Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-17 (section)

=== 17.1.2 Objectives and Key Terms ===

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==== 17.1.2.1 Drivers ====

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AR5 provides a broad overview of drivers as the determinants of climate decision-making by individuals and organisations, including social, institutional and regulatory contexts, cultural values and norms, economic resources and constraints, and the availability of information and of tools to process it. This chapter expands the discussion of the contexts for decision-making in a number of ways ( [[#17.4|Section 17.4]] ), including an examination of informal as well as formal decisions, an attention to emerging actors, particularly social movements, and consideration of several dimensions of governance. It expands the treatment of decision processes, with particular attention to framing and to the integration of multiple time frames (Sections 17.3 and 17.6).

Since AR5, there has been an increasing ambition for adaptation, signalled by growing attention to the adaptation gaps and deficits, which call for extensive and intensive levels of action ( [[#Chen--2016|Chen et al., 2016]] ; [[#UNEP--2017|UNEP, 2017]] ; [[#Tompkins--2018|Tompkins et al., 2018]] ; [[#Valente--2020|Valente and Veloso-Gomes, 2020]] ; [[#UNEP--2021a|UNEP, 2021a]] ), as well as increased attention to co-benefits between climate risk reduction and other benefits, such as equity and biodiversity conservation ( [[#Colloff--2017|Colloff et al., 2017]] , [[#17.5.1|Section 17.5.1]] ; [[#Smith--2020|Smith et al., 2020]] ). Climate risk decision-making as an object of study has emerged in a more central location within the literature as adaptation moves from planning into the realm of practice. The broad sense of urgency (summarised in [[#Wilson--2019|Wilson and Orlove, 2019]] ; [[#Wilson--2021|Wilson and Orlove, 2021]] ) shows growth of the term ‘urgency’ in both scholarly publications and the popular press since 2014, building on earlier increases starting around 2005, and a dramatic spike of the terms ‘climate crisis’ and ‘climate emergency’. Paralleling this call for more extensive and rapid action is the emergence of the term ‘transformational’ adaptation and decision-making. Transformational adaptation (defined and deeply examined in Chapters 1 and 16 and [[#17.2|Section 17.2]] ) highlights efforts that involve large-scale, systemic change ( [[#Wilson--2020|Wilson et al., 2020]] ) and involves ‘adapting to climate change resulting in significant changes in structure or function that go beyond adjusting existing practices including approaches that enable new ways of decision-making on adaptation’ ( [[#IPCC--2018a|IPCC, 2018a]] ). The complex relationship between incremental adaptation and transformational adaptation is presented and reviewed in [[#17.2|Section 17.2]] . Furthermore, the literature since the AR5 report has moved beyond the question of limits and barriers to adaptation as relevant aspects for decision-making to additionally assessing drivers of change, with increasing focus devoted to more nuanced and differentiated contexts for action.

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==== 17.1.2.2 Enabling Conditions ====

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AR5 extensively assessed the conditions of adaptation with a focus on the role of governance, finance, knowledge and capacity. AR6 extends this examination of adaptation and the decision-making process around it by focusing on enablers. Adaptation enablers are defined as those conditions or properties that specifically promote or advance the adaptation process (Chapter 1). Enablers are positively associated with likelihood that adaptation planning occurs, and strategies will be put into practice. Three broad enabling conditions are presented in the chapter ( [[#17.4|Section 17.4]] ): governance (legislation, regulation, institutions, litigation), finance (needs, sources, intermediaries, instruments flows, equity) and knowledge (capacities, climate services, big data, Indigenous/local knowledge, co-production, boundary organisations). As an extension of enabling conditions, the chapter also examines catalysing conditions for adaptation ( [[#17.4.5|Section 17.4.5]] ). Catalysing conditions motivate and accelerate the process of decision-making, leading to more frequent and potentially substantial adaptations. The chapter recognises that the relative influence of enabling conditions and catalysing conditions is set within the human dimensions of climate change including vulnerability, inequality, poverty and the achievement/non-achievement of SDGs (Figure 8.1).

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==== 17.1.2.3 Mechanisms for Decision-Making ====

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The mechanisms and conditions for decision-making provide the basis for the chapter. AR5 provided a detailed chapter on the support of climate decision-making. [[IPCC:Wg2:Chapter:Chapter-2|Chapter 2]] of AR5 ( [[#Jones--2014|Jones et al., 2014]] ) concluded, with ''high confidence'' , that risk management provides a useful framework for most climate change decision-making, and that iterative risk management is most suitable in situations characterised by large uncertainties, long time frames, the potential for learning over time, and the influence of both climate as well as other socioeconomic and biophysical changes. Furthermore, decision support is situated at the intersection of data provision, expert knowledge and human decision-making at a range of scales from the individual to the organisation and institution.

The climate risk management decision-making process follows a set of general considerations. The detail of each decision is often highly context specific. Climate risk decision-making is bound to the question of how and under what circumstance it is appropriate to alter, reduce or transfer and retain risk. Different types of risk (e.g., gradual compared with catastrophic) and conditions of risk (e.g., known versus uncertain) are associated with different types of responses (e.g., incremental versus transformational). As the risk decision process proceeds, individuals and organisations will formally or informally utilise any number of mechanisms to guide, aid or facilitate the decision-making process. Decision-making can then take place in a linear set of steps or through a complex iterative process involving reflexive and recursive steps.

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==== 17.1.2.4 Costs and Non-monetised Loss, Benefits, Synergies and Trade-Off ====

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AR5 provided an extensive discussion of the costs to human and natural systems associated with climate risks. It recognised the challenges which long time frames, uncertainty and the differing values held by stakeholders create for the monetisation of losses. The AR6 SROCC built on the discussion of cultural values—typically also difficult to monetise—through a consideration of cultural ecosystem services and cultural forms of valuation, with cases from high mountain areas and polar regions ( [[#Hock--2019|Hock et al., 2019]] ; [[#Meredith--2019|Meredith et al., 2019]] ; [[#IPCC--2019c|IPCC, 2019c]] ). AR6 expands this discussion of multiple forms of valuation in several ways. It considers regulation and litigation as mechanisms for promoting the consideration of both monetisable and non-monetisable losses in decision-making (Cross-Chapter Box LOSS in this Chapter). AR5 treated the issues of equity and justice primarily with regard to mitigation, especially in WGIII AR5 [[IPCC:Wg2:Chapter:Chapter-3|Chapter 3]] (Kolstad et al., 2014); these issues in the adaptation sphere are considered extensively in this chapter in areas such as finance, governance, success of adaptation, maladaptation, and monitoring and evaluation. The discussions of maladaptation and success of adaptation ( [[#17.5|Section 17.5]] ) consider questions of synergies and trade-offs across values and goals, while the consideration of decision processes and tools shows opportunities to use co-benefits to promote effective decision-making, including approaches to decision-making under conditions of deep uncertainty ( [[#17.3|Section 17.3]] ; Cross-Chapter Box DEEP in this Chapter). Successful adaptation across the report (as specified in Chapter 1) is associated with conditions when co-benefits are high and (negative) trade-offs are low.

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==== 17.1.2.5 Monitoring and Evaluation ====

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This chapter assesses the evidence of monitoring and evaluation (M&amp;E) (see AR6 Glossary, Annex II) and their approaches as part of the adaptation process at the national, local and project level as well as in global assessments ( [[#17.5.2|Section 17.5.2]] ; Cross-Chapter Box PROGRESS in this Chapter). M&amp;E can serve multiple functions, for example, to: (1) facilitate an understanding on whether and how interventions work in achieving intended objectives; (2) inform ongoing and future implementation; and (3) provide information that helps to substantiate upward and downward accountability (Preston et al., 2009; [[#UNFCCC--2010b|UNFCCC, 2010b]] ; [[#Pringle--2011|Pringle, 2011]] ; [[#Spearman--2011|Spearman and McGray, 2011]] ) (see BOX 17.1 for more discussion). This chapter also addresses the relevance of iterative learning as part of the design of M&amp;E processes, as a means by which actors and institutions engaged in M&amp;E acquire new insights on how these processes work (or not) to achieve set objectives.

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