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

==== 8.5.2.1 Factors that Support Enabling Environments for Adaptation ====

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This section assesses the literature on components of the enabling environment for adaptation. The point of departure considers findings in both the SR1.5°C report, which notes that adaptation becomes increasingly difficult (and expensive) at temperatures that are more than 1.5°C warmer ( [[#IPCC--2018a|IPCC, 2018a]] ). In addition, ( [[#IPCC--2014a|IPCC, 2014a]] ) underscores that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to adaptation for all contexts, and that mitigation and adaptation must be pursued in tandem.

Climate change affects people inequitably, and everyone does not contribute equally to climate change. A range of economic and non-economic impacts can be experienced. This has led some researchers to call for a more central role for rights-based approaches to adaptation to help secure space for those marginalised from adaptation decision making and to prioritise access to resources and information for those most vulnerable to, or affected by, the social, cultural or economic consequences of climate change ( [[#Bee--2013|Bee et al., 2013]] ; [[#Da%20Costa--2014|Da Costa, 2014]] ; [[#Toussaint--2020|Toussaint and Martinez Blanco, 2020]] ; Box 8.7; [[IPCC:Wg2:Chapter:Chapter-5#5.12|Section 5.12]] ). In terms of international law, the human rights obligations of states have been subject to multiple recommendations relating to climate change by United Nations treaty bodies in the reporting period. More broadly, rights-based approaches rely on the normative framework of human rights, requiring adaptation to be non-discriminatory, participatory, transparent and accountable in both formal (e.g., legal and regulatory) and informal (e.g., social or cultural norms) settings and at international, national and sub-national scales ( [[#Ensor--2015|Ensor et al., 2015]] ; [[#Arts--2017|Arts, 2017]] ). Sovacool et al. (2015) note that unless critical competing interests are addressed during planning, adaptations may fail to achieve the desired outcomes. This is increasingly seen at a political level within efforts to implement the Paris Agreement, in relation to the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capacities’ (CBDR-RC) (Box 8.7).

The scale of analysis, baseline conditions prior to adaptation and scale of action matter too when assessing the key components of an enabling environment for adaptation. At a national scale, it is well established that low-income countries are less well positioned to manage climate change impacts, being variously attributed to a lack of institutional, economic or financial capacity to adapt effectively ( [[#Tol--2007|Tol and Yohe, 2007]] ; [[#Barr--2010|Barr et al., 2010]] ). It can be particularly difficult to adapt to drought, for example, when it occurs in the pre-conditions of poor water supplies and sanitation (see Box 8.5; [[#8.3.2|Section 8.3.2]] ), and in a context of corruption, governance failure and a lack of accountability. Adaptation productivity in higher-income countries is further supported by better infrastructure and stronger institutions—low adaptation efficiency is linked to lower government spending, higher inequalities in income distribution and poor governance ( [[#Fankhauser--2014|Fankhauser and McDermott, 2014]] ). At smaller scales, even within a single socioeconomic setting, different groups require different kinds of adaptation support and exhibit different vulnerabilities to climate change impacts. Huynh and Stringer (2018) found that households vulnerable to climate change impacts linked to sea level rise and flooding in Da Nang City and Ngu Hanh Son district, Vietnam, had limited access to human, natural, physical, financial and social assets, and lacked a diversified livelihood portfolio. An enabling environment for household-level adaptation would need to address these factors in this context. However, the same authors found that at district scale, different challenges persisted, including obstacles to multidirectional flows of climate information, poor vertical interplay both upward and downward, and a lack of citizen participation in the governance of climate change.

Acknowledging that context and scale matter, it is nevertheless possible to set out the core components of a generic enabling environment (Figure 8.12), linking them to the literature on climate change and recognising how they can support adaptation in different socioeconomic and environmental settings in which different emphases are required. This broad set of enablers requires different emphases according to the specific context, yet the interdependence between them is universally applicable.

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'''Figure 8.12 |''' '''Core components of the enabling environment for adaptation to climate change''' (key interactions are illustrated but there are overlaps, interactions and feedbacks both within and between each item; and different countries have different capacities and starting points in addressing these enablers and the interlinkages between them).

The specific political economy of each country and its underpinning philosophies shape the national political context in which public policy supporting adaptation is developed and implemented. It further shapes the context for private adaptation. Public policy targeting climate change seeks to address market failures, amend policy distortions and offer incentives for private adaptation, as well as provide climate-resilient public goods, climate services and safety nets for the poor and vulnerable ( [[#Fankhauser--2017|Fankhauser, 2017]] ). In some countries that have a more stable institutional context, such policies are more straightforward to develop and implement; while in countries with weaker institutions (e.g., those emerging from conflict), a larger role may be needed for regional economic commissions and transnational networks to support the governance of ‘borderless climate risks’ ( [[#Benzie--2019|Benzie and Persson, 2019]] ), particularly where these countries also are most vulnerable to climate change (see also Figure 8.6). To support enabling conditions in highly vulnerable countries that are also characterised by state fragility (see Figure 8.8), funding and projects designed to support adaptation may need to be modified to effectively promote regional cooperation and transboundary adaptation. Nevertheless, such interventions can also reinforce particularly powerful agendas and fail to assist and empower those with the greatest need to adapt ( [[#Biermann--2010|Biermann et al., 2010]] ; [[#Burch--2019|Burch et al., 2019]] ) neglecting community voices and sovereignty ( [[#Schlosberg--2014|Schlosberg and Collins, 2014]] ). It is therefore important that the relevance of people and community empowerment to effectively achieve vulnerability reduction and climate change adaptation is recognised.

It is also insufficient to consider countries as stand-alone entities, due to links such as those provided by international trade. Taking Europe as an example, the continent has strong links to major trade partners such as India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Vietnam, so failure to assist adaptation in other locations opens up important vulnerabilities through supply chains ( [[#Lung--2017|Lung et al., 2017]] ). Policies seeking to protect national interests alone (e.g., in terms of food security) are seen as causes of negative impacts at a global scale ( [[#Puma--2015|Puma et al., 2015]] ; [[#Challinor--2017|Challinor et al., 2017]] ), with those nations and individuals least able to adapt to evolving climate changes experiencing exacerbation of existing imbalances ( [[#Elbehri--2015|Elbehri et al., 2015]] ). LDCs are projected to suffer greater import losses in more connected networks ( [[#Puma--2015|Puma et al., 2015]] ). In the food sector, poorer net food buyers are anticipated to experience the worst impacts of climate change ( [[#Gitz--2015|Gitz et al., 2015]] ).

Behind each policy are decisions about the magnitude of financial resource investments in specific adaptation actions, and their allocation between different sectors and groups in society, both spatially and temporally. The IPCC has estimated that limiting the rise in global average surface temperatures to 1.5°C would require between USD 1.6 trillion to USD 3.8 trillion of annual investment in supply-side energy systems (those that generate energy) between 2016 and 2050 ( [[#IPCC--2018b|IPCC, 2018b]] ). Resource allocations, however, are shaped by perceptions of the risks of climate change and the urgency of actions, as well as other motivational factors such as descriptive norms and perceived self-efficacy ( [[#van%20Valkengoed--2019|van Valkengoed and Steg, 2019]] ) and the underlying approaches taken to valuing human well-being (e.g., see work from Bhutan on Gross National Happiness and climate change actions ( [[#Kamei--2021|Kamei et al., 2021]] )).

An increase in finance mobilised, however, does not automatically equate to adaptation interventions on the ground, nor does it guarantee the effectiveness of those adaptations deployed ( [[#Berrang-Ford--2021|Berrang-Ford et al., 2021]] ). Unintended negative consequences may arise due to lack of understanding of the drivers of vulnerability (such as gender inequality or inequitable access to natural resources), non-involvement of marginalised local groups, retrofitting adaptation into existing development agendas, and insufficiently defining adaptation success ( [[#Eriksen--2021|Eriksen et al., 2021]] ). A 2017 study estimated that less than 10% of climate finance committed from international, regional and national climate funds to developing countries between 2003 and 2016 went to locally focused projects, suggesting a need to rethink approaches if the most affected groups are to build sufficient resilience to the impacts of climate change ( [[#Soanes--2017|Soanes et al., 2017]] ).

The literature shows with ''high confidence'' that the poorest groups in society often lose out, and require greater planned adaptation support, having less capacity to adapt than better off groups with easy access to assets ( [[#Barbier--2018|Barbier and Hochard, 2018]] ; [[#Ziervogel--2019b|Ziervogel, 2019b]] ; Box 8.5). Developing countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali and Zambia are not only among the most vulnerable to climate change, they are also the least able to mobilise the finance needed to adapt to its impacts (ND-GAIN, 2019). Women and girls are often most heavily burdened. When building adaptive capacity, these groups can require different support such that their knowledge, capacities and skills can be harnessed, in such a way that does not feminise responsibility and add to their burdens ( [[#Clissold--2020|Clissold et al., 2020]] ; [[#McNamara--2021a|McNamara et al., 2021a]] ).

There is broad support for the notion, enshrined in the Paris Agreement, that adaptation finance flowing to developing countries of the Global South should primarily benefit the most climate-vulnerable among them due to their limited technical capacity and financial capabilities, yet such countries are often insufficiently considered in funding decisions. There are nevertheless concerns regarding institutional fit: that foreign funding regimes may not map onto more recently developed administrative traditions, leading to dominance of governance models emanating from donors ( [[#Vink--2018|Vink and Schouten, 2018]] ). Research has found multilateral donors do not prioritise vulnerable developing countries at the project selection stage and they have received smaller allocations of adaptation finance from bilateral donors than less vulnerable countries ( [[#Saunders--2019|Saunders, 2019]] ), leaving the poor vulnerable to climate impacts. The lack of climate finance flowing to LDCs and SIDs (currently 14% and 2% of the total, respectively) is compounded by access issues due to the inability of domestic institutions to meet specific fiduciary standards and other access requirements, insufficient human resource support and the inflexibility of current approaches, which are biased in favour of governments and against non-traditional actors, such as local enterprise and grassroots organisations ( [[#Shakya--2021|Shakya et al., 2021]] ). Further, vulnerable developing countries shoulder additional financial burden, embodied in higher interest payments to service public and private debt, due to the increased cost of capital brought about by greater exposure to climate risks ( [[#Buhr--2018|Buhr et al., 2018]] ). This has been further exacerbated by the recession and debt distress accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic ( [[#Kose--2021|Kose et al., 2021]] ). A range of reforms, including comprehensive debt relief by public creditors, green recovery bonds, debt-for-climate swaps and new SDG-aligned debt instruments may address unsustainable debt burdens, freeing up investment in climate adaptation and a green economic recovery ( [[#Volz--2020|Volz et al., 2020]] ; see [[#8.6.3.1|Section 8.6.3.1]] ).

Greater investment is also needed in the developed countries of the Global North. For example, the 2018 forest fires in Sweden, the 2019–2020 Australian bushfire season and the 2020 forest fire season along the US West Coast were unusually long and severe, resulting in unprecedented damage to natural habitats and human livelihoods and, relatedly, significant economic cost, particularly given interlinkages with other stressors such as COVID-19. While a range of drivers underpin annual fire seasons, including greater water withdrawal and years of fire suppression, early research indicates that climate change increases their likelihood due to long-term warming trends ( [[#van%20Oldenborgh--2021a|van Oldenborgh et al., 2021a]] ).

However, investing in poverty reduction does not necessarily lead to climate change adaptation and where adaptation does result, it does not always reduce vulnerability of the most marginalised, as documented in case studies from northeast Brazil ( [[#Nelson--2016|Nelson et al., 2016]] ). Poverty also affects private adaptation options. For example, research from Portugal highlights the importance of private financial assets in helping older adults to adapt to extreme temperatures ( [[#Nunes--2018|Nunes, 2018]] ).

Policies and investments that are adopted are embedded within the relevant legal and regulatory frameworks, which extend beyond national jurisdictions upward to the regional scale (such as the Southern Africa Development Community’s Southern Africa Regional Framework of Climate Change Programmes, 2010) and international scale, for example, UNFCCC, the 2015 Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the New Urban Agenda and the SDGs. Legal and regulatory concerns also extend downward to shape local- and city-scale adaptation efforts (e.g., Sao Paulo’s municipal policy and new master plan). Nevertheless, only a minority of countries have dedicated legal frameworks supporting adaptation ( [[#Lesnikowski--2017|Lesnikowski et al., 2017]] ) and these often lack in both precision and obligation—largely because adaptation is a contested global public good but also because adaptation is commonly bundled in with mitigation commitments ( [[#Hall--2018|Hall and Persson, 2018]] ). Coherence, horizontally and vertically in both policy and law is often lacking. At the same time, bottom-up, private, autonomous adaptation efforts are being better tracked, with different actors motivated by growing experiences of local climate change impacts ( [[#Berrang-Ford--2014|Berrang-Ford et al., 2014]] ). While the emergent polycentricity of adaptation governance is beginning to take shape, wherein both state and non-state actors share a common adaptation goal and interact coherently, yet often independently, to advance progress towards it ( [[#Morrison--2019|Morrison et al., 2019]] ), understandings of how various centres of decision making with different degrees of autonomy support an enabling environment for adaptation, remain at a nascent stage. Multiple scales and forms of adaptation occur, with attributes such as self-organisation, appreciation of site-specific conditions, and the need for learning and experimentation, alongside building of trust, increasingly shown to be vital ( [[#Dorsch--2017|Dorsch and Flachsland, 2017]] ). Literature indicates that professional and learning networks are important groups supporting adaptation in cities and can help harness resources ( [[#Woodruff--2018|Woodruff, 2018]] ); while the research of ( [[#Hauge--2019|Hauge et al., 2019]] ) in Norway underscores the importance of working across multiple disciplines and the inclusion of actors from different levels of authority in multi-level municipal networks. They found that these factors can help to identify specific adaptation actions as well support knowledge sharing within participating organisations, which in turn helps garner commitment to adaptation and its implementation. They also found that it is important to involve local leaders in polycentric adaptation networks.

Among the many institutions, actors and roles associated with successful adaptation, two play an increasingly important role: local governments and the private sector ( [[#Noble--2014|Noble et al., 2014]] ). These groups often define the flows of information and finance from the top down, as well as supporting the scaling up of community and household adaptation. In some countries, for example, in South America (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay) vocational agricultural schools, often in remote rural locations, play a key part in knowledge-sharing activities that support adaptation. Similar valuable contributions are made by universities through their outreach activities, particularly those offering programmes in environmental and agricultural fields. Many actors face a lack of resources and capacity, particularly at the local level. Local institutions, including local governments, NGOs and civil society organisations, are hampered by ongoing challenges in gaining support from higher governance levels—from national government or the international community—particularly in developing countries. At the same time, private sector actors, from individual farmers and small/medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as large multinational businesses, will seek to protect and enhance their production systems, supply chains and markets by pursuing adaptation-related opportunities. Yet, while these goals will help expand adaptation activities, they may not align with government or community objectives and priorities without coordination and incentives, and in the process, can reinforce existing capacities, inequalities and power relations ( [[#Sovacool--2015|Sovacool et al., 2015]] ). Similarly, an enabling environment for businesses’ adaptation is highly differentiated and often requires structural deficits (such as limited market access, finance and transport and communications infrastructure) to be tackled ( [[#Gannon--2020|Gannon et al., 2020]] ).

The challenges of climate change have driven governments around the world to emphasise climate services as a route to enhance decision making and reduce climate-related risks, as well as inform adaptation, supporting calls for the right to information ( [[#Tall--2013|Tall and Njinga, 2013]] ). While there have been some efforts to evaluate the economic impact of climate services alongside other impacts (e.g, [[#Tall--2018|Tall et al., 2018]] ), little is known about the institutional contexts in which investments in climate services have taken place, nor those groups that are most vulnerable or marginalised in relation to specific climate risks. [[#Vincent--2017|Vincent et al. (2017)]] offer preliminary insights from Malawi, identifying that barriers to improved integration of climate services in national policy planning include factors relating to spatial and temporal scale, accessibility and timing of information provision, credibility and mismatches in time frames between planning cycles and climate projections. An understanding of the factors that enable climate service investment is important for the development of climate services at local, national and international levels ( [[#Vaughan--2017|Vaughan et al., 2017]] ) but this area of literature is not yet well developed.

Overall, adaptation entails financial (and non-financial) costs not just in implementing adaptation actions, but also in designing, facilitating and preparing for actions—costs to create and maintain an enabling environment (see also [[#8.2|Section 8.2.2.3]] ; Cross-Chapter Box LOSS in Chapter 17). Financial and economic investments target the whole range of other types of asset (natural capital, physical capital, human capital, social capital). AR5 reports that aggregate economic losses accelerate with increasing temperatures ( [[#IPCC--2014a|IPCC, 2014a]] ). Costs may be borne when gaining information (e.g., investments in climate services), while adjustment costs are incurred as adaptations take place. Nevertheless, to enable adaptation, investment is needed in various natural, human, physical and social assets, as considered below. The importance of investment in each of these different types of asset varies according to the scale and livelihood system in need of adaptation and the ways in which livelihood resilience is framed and power is distributed, within each specific setting ( [[#Carr--2020|Carr, 2020]] ).

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