Defining and preventing maladaptation to climate change

Abstract der Sitzung

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group II recently concluded that nearly every nation has some sort of adaptation plan, and that many specific efforts are already underway. Unfortunately, early attempts at climate adaptation have been broadly under-researched, under-funded, and inconsistent. A meta-study of more than 1,600 academic articles on adaptation, published in conjunction with the IPCC report, finds that most of those efforts did not attempt to make systemic changes, nor did they result in risk reduction. Each misstep comes at significant human cost.

It is now clear that, in addition to cutting carbon emissions, countries around the world will have to adapt to the harsh realities of living on a warming planet. What is not so clear is what those adaptations should look like. Done right, adaptation efforts could soften the blow on billions of lives. Done wrong, they could lead to maladaptation, wasting time and money while leaving people as much or more vulnerable than before. Maladaptation however is a tricky outcome to prevent as we don’t usually know about it until it has already materialised.

This is made all the more difficult because the scientific community has a poor understanding of what successful adaptation looks like – and when in the project cycle one could even judge the outcome. Is adaptation a success as soon as a project has been completed? Or is it only years later, after the climate has changed, that we can assess outcomes? Why stop there, even, since the climate will continue to change, and human behaviour is likely to change as well? For example: A higher bridge might be designed to prevent deaths caused by flooding. But it might end up encouraging people to live closer to the river, leaving them more exposed to floods if the climate changes more intensely than expected later on. While the scientific community has deep knowledge of what shapes and limits adaptation, understanding of maladaptation has potentially peaked at identifying the possible drivers of maladaptation. But how can we advance the science to prevent maladaptation and identify it in real time?

This session asks how we can advance our understanding of maladaptation. With lightning talks, we are asking participants to bring examples and ideas that would help breakdown the maladaptation knowledge stalemate.

Questions of relevance include:

• How can we best advance the topic of maladaptation in science?
• Will the risk of maladaptation potentially prevent funders to reduce adaptation action?
• What are the effects of maladaptation in adaptation outcomes?
• How has the knowledge of maladaptation been integrated into adaptation planning?
• How has knowledge of maladaptation influenced the role of vulnerable actors?
• Has maladaptation knowledge made an impact on how we deal with adaptation?