Introduction to climate adaptation governance

HELLEN DAWO: Let’s imagine for those who didn’t experience this that you went shopping for a new outfit 70 years ago. You had to go to the tailor. He or she would take your measurements. You would buy the fabric and give the tailor some time to make the garment. After the agreed time, you would come back to the shop, fit the garment to make sure it’s according to specifications, then take it home. Fast forward to now. You walk into the department store, you choose the clothes you want in your size, colour, and style, fit it in real time, and buy it if you like it and have enough money.

Even faster, you can do all this online from the comfort of your home. Nowadays, we have ready-made off-the-rack solutions to many of life’s challenges, from instant tea, canned beans, to frozen pizza. Unfortunately, there is not off-the-rack solution for climate adaptation governance. This is because climate adaptation governance solutions depend on the context. For example, in 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit New York and caused damage to the urban infrastructure and loss of lives. The disaster was a unique occurrence. It was on a regional scale, affecting the city and the area around it. The response to this was redesigning the urban flood protection plan.

This resulted in the use of both man-made solutions such as making channels shallow and nature-based solutions such as coastal restoration and living shorelines. In contrast, countries like Bangladesh face frequent flooding from both inland rivers and the coast. The floods cause destruction of property, farms, and loss of lives. They occur seasonally throughout the country. Therefore, the disaster is on a national scale. Due to its magnitude and the economic resources available, the country relies on nature-based solutions to resolve its challenges. Looking at the examples, although the problem is flooding in both instances, due to where and when they happen, one solution cannot be directly copied to another area.

The development of a solution as well as implementation and evaluation depends on different factors. This is what makes climate adaptation governance context specific. For climate adaptation governance to be effective, it needs to take into consideration the factors within a context. This means that the stakeholders involved have to initially agree on the definition of the problem, make choices about how to solve it. They also implement decisions within a certain time frame, and finally, evaluate the effect. In the next step, we will explore who the stakeholders are in climate adaptation governance and how they define problems.