Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-1 (section)

=== FAQ 1.3 | What constitutes successful adaptation to climate change? ===

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''The success of climate change adaptation is dependent on the extent to which relevant actions reduce risk and vulnerability, as well as achieve their respective goals. At a global scale, these goals are set and tracked according to international frameworks and conventions. At smaller scales, such as local and national, goals are dependent on the specific impacts being managed, the actions being taken and the relevant scale. While success can take shape as uniquely as goals can, the degree to which an adaptation is feasible, effective and conforms to principles of justice represents important attributes for measuring success across actions. Adaptation responses that lead to increased risk and impacts are considered maladaptation.''

Altogether, adaptation success is dependent on the extent to which adaptation actions achieve their respective goals of reducing climate risk, increasing resilience and pursuing other climate-related societal goals. Viewed globally, successful adaptation consists of actions anticipated to make significant contributions to meeting SDGs, such as ending extreme poverty, hunger and discrimination, and reduce risks to ecosystems, water, food systems, human settlements, and health and well-being. Viewed locally, successful adaptation consists of actions that help communities meet their diverse goals, including reducing anticipated current and future risks, enhancing capacity to adapt and transform, avoiding maladaptation, yielding benefits greater than costs and serving vulnerable populations, and arising from an inclusive, evidence-based and equitable decision process.

While success can be unique to an adaptation action, there are important attributes that constitute it as a successful solution. These include the extent to which an action is considered feasible, effective and conforms to principles of justice.

The degree to which an action is ''feasible'' is the extent to which it is appraised as possible and desirable, taking into consideration barriers, enablers, synergies and trade-offs. These considerations are based on financial or economic, political, physical, historical and social factors, depending on what is required for an action to be implemented. The degree to which an action is ''effective'' depends on the extent it reduces climate risk, as well as the extent an action achieves its intended goals or outcomes. An adaptation action can sometimes—usually inadvertently—increase risk or vulnerability for some or all affected individuals or communities. In some cases, such risk increases will be sufficient to call the actions maladaptation. The degree to which an action is ''just'' is when its outcomes, the process of implementing the action and the process of choosing the action respects principles of distributive, procedural and recognitional justice. Distributive justice refers to the different distributions of benefits and burdens of an action across members of society; procedural justice refers to ensuring the opportunity for fairness, transparency, inclusion and impartiality in the decision making of an action; and recognitional justice insists on recognising and including those who are or may be most affected by an action.

These attributes of adaptation success can be assessed throughout the adaptation process of planning, implementation, Monitoring &amp; Evaluation, adjustment and learning. However, at the same time, the success of many adaptation actions depends strongly on context and time. For instance, the effectiveness of adaptation will depend on the success of GHG mitigation efforts, as adaptation has strong synergies and trade-offs with mitigation efforts

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