It is increasingly evident that adaptation will figure prominently in the post-2015 United Nations climate change agreement1, 2. As adaptation obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change evolve, more rigorous approaches to measuring adaptation progress among parties will be critical. In this Letter we elaborate on an emerging area of research referred to as ‘adaptation tracking’, which has potential to inform development of a global adaptation monitoring framework3. We evaluate this potential by presenting evidence on policy change for 41 high-income countries between 2010 and 2014. We examine whether countries that were in early stages of adaptation planning in 2010 are making progress to close adaptation gaps, and how the landscape of adaptation in these countries has evolved. In total we find an 87% increase in reported adaptation policies and measures, and evidence that implementation of concrete adaptation initiatives is growing. Reflecting on the strengths and challenges of this early methodology, we further discuss how adaptation tracking practices could guide development of a robust framework for monitoring global adaptation progress and inform future research on policy change across countries.
As impacts of climate change begin to manifest, adaptation is rapidly becoming a key priority in climate policymaking and financing. Our understanding of how these efforts are unfolding remains limited to a focus in both the scientific and practitioner communities on case-by-case studies of adaptation policy4. Although invaluable in their depth, there is a simultaneous need for comparative analysis and global monitoring which these studies do not fulfil. Similarly, most guidelines for evaluating adaptation policy are focused on project-level monitoring and evaluation (M&E) or single-country evaluation of adaptation policy, not systematic assessment of adaptation progress across countries, sectors and scales5, 6.
One goal for adaptation tracking is to advance metrics and methodologies for global accounting of adaptation progress that answer critical questions about whether we are adapting enough, fast enough, and across all needed sectors7. A growing literature is responding to this gap using systematic reviews of peer review and grey literature or assessments of projects funded through climate financing mechanisms8, 9, 10. A key challenge to these approaches, however, is ensuring fair representation of adaptation activity across countries, given variable levels of readily available information.
Approaches to measuring global progress in other areas of social and health policy have recently been developed and provide models for adaptation tracking11, 12. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, for example, uses a qualitative report-based mechanism similar to the UNFCCC National Communications (NCs) for monitoring implementation of the Convention. To facilitate comparison across countries and over time, Heymann and colleagues developed an indicator-based methodology to document constitutional rights, national laws, and policies across all signatory countries and enable systematic tracking of advances relevant to the Convention13. In previous work we developed a similar indicator-based quantitative approach to assessing the state of adaptation using the Fifth National Communication (NC5), thus establishing a benchmark for characterizing the state of adaptation across countries14, 15.
In this Letter we use this benchmark to assess progress in the implementation of adaptation among 41 Annex I Parties as documented in the recently published Sixth National Communication (NC6). Our goal is to elucidate broad trends in policy change of government-led adaptation during the period between the NC5 and NC6, and critically reflect on the current state of indicator-based assessments for tracking adaptation progress. Here we present findings on key indicators from this first-generation comparative methodology and examine relative changes in reported adaptation levels using a quantitative proxy, the Adaptation Initiative Index (AII). The AII is calculated on a scale of 0 to 19, and provides a basis for comparing the diversity of adaptation instruments reported across countries and over time (see Methods). We conclude this Letter with a discussion about how adaptation metrics could be strengthened by collecting better data in the UNFCCC.
Our results demonstrate that adaptation activity is increasing across the Annex I group. The average AII score for our sample rose from 11 points in the NC5 to 15 in the NC6. Although not all countries with low NC5 AII scores demonstrate progress, several countries that scored at the bottom of the NC5 AII report rapid gains in the NC6 (Table 1). The largest increases are observed with Kazakhstan, Romania and Russia, which report progress in adaptation research and strategic planning, as well as implementation of regulatory measures, public awareness, surveillance and monitoring, and hard (infrastructure) adaptations. In our study of the NC5 only two countries, Australia and Finland, received a maximum score of 19. In the NC6 six additional countries received scores of 19: Portugal, Norway, Sweden, Canada, Spain and United Kingdom.
Our approach is derived from Lesnikowski et al. (2015), who developed a systematic tracking methodology to extract and code adaptation initiatives from 117 countries15. The methodology is systematic in its application of an initiative-level protocol for identifying and characterizing distinct actions, thereby enabling comparative analysis across our sample. Using this coding protocol we collect data about adaptation policies, programmes and initiatives from 41 Annex I countries.
This sub-set of countries was selected for study based on the recent submissions of the Sixth National Communications to the UNFCCC, which provide the latest information on planned, public sector adaptation policies and priorities from the Annex I Parties. Three Annex I Parties (Cyprus, Turkey, the European Union) were excluded from analysis owing to lack of baseline data. Kazakhstan joined the Annex I group in September 2009 and began using the reporting guidelines for Annex I Parties to the Convention in December 2009. Baseline data for Kazakhstan were gathered from the second national communication, submitted in June 2009. These reports at present offer the most robust primary source of information on government-led adaptation: they follow a standardized format, reflect key government policies and positions, and are submitted on a regular basis to the UNFCCC Secretariat18, 32. The NCs, however, are reflective of the relatively recent focus on adaptation (as compared to mitigation), and so have limited reporting guidelines and undeveloped metrics for capturing the status of adaptation. Although future reporting systems will hopefully provide more comprehensive information, they are at present the only consistent, comparable, coherent and comprehensive primary data source available for adaptation tracking purposes28.
The coding scheme developed here analyses these reports at the policy, programme and initiative level using a series of indicators to capture a range of information for each discrete measure (for further information see Supplementary Information 2: Coding Manual). The scheme characterizes the current state of adaptation based on the instrument type being reported, vulnerabilities being responded to, sectoral participation in initiatives, and stakeholder participation in initiative design and implementation. Our typology of instruments responds to conceptual ambiguity in the term ‘adaptation’29 by distinguishing between ‘groundwork’ instruments (GW), which generate information and establish strategic directions to guide adaptation, and ‘adaptation’ instruments (ADAPT), which aim to tangibly reduce vulnerability to climate change impacts. Groundwork instruments include climate change scenarios, impact and vulnerability assessments, adaptation research, conceptual tools/strategic plans, and stakeholder networking. Adaptation instruments include organizational development, regulations, public awareness/outreach, surveillance and monitoring, infrastructure/technology, resource transfers/financing, and evaluation.
This Letter summarizes findings from four of the indicators used in the coding scheme. The primary indicator categorizes reported measures based on a typology of adaptation policy instruments that distinguishes between policy recommendations, research and planning efforts, and concrete adaptation. We separately record whether the measure was implemented through mainstreaming into an existing policy or programme, or was established as a stand-alone initiative. Another indicator captures the sector(s) participating in the measure, including: agriculture, coastal management, culture/arts/heritage, development, economy, education, emergency management, energy, environment, fisheries, forestry, health, human services, infrastructure, insurance, national security, technology, tourism, transportation and water. Studies about climate change impacts in high-income countries emphasize the effect that relative socio-economic status within affluent societies has in exacerbating disparities in adaptive capacity33. Vulnerable communities are thus experiencing heightened risks from climate change within Annex I countries, observable for example in disproportionately high mortality rates among the elderly, sick and socially isolated during extreme heat events34, 35, 36. We therefore use an indicator to record whether reporting on vulnerable groups is included in descriptions about adaptation measures.
Using descriptive statistics we compare adaptation reporting in the NC5 to NC6 and assess whether particular types of instruments are increasing in use. We are also able to qualitatively examine changes in institutional landscapes based on reported changes in ministerial or departmental organization, and working group or committees. To examine relative changes in reported adaptation levels we use a quantitative proxy, the Adaptation Initiative Index (AII). The AII is calculated on a scale from zero to 19 based on the diversity of adaptation instruments reported by each country, with concrete adaptation measures weighted by two to reflect their greater potential impact on vulnerability reduction: Adaptation Score = (ToA#GW × 1) + (ToA#ADAPT × 2). The weight is not intended as a statement that adaptation-level initiatives have twice the impact that groundwork-level initiatives have, but is rather a rudimentary effort to capture the distinction between symbolic adaptation and concrete adaptation29.
For example, a country that reported a national vulnerability assessment, national legislation guiding adaptation policy, a heat alert and response programme, and construction of new flood defence infrastructure would receive points for: impact and vulnerability assessment (1 point), regulation (2 points), public awareness and outreach (2 points), surveillance and monitoring (2 points), and infrastructure adaptation (2 points). Countries that receive the maximum AII score of 19 report implementation of each policy instrument defined in our adaptation typology indicator. This measurement is thus able to use the density of reported policy instruments as one proxy measure for a developed adaptation portfolio.
By comparing the scores from the NC5 and NC6 we identify countries that are demonstrating the highest growth in adaptation activity. The AII captures the breadth of instrument types reported in the NC for each country and reflects our assumption that countries at more advanced stages of adaptation will demonstrate more diverse policy portfolios. It does not reflect the number of initiatives reported by each country, only the range of instrument type. A maximum score (19) indicates that a country has reported implementing at least one initiative in every instrument type defined in our typology.
A key challenge in calculating adaptation scores for the NC6 was the tendency for some countries to not report ongoing initiatives in the NC6 that were already reported in the NC5. We examined any gaps between policy instruments reported in the NC5 and the NC6 via web searches and determined whether initiatives could be confirmed as still active or were likely to be ‘sticky’ in nature. In most cases these initiatives were counted towards the AII NC6 score. Most countries therefore demonstrate either an increase in score or no change in score. The AII was developed as an early effort to demonstrate the feasibility of developing quantitative adaptation measurements37. We return to it here as a means of comparison between the NC5 and NC6, and urge that future efforts to develop adaptation outcome indices go beyond the AII to consider issues of policy dismantling and capturing of substantiality and intentionality in definitions of adaptation29.
Biagini, B., Bierbaum, R., Stults, M., Dobardzic, S. & McNeeley, S. M.A typology of adaptation actions: A global look at climate adaptation actions financed through the global environment facility. Glob. Environ. Change25, 97–108 (2014).
Heymann, S., Barrera, M., Guzman, N., Raub, A. & Vincent, I.From human rights agreements to national change: Illustrating a more transparent approach to accountability. Nord. J. Hum. Rights30, 279–296 (2012).
Heymann, S., Raub, A. & Earle, A.Creating and using new data sources to analyze the relationship between social policy and global health: The case of maternal leave. Public Health Rep.126, 127–134 (2011).
Heymann, S., McNeill, K. & Raub, A.Assessing compliance with the CRC: Indicators of law and policy in 191 countries. Int. J. Child. Rights22, 425–445 (2014).