Collaboration avenues and structures within local climate adaptation governance - The case of local climate adaptation governance in Sweden

Abstract

Climate change adaptation is essential to future-proof societies around the world. It is a cross-sectorial undertaking which requires collaboration, structure, long-term planning, and resources. Sweden has placed highly in international indices ranking climate work, yet scholars have recently argued that Sweden’s approach to climate questions, especially adaptation, is fragmented. This thesis furthers those arguments by thoroughly analysing Sweden’s internal collaboration avenues and structures. It brings forward which actors are key in Sweden’s adaptation work, which actors that are the ones experienced as most important by local governments, and how the organizational structure of key actors may influence adaptation work. It also exemplifies challenges within adaptation collaboration by highlighting a somewhat forgotten actor within adaptation, the Transport Administration, which oversees key infrastructure that must be adapted for the future. Moreover, the research highlights one possible avenue for more holistic adaptation, Robust Decision-Making. This thesis finds that; adaptation is not suitably integrated into current institutionalized governance processes; Key actors, mainly SMHI, MSB, CABs, and municipalities, have different structures and approaches to the question of adaptation, potentially inhibiting collaboration; That holistic adaptation approaches are not well utilized by municipalities and seems to be a mainly academic product, thus far.

Popular Abstract

Collaboration avenues and structures within local climate adaptation governance
- The case of local climate adaptation governance in Sweden
This thesis finds that climate adaptation in Sweden is governed by actors and processes that lacks clear collaboration avenues and has unsuitable division of responsibilities.
As climate change effects gets worse, adaptation becomes increasingly important. In Sweden the collaboration avenues and structures within climate adaptation are not suitably integrated into current institutionalized governance processes and key actors have different structures and approaches to the question of adaptation, potentially inhibiting collaboration and making adaptation inefficient.
With the increasing impacts of climate change more and more countries are adapting their cities to be able to cope with changing raining patterns, increasing floods, heat waves, and a multitude of other climate change related weather impacts. In recent years Sweden has had forest fires, unusually heavy rains, coastal storms, and mudslides, all of which have been made worse by climate change and which costs the society a fortune to cope with. The responsible entities for adapting are the property owners, which ranges from governmental agencies to municipalities to individuals. What climate adaptation entails is different for different stakeholders although the goal is the same, to not be adversely affected by climate change related events.
The importance of collaborating across administrative boundaries does not seem to be prevalent in the system. To exemplify, in August of 2023 there was a mudslide in Stenungsund which destroyed a major part of the E6, one of the largest roads in Sweden. Could this have been foreseen/prevented? The Transport administration is the owner of the E6, but the municipality is the owner of the land above where the mudslide originated. Stenungsund had a climate adaptation plan, but which did not take into consideration the E6 because they are not in charge of that, and the Transport administration had not taken part of the climate adaptation plan of Stenungsund which points out potentially hazardous areas. This example sheds light on the problem of the responsibility of the property owner without putting this into a larger context.
Through analysing consulting reports between the Transport administration and the municipalities this thesis found that climate adaptation is rarely a topic of conversation. Moreover, municipalities and County Administrative Boards, two of the key actors within climate adaptation, are structured differently across Sweden. This means that adaptation can be about risk reducing measures in one place, societal planning in another place, and environmental conservation in a third place. Without a common national goal of adaptation, actors are blindly trying to navigate legislation that is not written for current circumstances.
Against the backdrop of this thesis, adaptation through holistic measures, collaboration, and common goals is key to achieve efficient climate adaptation that will prepare the society long-term.

• author: Vörlund Rylenius, Tomas
• supervisor: Mo Hamza
• organization: Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety
• course: VBRM15 20231
• year: 2023
• type: H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
• subject: Social Sciences
• keywords: Climate change adaptation, Governance, Governmentalization, Societal challenges, Holistic adaptation, Fragmentation, Inter-governmental collaboration, Organizational structures, Sweden
• language: English
• id: 9140960
• date added to LUP: 2023-11-08 10:16:17
• date last changed: 2023-11-08 10:16:17