responses (see also Sections 8.5; 8.6). Furthermore, responses to similar climate change impacts and hazards may be extremely differentiated according to various social contexts (see [[#8.3|Section 8.3]] ). In some cases, responses to climate change (e.g., relocation programmes) can even trigger social tipping points when climate change responses lead to major social transformations, such as forced displacement (see [[#8.4|Section 8.4]] ).

Also the influence of new global phenomena, such as urbanisation, issues of urban health (Schmid and [[#Raju--2020|Raju, 2020]] ) and the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic need to be considered when assessing actual and potential consequences of different responses to climate change. For example, inequalities, vulnerabilities and poverty pockets are expected to change and increase, particularly in urban areas in countries with rapid urbanisation processes and high levels of poverty ( [[#Djalante--2020|Djalante et al., 2020]] ), hence urban and urbanisation trends need more attention. Urbanisation processes add another level of complexity ( [[#Raju--2021|Raju et al., 2021]] ). This is particularly the case in rapidly growing medium-sized cities in Africa that at present do not have sufficient resources to cope and adapt, and to implement climate-sensitive land use planning ( [[#Birkmann--2016|Birkmann et al., 2016]] ).

Tables 8.1 and 8.2 present a summary of a set of common climate change responses observed, classified according to their main approach. All these responses demand a certain level of commitment, the support of adequate policies and enough budget for their implementation ( [[#Archie--2018|Archie et al., 2018]] ). The observed climate change adaptation responses—differentiated along urban and rural settings—underscore the very different nature of various responses and the need for cross-sectoral approaches.

While Table 8.1 shows selected adaptation responses, Table 8.2 shows selected mitigation responses that highlight that some mitigation responses (e.g., increasing energy efficiency) also have a potential benefit for the poor or more vulnerable groups, for example, through the reduction of costs for electricity. Both tables underscore that climate change mitigation and adaptation responses are strongly interlinked with broader development issues (industrial production, land use planning, education, etc.) at different scales.

'''Table 8.1 |''' Selected observed climate change adaptation responses in urban and rural areas commonly associated with positive implications for poverty, livelihoods and sustainable development.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Modality of response

! Impacts to urban communities

! Impacts to rural communities (e.g., farmers, pastoralists)

|-
| Integrated natural resource management

(e.g., [[#van%20Noordwijk--2019|van Noordwijk, 2019]] )

| Better conservation of green areas and reduced exposure to floods

| Conservation of natural resources (e.g., water, soil, pasture, forest, wildlife, biodiversity, aquatic life)

|-
| Disaster risk management

(e.g., [[#Mall--2019|Mall et al., 2019]] )

| Pre-disaster risk management and post-disaster risk management measures reduce loss of life and damage to property

| Disaster risk management may play an important role in avoiding or limiting the impacts of floods, droughts and other extreme events

|-
| Physical/structural improvements

(e.g., [[#Vallejo--2017|Vallejo and Mullan, 2017]] )

| Improving physical/structural measures to prevent property damage and foster ecosystems integrity

| Flood defences may help to prevent property losses, planting of trees may stabilise slopes, reduce soil erosion and siltation, rainwater harvesting increases water availability, protection of biotopes supports biodiversity

|-
| Relocation of vulnerable communities

(e.g., [[#McNamara--2015|McNamara and Des Combes, 2015]] )

| Moving vulnerable communities before and during climate-induced hazards may reduce loss of life

| Reduces the exposure of vulnerable communities to climate change and extremes hazards (e.g., floods and droughts), lessens their vulnerability, improves access to better resources and builds their capacity to adjust to a new context

|-
| Education and communication

(e.g., [[#Monroe--2017|Monroe et al., 2017]] )

| Public education and awareness, improved communication may reduce the damages and losses from adverse impacts of climate change and from extreme events

| Fosters awareness creation, reducing the degree of vulnerability to certain climate-induced hazards and help build the capacity to adapt

|}

'''Table 8.2 |''' Selected climate change mitigation responses.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Modality of response

! Impacts on urban communities

! Impacts on rural communities (e.g., farmers, pastoralists)

|-
| Land use planning

(e.g., [[#Frose--2019|Frose and Schiling, 2019]] )

| Helps to reduce GHG emissions and support environmental conservation, preventing urban heat islands

| Helps to reduce pressure on the natural resources (deforestation, land filling, damaging wetland) and promotes carbon sequestration

|-
| Improving industrial processes

(e.g., [[#van%20Vuuren--2018|van Vuuren et al., 2018]] )

| Unlocks many opportunities for improvement, including the optimised use of energy, reuse of waste in production, reducing GHG emissions, use of biomass and more efficient equipment

| In rural settings, industrialisation and technological innovation may directly assist vulnerable communities through provision of inputs (e.g., water storage, drip irrigation, forecast information), or reuse of biowaste in agriculture or energy production, hence reducing costs and pollution levels

|-
| Renewable energy

(e.g., [[#Cronin--2018|Cronin et al., 2018]] )

| Reduction of GHG emissions and reduction of the cost of electricity

| Some options (e.g., solar, wind) may help to reduce deforestation, reduce GHG emissions and promote healthier air within households

|-
| Energy efficiency

(e.g., [[#Abrahamse--2018|Abrahamse and Shwom, 2018]] )

| Efficient end-users’ energy utilisation reduces energy wastage, reduces costs and lowers carbon emissions

| Efficient end-users’ energy utilisation leads to natural resource conservation and a reduction of GHG emissions

|-
| Local/individual actions

(e.g., [[#Shaffril--2018|Shaffril et al., 2018]] ; [[#Tvinnereim--2018|Tvinnereim et al., 2018]] )

| Can contribute to reduce carbon footprints

| Fosters personal and community motivation to manage individually and communally owned resources, helps to reduce GHG emissions and foster resources conservation

|}

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