A global assessment of actors and their roles in climate change adaptation

Petzold, J. et al. (2023) A global assessment of actors and their roles in climate change adaptation. Nature Climate Change, (doi: 10.1038/s41558-023-01824-z) (Early Online Publication)

Abstract

An assessment of the global progress in climate change adaptation is urgently needed. Despite a rising awareness that adaptation should involve diverse societal actors and a shared sense of responsibility, little is known about the types of actors, such as state and non-state, and their roles in different types of adaptation responses as well as in different regions. Based on a large n-structured analysis of case studies, we show that, although individuals or households are the most prominent actors implementing adaptation, they are the least involved in institutional responses, particularly in the global south. Governments are most often involved in planning and civil society in coordinating responses. Adaptation of individuals or households is documented especially in rural areas, and governments in urban areas. Overall, understanding of institutional, multi-actor and transformational adaptation is still limited. These findings contribute to debates around ‘social contracts’ for adaptation, that is, an agreement on the distribution of roles and responsibilities, and inform future adaptation governance.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This work was supported by the following funding grants: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy—EXC 2037 ‘CLICCS - Climate, Climatic Change, and Society’—project number: 390683824, contribution to the Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN) of Universität Hamburg (L.F., E.G.G., T.H., J.J., K.J., C.M., J.P., F.S., L.S.S., C.T.); GCRF Living Deltas Hub 2019-2024, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), grant number: NE/S008926/1 (E.C.); Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project, funded by a grant from the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank (A.C.S.); NSF CMMI CAREER no. 1944664 and NSF DRMS no. 2048505 (C.J.K.); and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF; grant no. 01LN1710A1) (J.P.).
• Status: Early Online Publication
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Cremin, Dr Emilie and Xu, Dr Jiren
• Authors: Petzold, J., Hawxwell, T., Jantke, K., Gonçalves Gresse, E., Mirbach, C., Ajibade, I., Bhadwal, S., Bowen, K., Fischer, A. P., Joe, E. T., Kirchhoff, C. J., Mach, K. J., Reckien, D., Segnon, A. C., Singh, C., Ulibarri, N., Campbell, D., Cremin, E., Färber, L., Greeshma, H., Jeong, J., Nunbogu, A. M., Pradhan, H. K., Schröder, L. S., Shah, M. A. R., Reese, P., Sultana, F., Tello, C., Xu, J., The Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative Team, ., and Garschagen, M.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social & Environmental Sustainability
• Journal Name: Nature Climate Change
• Publisher: Nature Research
• ISSN: 1758-678X
• ISSN (Online): 1758-6798
• Published Online: 12 October 2023
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © The Author(s) 2023
• First Published: First published in Nature Climate Change 2023
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons license