Special issue: Exploring global and transnational governance of climate change adaptation

In post-Paris climate governance, the old mantra that ‘mitigation is global; adaptation is local’ (see Burton 2011, p. 481) is questioned with increased urgency. A highly localized, place-based approach to accelerating adaptation action seems insufficient. This raises the question: is more global and transnational governance adaptation required, and is it emerging? It is the aim of this Special Issue to provide conceptual approaches and empirical research to respond to these questions and to stimulate a broader academic debate.

Adaptation as an inevitable response to climate change became all the more clear with the evidence presented in the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C. Compared with the previous IPCC Assessment Report in 2014, the level of risk associated with a 2 °C warming had increased for four out of five ‘reasons for concern’ (Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2018). Yet, limits to adaptive capacity are identified already at 1.5 °C warming and become more pronounced with higher levels of warming. Overall, adaptation efforts worldwide need to accelerate and deepen, and international cooperation is found to be a ‘critical enabler’ (IPCC 2018, p. 25).

As part of the general adaptation effort, an increasing number of voices are arguing that greater attention is needed to understand and assess transboundary, regional and global climate impacts, or ‘borderless climate risks’ (see, for example, Khan 2013; Magnan and Ribera 2016; Challinor et al. 2017). Known transboundary resource problems can intensify with climate change, such as water scarcity and quality in shared river basins. Novel and uncertain global systemic risks, induced by climate change, may cascade through the international system, such as food insecurity and price shocks; population displacement and migration; shifts in fish stocks through changing species range; and disruption in global supply chains through climate risk to critical chokepoints. Evidence suggests that vulnerability to these kinds of risk may well be high in places that are also vulnerable to direct and local climate impacts (Hedlund et al. 2018), which could mean further inequality in how costs and benefits of climate change are distributed across the world.

A more ‘global’ conception of climate change adaptation is also articulated in international climate governance. The 2015 Paris Agreement explicitly defined adaptation as ‘a global challenge faced by all with local, sub-national, national, regional and international dimensions’ (Art. 7.2). The Paris Agreement also filled a gap in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in terms of goals on adaptation, by establishing ‘the global goal on adaptation of enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change, with a view to contributing to sustainable development and ensuring an adequate adaptation response in the context of the temperature goal referred to in Article 2’ (Art. 7.1). Beyond stating that progress on this global goal is to be reviewed as part of the global stock-take (Art 7.14), there are, however, no details provided on its implementation, in terms of obligations to take action, reporting responsibilities, indicators and metrics, and their aggregation. In this sense, a structure has been set in place for global adaptation governance, but it needs to be filled with meaningful functions and purpose.

Looking beyond the UNFCCC intergovernmental regime, a broader set of actors see the need for adaptation governance at levels beyond the local and national. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), business, cities, academia and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) are mobilizing in transnational adaptation initiatives, many of which are orchestrated under the Global Climate Action Agenda (GCAA). These initiatives are diverse in terms of goals and functions, but a common feature is that they seek to transnationally govern and thus secure benefits beyond the local level through, e.g. capacity building, knowledge sharing and standard setting.

Given the multi-sectoral and nebulous character of climate change adaptation as a policy concept (Lesnikowski et al. 2016a, b), the notion of ‘global and transnational adaptation governance’ can become an impossibly broad phenomenon to study. Where does it begin and where does it end in relation to other governance domains and policy concepts? For example, the notion of ‘climate security’ is being promoted in a range of international institutions, such as the UN Security Council. ‘Climate resilience’ is a term frequently used in the business sector, in development aid and in the transnational governance sphere, while reduction of ‘physical risk’ from climate change is one of the objectives of the finance sector initiative Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). Furthermore, adaptation is no longer governed only under the UNFCCC regime, but is also a more integral part of, for example, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

We recognize the inherent conceptual ambiguity and the difficulties in drawing distinct boundaries around the adaptation governance domain. However, for the reasons stated above—problem urgency, uncertain and novel cross-boundary risks and emerging de facto governance attempts—it is nevertheless highly timely and justified to systematically examine global and transnational adaptation governance as an object of study. As stated above, the aim of this Special Issue is to provide conceptual approaches and empirical research to better understand the need for, forms of and effectiveness of global and transnational adaptation governance. Our aim is also to, based on the articles in this Special Issue, contribute to the policy agenda by proposing a simple typology for understanding adaptation as a ‘global challenge’, as defined in the Paris Agreement, and identify future research needs.

Drawing on expertise from political science, economics and law, we present six articles. In brief, Benzie and Persson (2019) trace the traditional territorial framing and national and local scaling of adaptation governance to a particular epistemic community and international norm, and look at governance options for considering borderless climate risks which are now contesting the traditional framing and scaling. Roggero, Kähler and Hagen (2019) offer a conceptual discussion of the problem structure of adaptation in cases where it has cross-boundary spillovers, and illustrate their reasoning with the case of climate change-induced eutrophication of the Baltic Sea. Also focusing on regional governance of water resources, Tigre (2019) explains the untapped potential for building an effective regional adaptation strategy among states in the Amazon region, in order to provide climate resilience as a regional public good. Expanding the analysis from cooperation between state actors only, we then present three articles that empirically analyse transnational adaptation governance. Chan and Wamling (2019) evaluate the effectiveness of 100 transnational adaptation actions and discuss how effectively they have been orchestrated by the Global Climate Action Agenda. Dzebo (2019) assesses 40 transnational adaptation initiatives and seek to identify key success factors. Finally, Papin (2019) provides an in-depth case study of one initiative, the 100 Resilient Cities, and analyses in particular the extent to which this transnational municipal network has been innovative in governance.

This editorial continues with a brief review of key knowledge gaps, in order to lay out important and unanswered research questions for this Special Issue. The subsequent sections synthesize the conclusions of the individual articles in relation to these research questions. Finally, we propose a typology of adaptation as a global challenge to inform the policy agenda and conclude by identifying future research needs.

Looking at the academic literature on global climate governance, it is characterized by a strong bias towards theorizing and studying mitigation rather than adaptation (see, for example, Keohane and Victor 2011; Abbott 2012; Pattberg and Stripple 2008; Jordan et al. 2015). This could be explained by the greater policy attention to mitigation in the early days of the UNFCCC regime (Schipper 2006; Pielke et al. 2007). Since adaptation started rising on the global agenda (Khan and Roberts 2013; Gupta 2014), with the Bali Roadmap as a defining moment for putting adaptation on par with mitigation, the interest in analysing international governance of adaptation has increased. However, this research has typically focused on analysing and discussing international equity aspects of adaptation and the responsibilities and means for providing financial support to vulnerable developing countries (Pickering et al. 2017; Persson et al. 2009; Ciplet et al. 2015; Moore 2012; Grasso 2010). The issue of climate adaptation finance is obviously an important issue, with both equity and technical dimensions, but in this Special Issue we are interested in international cooperation and global governance around adaptation more broadly; in terms of substantive and procedural commitments of actors to doing adaptation (in addition to funding adaptation). As neatly summarized by Magnan and Ribera (2016, p. 1281), ‘a more comprehensive framework for global adaptation can help answer a crucial question that parallels the one on global mitigation: Are we as humankind on track to adapt to climate change?’

As alluded to above, the Paris Agreement constituted an important milestone for adaptation, through the goal and other provisions that can ‘catalyse societal momentum around adaptation through a broader discourse about climate change and human well-being, cooperation between state and non-state actors, national agenda setting, and the creation of stronger reporting and evaluation mechanisms’ (Lesnikowski et al. 2016a, b, pp. 4–5). In the lead-up to and in the aftermath of the Paris Agreement, we now identify a growing scholarship on global and transnational adaptation governance. A pioneering and comprehensive attempt has been made by Khan (2013, 2016) to outline a new ‘binding regime’ for climate adaptation, based on the identified need to redefine the problem structure of climate adaptation. He challenges the conventional definition of adaptation as a mainly local private or public good (Barrett 2008) and argues it also has properties of a global public good (GPG) in some circumstances. He thus proposes that adaptation as a GPG should become an accepted norm underlying institutional design. Another quickly growing literature that implicitly or explicitly address problem structure is that on borderless climate risk (see above and also Moser and Finzi Hart 2015; Challinor et al. 2017; Hedlund et al. 2018), but it has so far been sparse on governance implications. A welcome addition is a recent account by (Banda 2018; see also Gupta et al. 2007), which systematically identifies a multi-level governance model for adaptation with transboundary dimensions, with the aim to optimize efforts and avoid legal over-reach.

Engaging less in problem structure but nevertheless concluding there is a need for more concerted global adaptation governance, Biermann (2014; Biermann and Boas 2010) looks at relevant domains (e.g. migration, health, energy) and international governance architecture overall. He proposes that a ‘horizontal’ norm of adaptiveness needs to be institutionalized across global governance domains for an effective response. Taking a more evaluative perspective and a functional approach, Hall and Persson (2017) analyse the degree of legalization of existing governance of adaptation under the UNFCCC and conclude it is currently low in both obligation and precision. Broadening the scope to adaptation governance by non-state actors, the literature on transnational governance has thus far been poor at studying adaptation governance initiatives in comparison with mitigation initiatives (Bulkeley et al. 2014; Jordan et al. 2015).

Overall, with the more severe future climate impacts described in the recent IPCC Special Report (see above), we can expect climate change adaptation to become more of a ‘high-politics’ issue. As noted, there is a growing interest from the security governance domain and the capital-rich finance sector. This means that adaptation governance and practice may increasingly shift from its earlier ‘depoliticized’ and ‘technocratic’ incarnations (Schultz and Siriwardane 2015; Remling 2018). While it is still unclear where critical adaptation-related decisions will be taken, it seems reasonable to assume that stakes in adaptation governance will increase.

At the same time, the articles of this Special Issue, and the broader literature on global and transnational adaptation governance, seem to agree that a diversified and multi-level governance approach is needed. It is not about fully ‘scaling up’ adaptation governance to supranational institutions nor fully ‘scaling down’ to local and community level (Gupta et al. 2007; Banda 2018)—or indeed ‘scaling away’ from planned adaptation by public actors to purely autonomous adaptation by individuals and markets. However, with the Paris Agreement provisions on adaptation, we can expect and work towards more theoretically informed, evidence-based and coordinated governance from the international level and more orchestration of transnational adaptation initiatives.

We call upon the research community to contribute, in particular, to the design of the global stock-take as it applies to the global goal on adaptation: what should be reported, why, by whom and how (UNEP 2017)? How can knowledge and resources be pooled, to enable wider learning and capacity building? How can Parties and other actors track adaptation activities in a way that maximize learning and implementation effectiveness?

Finally, we summarize here the needs for future research as identified collectively by the articles in this Special Issue. First, more empirical research of problem structure of borderless risk and cross-boundary adaptation spillovers is needed. A starting point could be regional adaptation projects as funded by multilateral climate funds. Further, tentative lists of adaptation-related GPGs could be firmed up through more rigorous analysis and classification. As noted by Roggero et al., more translation of economic models for mitigation to adaptation is needed. Second, evaluations of the effectiveness of global and transnational adaptation governance need to address outcomes and impact to a greater extent, to facilitate learning on design. Also, to what extent are initiatives complementary or conflicting, and resulting in undesired fragmentation? Third, several articles identify a need for more studies of the interests, power and political economy of adaptation governance initiatives. To what extent do they create new opportunities and power relationships and to what extent are they reproducing existing ones?