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Mainstreaming climate adaptation : taking stock about “what works” from empirical research worldwide

Runhaar, Hens ; Wilk, Bettina ; Persson, Åsa ; Uittenbroek, Caroline and Wamsler, Christine LU (2018) In Regional Environmental Change 18(4). p.1201-1210
Abstract

Adaptation to a changing climate is unavoidable. Mainstreaming climate adaptation objectives into existing policies, as opposed to developing dedicated adaptation policy, is widely advocated for public action. However, knowledge on what makes mainstreaming effective is scarce and fragmented. Against this background, this paper takes stock of peer-reviewed empirical analyses of climate adaptation mainstreaming, in order to assess current achievements and identify the critical factors that render mainstreaming effective. The results show that although in most cases adaptation policy outputs are identified, only in a minority of cases this translates into policy outcomes. This “implementation gap” is most strongly seen in developing... (More)

Adaptation to a changing climate is unavoidable. Mainstreaming climate adaptation objectives into existing policies, as opposed to developing dedicated adaptation policy, is widely advocated for public action. However, knowledge on what makes mainstreaming effective is scarce and fragmented. Against this background, this paper takes stock of peer-reviewed empirical analyses of climate adaptation mainstreaming, in order to assess current achievements and identify the critical factors that render mainstreaming effective. The results show that although in most cases adaptation policy outputs are identified, only in a minority of cases this translates into policy outcomes. This “implementation gap” is most strongly seen in developing countries. However, when it comes to the effectiveness of outcomes, we found no difference across countries. We conclude that more explicit definitions and unified frameworks for adaptation mainstreaming research are required to allow for future research syntheses and well-informed policy recommendations.

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author
; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Climate change adaptation, Climate policy integration, Mainstreaming, State-of-the-art, Systematic literature review
in
Regional Environmental Change
volume
18
issue
4
pages
1201 - 1210
publisher
Springer
external identifiers
  • scopus:85035135812
ISSN
1436-3798
DOI
10.1007/s10113-017-1259-5
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
d0715745-4cdd-42c7-9f15-fa062b8457da
date added to LUP
2017-12-07 14:45:37
date last changed
2022-04-25 04:03:07
@article{d0715745-4cdd-42c7-9f15-fa062b8457da,
  abstract     = {{<p>Adaptation to a changing climate is unavoidable. Mainstreaming climate adaptation objectives into existing policies, as opposed to developing dedicated adaptation policy, is widely advocated for public action. However, knowledge on what makes mainstreaming effective is scarce and fragmented. Against this background, this paper takes stock of peer-reviewed empirical analyses of climate adaptation mainstreaming, in order to assess current achievements and identify the critical factors that render mainstreaming effective. The results show that although in most cases adaptation policy outputs are identified, only in a minority of cases this translates into policy outcomes. This “implementation gap” is most strongly seen in developing countries. However, when it comes to the effectiveness of outcomes, we found no difference across countries. We conclude that more explicit definitions and unified frameworks for adaptation mainstreaming research are required to allow for future research syntheses and well-informed policy recommendations.</p>}},
  author       = {{Runhaar, Hens and Wilk, Bettina and Persson, Åsa and Uittenbroek, Caroline and Wamsler, Christine}},
  issn         = {{1436-3798}},
  keywords     = {{Climate change adaptation; Climate policy integration; Mainstreaming; State-of-the-art; Systematic literature review}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{4}},
  pages        = {{1201--1210}},
  publisher    = {{Springer}},
  series       = {{Regional Environmental Change}},
  title        = {{Mainstreaming climate adaptation : taking stock about “what works” from empirical research worldwide}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10113-017-1259-5}},
  doi          = {{10.1007/s10113-017-1259-5}},
  volume       = {{18}},
  year         = {{2018}},
}