Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-16 (section)

==== 16.1.3.3 What are the limits to adaptation? ====

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The literature on limits to adaptation, which is covered in [[#16.4|Section 16.4]] , has strongly evolved since AR5, including links to discussions on loss and damage in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). While the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of AR4 noted that there was no clear picture of the limits to adaptation, or the cost, AR5 [https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/chapter/chapter-16 Chapter 16] ( [[#Klein--2014|Klein et al., 2014]] ) reported increasing insights emerging from the interactions between climate change and biophysical and socioeconomic constraints, and highlighted the fact that limits could be both hard and soft. It also noted that residual losses and damages will occur from climate change despite adaptation and mitigation action. However, AR5 [https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/chapter/chapter-16 Chapter 16] still found that the empirical evidence needed to identify limits to adaptation of specific sectors, regions, ecosystems or species that can be avoided with different greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation pathways was lacking.

[[#16.4|Section 16.4]] provides a more comprehensive assessment of limits to adaptation, highlighting again that limits to adaptation are not fixed, but are properties of dynamic socio-ecological systems. They are shaped not only by the magnitude of the climate hazards (e.g., the amount of sea level rise in low-lying coasts and islands) and the exposure and vulnerability to those hazards (e.g., people and assets in those areas), but also by physical, infrastructural and social tolerance thresholds and adaptation choices of actors in societies (e.g., the decision to migrate from locations strongly impacted by climate change). The evolution of such socioeconomic systems over time, including their interaction with the changing physical climate, determines the evolution of limits to adaptation.

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