Governing Adaptation Policies and Programmes

Governing Adaptation Policies and Programmes

Increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and slow progress on international emissions mitigation negotiations have encouraged the development of governance systems for adaptation to the impacts of climate change. Adaptation involves initiatives that moderate harm and/or exploit beneficial opportunities (McDonald 2010: 8). For this discussion, autonomous adaptation includes responses undertaken by individuals, families and businesses without incentives, requirements or exhortations from an authority, while planned adaptation involves some level of planning for a group, region, nation or group of nations (McDonald 2010: 8). Planned adaptation requires a range of policy instruments and actions, and responses can be reactive or anticipatory (examples in Table 4.1) and involve incremental or major change. For all but the least developed countries (LDCs), planned adaptation is more about government, especially national government, than governance at this stage, for reasons that will be explained in this chapter. The nature of the problem (climate change) and the diversity of possible adaptation responses mean however that more comprehensive governance arrangements, including some international coordination, will be both desirable and necessary.

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