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9
Cross-Cutting Issues in Adaptation
INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS
Roger Kasperson
Roger Kasperson opened this section of the workshop by saying that
a lot of adaptation is going on, and there is a theoretical framework for
that—muddling through. He said that adaptation responses vary by sector
and have some specificity, so that there are no golden answers that apply to
everything. He suggested that something may be said about how to avoid
common pitfalls, but it is not easy for social scientists to talk about how
to transform entire systems. At the end of the workshop, people should try
not only to pull together what they have learned, but also to take on re-
ally hard questions, such as: How can large adaptations move forward at
the system level? What advice can social scientists offer to the government
about major transformations needed for the climate change problem? How
can success be assessed?
Paul Stern suggested that for government, it is important to deal with
practical issues and not just the major social science questions, such as
what major social transformations are needed and how to get at them. Neil
Adger noted that there may also be important fundamental social science
questions related to adaptation, such as about processes of transformation,
the evolution of preferences over time, demographic change, and relocation
of settlements and economic activity.
11
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114 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES
LESSONS LEARNED FROM PUBLIC HEALTH
ON THE PROCESS OF ADAPTATION
Kristie Ebi
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Kristie Ebi began by observing that the public health field has 150 years
of experience in dealing with everything from slow changes in factors affect-
ing human health to dramatic epidemics. It includes national and interna-
tional organizations and institutions for identifying risks and implementing
programs to reduce or eliminate the threats. Because some of the experience
in this field could provide insights to improve the process of adaptation
in health and other sectors, it might be useful to organize case studies on
lessons learned around selected questions, for example, communicating to
facilitate behavioral changes.
The public health field has extensive experience with communicating on
a range of issues. For example, 40 years of experience with communication
has taught that different audiences need different messages on the hazards
of cigarette smoking: effective messages for young adults differ from those
for older adults. It is possible to effect behavioral change, but the most ef-
fective way to do so is often not predictable, and a variety of options need
to be tested to determine which are most effective. She related a story from
Rita Colwell about how, in Bangladesh, a simple practice of filtering water
through used sari cloth dramatically reduced the cholera burden in one
region. Ebi noted that one or two individuals can make a significant differ-
ence quickly, as was the case with Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Such
experiences can teach lessons about messages for adaptive action.
The public health literature identifies five prerequisites for action:
awareness that a problem exists, understanding of the causes, a sense that
the problem matters, the capability to influence the problem, and the politi-
cal will to act. Political will is often the most significant constraint.
An adaptation option of considerable interest is the development of
early warning systems based on environmental variables. A challenge with
many of the early warning systems developed in public health is that they
were not designed to adjust to a changing climate; they implicitly assumed
a stable climate. In many cases, it will be a challenge to proactively iden-
tify through an early warning system where a disease might change its
geographic range due to climate change. Furthermore, there is no definitive
approach for deciding when to retire early warning systems in some places
and open them in others as diseases change their range. This means that
some mistakes will be made. She noted that in public health, thresholds
are often constructs, not biological limits. For example, the definition of
high blood pressure is based on judgments about the costs and benefits of
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CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES IN ADAPTATION
treating people in different groups—there is no biological justification for
choosing a particular blood pressure as the threshold above which risks
increase significantly.
Ebi emphasized the difficulty of maintaining public health systems
over time. Yellow fever was controlled in every country where control
of the mosquito vector was tried, but that costs money and takes effort.
Mosquitoes can reappear where there has been failure of vector control.
A lesson here is that climate change adaptation can require a very long
commitment.
She also noted that things can go very badly even with the best of in-
tentions. In Bangladesh, for example, in an effort to stop childhood deaths
from water contamination, there was a large effort to drill tube wells that
accessed uncontaminated ground water. However, some wells were seri-
ously contaminated with arsenic. The implication was that although there
is a bias for looking for simple, single-technology fixes, it is important to
understand the broader implications of implementing a technology.
In the discussion, in response to a question, Ebi observed that effective
early warning systems require a process, not just a one-time design focused
on identifying a threshold for action; the actions to be undertaken also
need to be carefully designed and tested. Incorporating climate change into
public health systems means considering what is likely to need adjustment,
so that systems can be easily modified with additional climate change.
On the topic of decision thresholds, Howard Kunreuther said that
thresholds are often used for regulatory purposes, even when there is uncer-
tainty and a continuum is better justified scientifically. Ebi responded that
public health has moved to an approach based on judgments of how many
people could be saved by setting thresholds at different levels.
THE NETWORK STRUCTURE OF CLIMATE CHANGE
ADAPTATION: VIEWING NETWORKS AS OPPORTUNITIES
AND BARRIERS TO SUCCESSFUL LEARNING
Adam Henry1
West Virginia University
Adam Henry began by saying that climate change adaptation is an
important form of policy learning, which is one of his central interests.
Because no one knows which policies will work well in advance, risk man-
agement needs to be adaptive or iterative. He said that to understand policy
1The presentation is available at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/hdgc/The%20Network%
20Structure%20of%20Climate%20Change%20Adaptation_%20Viewing%20Networks%20as
%20Both.pdf [accessed September 2010].
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116 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES
learning, it is necessary to engage in network analysis and that a network
perspective can help one to understand opportunities for, and barriers
to, successful climate adaptation. In particular, networks can facilitate or
hinder policy learning. They can facilitate learning by promoting coordina-
tion across sectors or scales, and they can hinder learning by fragmenting
or shutting out information. To promote successful adaptation, one goal
may be to create certain types of networks and avoid others. The design
of adaptive institutions must account for the fact that policy networks
self-organize.
Henry examined one of many possible applications of network analysis
to climate change adaptation. He noted that network sampling techniques
can be used to map the participants in climate change adaptation. Stake-
holders can be linked to each other directly or indirectly, by physical inter-
actions and by cognitive relationships (e.g., trust). He said that standard
statistical methods of analysis are often inappropriate because of interde-
pendencies, but other methods exist.
The definition of adaptation from the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC)—“adjustment in natural or human systems in
response to actual or expected climactic stimuli or their effects, which
moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities”—implies challenges
for learning. These include understanding how the system works, avoiding
perverse learning, inducing learning that occurs between communities of
knowledge and action, and the learning of common goals and values. Net-
works can affect learning by exchanging information, promoting dialogue,
building trust and credibility, spreading innovation, and diffusing values,
beliefs, and other cognitions. Henry also noted a common belief that net-
works that link diverse agents across disciplines, world views, etc., have
the effect of improving problem-solving capacity. He observed that there is
some support for this belief from theory and practice.
“Network” has many meanings. It is a mathematical abstraction that
focuses on the relationships among agents. Networks can be studied with
mathematical techniques from graph theory and social network analysis
to analyze the effects of network position and structure. The nodes in
networks are the agents; the group of all the agents is the boundary of the
network; the links are the relationships between nodes. The set of all the
links gives the network structure. In popular usage, networks are seen as
a good thing; however, there are many network structures, and different
structures can function differently and enable learning to different degrees.
The question of which structures facilitate learning can be asked at different
scales: the egocentric or single-actor scale and the macro- or network-wide
scale.
The most coherent discussion of the effect of network structure on
the capacity to learn comes from the collaborative policy literature (e.g.,
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CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES IN ADAPTATION
Schneider et al., 2003), which focuses on fragmentations of networks
(“structural holes”) that prevent innovation, such as when there are com-
munities defined by dense connections within that are linked with each
other only by sparse connections. This literature hypothesizes that increas-
ing collaboration across structural holes (e.g., across sectors, jurisdictions,
levels of government, ideological divisions) will increase the likelihood
of successful adaptation—but there has not yet been much testing of this
hypothesis.
At the egocentric level of analysis, Henry identified four hypotheses in
the literature. First, the more expansive that ego (the learning agent) is in
the sense of number of collaborations or links, the greater the likelihood
of successful adaptation. The assumption here is that more information
is better. Second, reciprocity (connections with flows in both directions
and without hierarchical relationships) promotes learning. The underlying
theory is that learning is a coproduction process, not one just within indi-
viduals. Third, clustering (embeddedness in triadic relationships) increases
the propensity for successful learning. The theory is that redundancy im-
proves trust and legitimacy. Fourth, if the agent goes to diverse information
sources, it has a better chance of success in adaptation. This idea presumes
that agents apply good ideas to their particular situations.
Henry reported on a study he conducted on 71 networks, which does
not support all these hypotheses. For example, it does not support the first
hypothesis and supports the second only contingently. However, network
variables explain a large amount of variance in a measure of innovation.
This means that something is known about the kinds of networks that
adapt well.
Given that knowledge, Henry asked, what can be done to develop
adaptive networks? One issue is that networks self-organize: participation
in them is generally voluntary. Also, individuals may position themselves
so that networks become barriers to successful adaptation. Ronald Burt’s
(2004) work suggests that although structural holes may be bad overall,
some individual actors gain power by spanning them and so try to maintain
them. The advocacy coalition framework of Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith
(1993) suggests that networks form around shared belief systems, a process
that limits diversity. Some of Henry’s data support this model.
Overall, Henry concluded that the network perspective is useful, that
network sampling and modeling methods are useful, and that more work
is needed on learning within networks.
In the discussion, Henry was asked about learning in climate change
adaptation networks: Does he equate successful learning with success-
ful adaptation? Can networks can be successful at learning the wrong
things? How can the lessons of experience be used to design networks for
adaptation?
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11 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES
Henry replied that there are many evaluative criteria related to learn-
ing. For example, shared understanding is an indicator of learning even if
network members do not agree on policy. Actors may arrive at a common
strategy even if their values do not change. He added that because indi-
viduals span different kinds of networks, it is important to be clear about
the boundaries of the networks. He said that the big empirical questions
concern how to characterize networks that do well or do not do well.
THE ROLE OF URBAN AREAS IN ADAPTATION AND EFFECTIVE
STAKEHOLDER-RESEARCHER ADAPTATION PROCESS
Cynthia Rosenzweig2
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Cynthia Rosenzweig explained that she has been working with New
York City for a decade, since the first National Assessment of the Conse-
quences of Climate Change. It was clear from the start that cities like New
York have global connections as well as local roots. At the 2009 Copen-
hagen conference, New York participated in the mayors’ summit, which
was hosted by the mayor of Copenhagen. Unlike the experience at the
nations’ summit, the mayors had no trouble setting targets and timetables
or creating adaptation plans. This was the case for several reasons. The
vulnerabilities of cities are acute, with high population densities, coastal
exposure in many, higher levels of heat, and poorer air quality. On the
mitigation side, cities are responsible for 40-80 percent of greenhouse gas
emissions, depending on how the estimate is made. Also, mayors are closer
to the citizens than heads of state are. And cities have some readily available
policy levers. They operate critical infrastructure (e.g., they can clean storm
drains to prevent floods), and they have budgets for maintaining it. Cities
also want a place at the table for funding for adaptation.
Cities also face barriers to action. For example, their leaders have other
pressing issues, constrained resources, electoral concerns, and all deal with
multiple jurisdictional issues. But cities are forming international linkages
around climate change. C-40 is the large-city climate summit, and the Inter-
national Council for Local Environmental Initiatives or Local Governments
for Sustainability is playing a major role, for example, by organizing side
events at Copenhagen. The intercity effort is considering questions about
learning and about transfer of knowledge between cities in high- and low-
income countries.
2 The presentation is available at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/hdgc/Thoughts%20on
%20the%20Role%20of%20Urban%20Areas%20in%20Adaptation%20and%20Effective%
20Stakeholder-.pdf [accessed September 2010].
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CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES IN ADAPTATION
All this activity is leading to an intense research interest in the role of
cities in climate change and in developing an effective assessment process
for climate change and cities. IPCC has responded by giving cities a more
prominent place in the next assessment. An ongoing assessment for cities
may also be needed, parallel to the one for the countries. The United States
could take the lead on this, inasmuch as it already supports 50 percent of
the IPCC’s budget.
The New York experience identified several challenges: (1) responding
to the need for rapid, recurring assessments; (2) enhancing coordination
among stakeholders, jurisdictions, and scenarios; (3) handling the uncer-
tainty of climate information; (4) revising standards and regulations; and
(5) defining and implementing the role of the federal government. Adapta-
tion planning worked in New York for several reasons. There was high-
level buy-in by the mayor and the long-term planning office above the city
agencies, which was important for coordinating across agencies. An outside
consultant designed the process, and a stakeholder task force attracted
agencies and nongovernmental groups. Expert knowledge was separated
into a technical advisory committee (Mayor Bloomberg changed the name
to the New York City Panel on Climate Change), with public and private
participation (e.g., involvement of the legal community). The process has
not always been cordial because there are differences in interests and cul-
ture. The experts are analogous to the parents of the climate change issue;
the cities are like the teenagers who are growing up and have to take it
over. Rosenzweig said that for successful adaptation, it is important to set
up ongoing structures like these, rather than one-time activities.
Workshop participants raised a variety of issues during the discussion:
how to engage cities that are resistant to taking action, how expert knowl-
edge can be engaged to meet the needs of the cities, how cities can function
effectively within a process dominated by nation-states, what smaller cities
can do, how experience can be transferred to smaller communities, how
New York overcame myopia to focus on long-term goals, and whether
there were critically important boundary organizations in the New York
City process.
Rosenzweig noted the approach used by the Regional Integrated Sci-
ences and Assessments Program and the fact that the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration has created an urban RISA. She said that
urban research centers like this can be very important. She said that the
New York City Panel on Climate Change provided common scenarios at
stakeholders’ request, with the associated uncertainties. She said every actor
has to be involved and that coordination, rather than competition, must
be the goal.
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120 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES
OBSTACLES AND OPPORTUNITIES: LESSONS FROM CASE
STUDIES OF ADAPTATION TO A CHANGING CLIMATE
Neil Leary
Dickinson College
Neil Leary described a project under the international SysTem for Anal-
ysis Research and Training (START) Program that produced a set of 24 case
studies executed by groups of researchers and stakeholders in developing
countries in extremely varied social and environmental contexts. The case
studies indicated that because adaptation benefits are largely internalized
(much more so than mitigation benefits), countries have a strong incentive
for adaptation and it is happening in many places. Still, researchers com-
monly see an adaptation deficit.
The reason, Leary said, lies in obstacles to adaptation, which roughly
include (1) social inertia (lack of determination or political will), (2) lack of
means, and (3) the public-good aspects of adaptation. Political will or deter-
mination appears when people find a substantial threat to things they value;
when reducing the risks is a priority on par with other major goals; when
they can see effective and affordable options; and when they know enough
about the problem to make wise choices. The case studies identified four
reasons for lack of determination to adapt: one is information problems
(e.g., doubts about whether recent trends are reliable indicators of climate
change). A second is competing or opposing objectives (perceived risks
are low, distant in time, or less than pressing current priorities. Attitudes
changed somewhat when climate change was connected to climate variabil-
ity and extremes and when climate change was seen as threatening things
the particular people valued, such as health, livelihoods, or development. A
third reason was improper or misaligned incentives that shield some actors
from the consequences of risky behavior. For example, in Mongolia, after
collectives were dissolved, land was treated as a commons and herders were
free to graze on public lands, leading to underinvestment in improvements
of the pasture and water supplies that could build resistance to stresses. Fi-
nally, lack of agency or inability to act was a significant obstacle in several
case studies. Lack of financial resources was a universal problem. In some
countries, poverty, degraded natural resources, inadequate infrastructure,
weak local institutions, and poor governance were problems. There are
significant public-good aspects to adaptation, including the needs for com-
munity development, poverty reduction, and the provision of information
and cocreation of knowledge.
3The presentation is available at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/hdgc/Obstacles%20and
%20Opportunities_%20%20Lessons%20from%20Case%20Studies%20of%20Adaptation%
20to%20a%20Chan.pdf [accessed September 2010].
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CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES IN ADAPTATION
Opportunities for intervention to increase action on adaptation include
strengthening the web that connects actors: strengthening nodes in the web,
adding new nodes to meet strategic needs, strengthening links of knowledge
to action, providing opportunities and resources to increase interactions
between nodes, making connections across scales, development of programs
for cocreation of knowledge, South-South knowledge sharing, and “pro-
poor” development.
In the discussion, one participant underscored the importance of capac-
ity building efforts in the South and said that START has worked to build
science-policy dialogues and improve risk communication, which increases
the need for social science involvement. Carmin asked whether the type of
innovation (e.g., in communication or in technology) influenced the results.
Adger asked about the role of poverty (including seasonal poverty) in ad-
aptation. Ian Burton noted that cross-country comparisons are difficult for
this project because it started quickly, with limited time for design. Chet
Ropelewski noted that climate trends are hidden by variability and asked
for expansion on how information about climate variability was useful for
inducing action.
Leary said that technology was not high on the list of barriers to adap-
tation. However, the inherent weakness of local organizations was a major
barrier—organizations that are poor, busy, or include people who do not
see climate as connected to their visions are unlikely to act on adaptation.
Getting support for the cocreation of knowledge was a difficult point. Pov-
erty was an issue mainly as it related to capability.
ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE
THROUGH LONG-TERM CONTRACTS
Howard Kunreuther4
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Based on joint research with Neil Doherty, Dwight Jaffee, Robert Meyer,
Erwann Michel-Kerjan, and Mark Pauly
Howard Kunreuther began with a comment on Leary’s presentation.
He noted that there are important public-good aspects of adaptation: in-
terdependence (if you fail to act, it affects your neighbors), the “ex-post
issue” (if you do not adapt now, everyone else has to rescue you later), and
the need to create incentive systems that give people immediate returns to
overcome myopia.
4 The presentation is available at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/hdgc/Adaptation%
20to%20Climate%20Change%20Through%20Long%20Term%20Contracts.pdf [accessed
September 2010].
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122 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES
The multi-investigator research project that led to this presentation
makes three main points: (1) individuals focus on short-term horizons, and
disasters are below the threshold of concern; (2) people therefore fail to
take adaptation measures prior to disaster (e.g., people commonly cancel
insurance after it fails to pay off in a few years, apparently thinking of it
as an unproductive investment); and (3) these problems could be addressed
with well-enforced long-term contracts and short-term economic incentives
to deal with myopia.
Kunreuther defined the present as a new era of catastrophe. Property
losses from natural hazards have been increasing over time, and insurance
has failed to cover the losses—even the insured losses—so public-sector
aid is needed afterward. Losses have increased much more than even the
insurance industry expected. The reasons include increased urbanization
and value at risk. For example, the population of Florida has increased
590 percent since 1950: the 1992 Hurricane Andrew, if it had hit in 2004,
would have produced $120 billion in losses, compared with the $46 bil-
lion of losses from Hurricane Katrina. Weather patterns also have changed.
More intense weather-related events, combined with sea level rise and the
increased value at risk, have increased the risk significantly. Insured coastal
exposure as of December 2007 was $2.5 trillion in Florida and $2.4 trillion
in New York. The benefits of adaptation are therefore huge. A 500-year
storm event in Florida would produce $160 billion in losses with the exist-
ing infrastructure, but having all the buildings meet building codes would
save half the damage, or $82 billion.
Property owners do not invest in cost-effective adaptation measures for
several reasons. One is myopia. People pay little attention and do not pay
attention for long. They also underestimate the probability of costly events.
Paying the up-front cost of adaptation also is a major problem (people lack
the liquidity). Also, people anticipate that they will be bailed out. Many
think they may be moving soon, so their investments will not pay back.
Hurricanes produce a lot of damage from storm surge, and homeowners’
insurance does not cover it. The National Flood Insurance Program does
not cover wind damage. Thus, the insurance that people actually have does
not fully cover the risks they face.
Kunreuther’s group has developed a proposal for long-term flood in-
surance, a product that private industry has no interest in providing. He
noted that, in the 1920s, mortgages normally were written for only 1-3
years, and when companies were in trouble, they refused to renew them.
The private sector got into the business of offering long-term mortgages
only because government started securing them. Similarly, government can
offer long-term flood insurance first, and the insurance industry can get
into the picture later.
The plan is to offer long-term insurance for floods and financing for
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CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES IN ADAPTATION
adaptation, both tied to the property. The insurance rates have to reflect
risk, using updated flood maps. Low-income people currently residing in
flood-prone areas would be offered insurance vouchers, on a model similar
to food stamps. This plan would give everyone protection and a signal for
safety. It would protect homeowners from water damage from floods and
hurricanes. It would encourage adaptation by giving a discount on insur-
ance premiums for taking action. Long-term insurance is called for because
people otherwise cancel their policies. In Florida, 62 percent of people who
had insurance in 2000 had canceled it by 2005; in Mississippi, 83 percent
no longer had it.
The program would tie the insurance to the property even after resale
and would offer long-term loans for protection, with the payments becom-
ing worthwhile because of the lower insurance premiums. Under this plan,
homeowners would save money, insurers would avoid catastrophic losses,
and taxpayers and the government would avoid disaster relief expenses.
The effect of climate change on long-term insurance needs analysis.
With climate change the government is the only ultimate insurer against
catastrophe. Data are needed on the impact of climate change on sea level
rise, storm surge damage, and the effects of adaptation actions on disaster
losses. Data from the United Kingdom show that adaptation combined with
climate change lowers damage compared with no adaptation and no cli-
mate change. Kunreuther ended with a list of research and policy questions
that need to be addressed to make choices on such things as the appropriate
length of long-term contracts and ways to protect insurers against changes
in risk estimates and homeowners against insolvency of insurers. Long-term
flood insurance was presented as a good policy beginning for encouraging
investment in adaptation; however, research is needed to determine how to
incorporate climate change in such a strategy.
OPPORTUNITIES AND CONSTRAINTS TO CHARACTERIZING
AND ASSESSING ADAPTIVE CAPACITY
Maria Carmen Lemos
University of Michigan
Maria Carmen Lemos observed that the literature on adaptive capacity
began with a list of things that might increase the ability to adapt. Theory
has become more sophisticated with time and now recognizes trade-offs
and the impossibility of taking all adaptive actions at once. She noted that
adaptive capacity is difficult to measure because (1) it is a latent condition
(you do not know how much capacity you have until you try to use it); (2)
it is dynamic and relates to time, scale, and values; (3) there is a lack of
baseline data; (4) there are problems with some measurement techniques
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124 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES
(e.g., cost-benefit analysis); (5) it may vary with scale; and (6) there are
many unknowns. Moreover, adaptive capacity is nested: capacity at one
scale affects capacity at other scales.
There is a need to “unpack” the concept of adaptation and related con-
cepts (e.g., what is knowledge? technology?). Technical knowledge, such as
climate model information, has equity issues. Everyone wants it (and any-
one with a computer can get it), but it is used differently, access is unequal,
there are dissemination constraints, and there are opportunity costs.
She noted that adaptive policies in Brazil have had varying outcomes.
Of the three she examined, the one that was most apparently successful
involved drought management in Ceará. In a drought, water is usually al-
located for the short term, but adaptive capacity for future droughts does
not increase. A two-tiered approach could make short-term adjustments,
such as water distribution, combined with long-term structural reform to
addresses the inequalities in vulnerability. This could be a virtuous cycle.
She added that making risk management more democratic is likely to be a
good strategy. She also noted that, especially in developing countries but
also to some extent in the United States, adaptive capacity to climate change
may be very similar to adaptive capacity generally.
In the discussion, Sanchez-Rodriguez asked if it is worthwhile to try to
develop a general theory of adaptation when so much about it is specific.
Lemos replied that adaptation options are greatly varied, but that adap-
tive capacity may be more general because it can be applied to a variety
of situations. Kasperson commented that adaptive capacity is a means, not
an end, so that the key questions are how much of the adaptive capacity
is actually used and why. Bonnie McCay noted that adaptive strategies
and response processes were a topic of general interest in the 1970s (e.g.,
farming practices protect against small frosts and marriage patterns protect
against killing frosts). She noted the absence of reference to this literature
and suggested that perhaps climate change is so catastrophic that those
concepts are not applicable.
IDENTIFYING AND OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO ADAPTATION:
INSIGHTS FROM THE TRENCHES OF MUDDLING THROUGH
Susanne Moser (with Julia Ekstrom)
Susanne Moser explained that her presentation comes from a literature
review study that looked inductively at the literature on adaptation, focus-
5 The presentation is available at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/hdgc/Identifying%20
and%20Overcoming%20Barriers%20to%20Adaptation_%20Insights%20from%20the%20
Trenches%20of.pdf [accessed September 2010].
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CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES IN ADAPTATION
ing on barriers to adaptation—a topic that was not discussed much five
years ago but has been a major topic in this workshop. It focuses mostly
on planned adaptation.
Moser distinguished between limits, which are absolute thresholds, and
barriers, which are things that can delay or stop adaptation processes or
make them less effective and efficient. She emphasized that her framework
is not normative (i.e., she does not presume that all barriers are bad and
need to be overcome), but descriptive. For example, she noted that some
barriers may be good to have and also that something like lack of money,
which looks like a limit to someone who lacks money, may look like a bar-
rier to a researcher. The study presented the diagnosis of barriers within a
decision-making framework. While thus explicitly focused on a human sys-
tem (the decision-making process, the decisions, and the decision makers),
the framework does not ignore the physical or ecological constraints within
which this human system exists. The framework, while actor-centric, also
considers the contexts of action, including governance and the human and
biophysical environments. It emphasizes processes and also is interested in
outcomes. The conceptual framework is iterative: the adaptation decision-
making process includes three basic phases—understanding, planning, and
managing, in a circular influence diagram presented as including three
phases and nine substages: understanding (problem detection, information
gathering, and problem [re]definition); planning (development of options,
assessment of options, selection of options); and managing (implementa-
tion, monitoring, and evaluation), all returning again to problem detec-
tion (see Figure 9-1). She noted that barriers can exist at any point in the
chain but that there is little practical knowledge on the implementation
(postdecision) side of the diagram, because few adaptation decisions have
reached that stage.
To diagnose barriers, one must ask, at each stage of the process, what
can slow the process and what causes these impediments. For example, in
problem detection, the barriers can include the existence of the signal of a
problem, whether people detect it, whether it passes a threshold of concern,
and whether people think they can respond. For each of these kinds of bar-
riers, there is a longer list of more specific diagnostic questions related to
the various actors whose actions can help or prevent problem detection.
Inductively, five barriers come up most often: leadership, resources, infor-
mation and communication, participation, and cultural cognition.
How can these barriers be overcome? It depends on their type. They
may be proximate or remote in terms of space and jurisdiction, and, in
terms of time, they may be contemporary or result from a legacy (e.g., a
law). Barriers that are remote and result from a legacy are the hardest to
change.
The next steps in her research effort will be to test this model in four
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126 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES
FIGURE 9-1 A schematic representation of the phases and substages of the adapta-
tion decision-making process. The understanding phase is shown in light shading,
the planning phase in dark shading, and the managing phase is in medium shad-
Figure 9-1
ing. In practical reality, decision makers may not go through each of the stages
R01827
completely or in this orderly fashion.
SOURCE: Susanne Moser. Used withbitmapped image
uneditable permission.
San Francisco Bay case studies at the municipal level, to see if the frame-
work is useful. A larger adaptation study is also connected to this frame-
work, with interventions being planned. A separate study will look at ways
of framing the issue for different audiences.
In the discussion, Ashwini Chhatre asked about “invisible” adaptation
or continuous social change. If this is happening where one is not look-
ing for it, how can one detect its signal? He noted also that researchers
are looking at adaptation only with respect to things that they perceive
as needing a response. Actors get signals from everything, not just climate
change. He said that looking at climate change creates a selection bias.
Kasperson rephrased this idea in terms of Burton’s idea of “incidental”
adaptation: policy makers are asked about what was intended when they
did something adaptive, but actors cannot answer questions about intention
clearly for themselves. Moser agreed with the fundamental issue of barriers
also arising in unplanned/incidental adaptation, but she reemphasized that
this study focused on planned, deliberate, conscious adaptation processes.
She also said that her study is examining actions whether or not they were
undertaken explicitly as responses to climate change.
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12
CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES IN ADAPTATION
PRIORITIES FROM PRACTITIONERS FOR
SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH
Roger Kasperson
Kasperson asked practitioners who were present at the workshop to
suggest what they have not heard that they would like to know more about.
The following topics were mentioned.
• hat are some specific win-win solutions that can be pursued in
W
adaptation contexts?
• ow can the benefits of adaptation action versus business as usual
H
best be demonstrated and quantified?
• ow can incentives be aligned to favor collective action on
H
adaptation?
• ow can leadership be facilitated and the risks of leadership be
H
reduced?
• hat is the appropriate timing for infrastructure decisions, such as
W
for actions in anticipation of future sea level rise?
• hat should the federal government be doing to support and
W
facilitate adaptation in localities, especially those with fewer
resources?
• ne-time studies have only a limited impact on decision mak-
O
ers. How can the approach be shifted to one of systematic
monitoring?
• hat is really meant by adaptive capacity, and how can it best be
W
built?
• cosystem managers are concerned with tipping points and ecosys-
E
tem collapse. What research and methods are needed to identify
tipping points and to link them to stressors?
• Mega-fauna” are an important issue in climate change. How can
“
their importance to various stakeholders be assessed?
• he field is well short of what needs to be done in communicating
T
about climate risks. What are the information needs and strategies
for real dialogue?
When asked about important next steps, the practitioners present iden-
tified these:
• Serious efforts at capacity building
• etter coordination and collaboration and more engagement of
B
stakeholders
• Increased dialogue to define information needs
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12 FACILITATING CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSES
• aution about recommending best practices for different issue
C
domains
• Building more inclusive knowledge networks
• nderstanding that conflicts may sometimes have positive value
U
and should not always be resisted
