A historical, scaled approach to climate change adaptation

Climate change adaptation is framed as a new, global endeavor. Yet a new article by researcher Lily Lindegaard indicates that existing domestic interests – predating climate policies – are highly influential in shaping approaches to adaptation.

The article examines adaptation efforts within water management, a sector highly affected by climate change. It documents how previous approaches to water management significantly shape the rationales and options for new adaptation efforts. In addition, the article indicates that pre-existing plans and programming are sometimes repackaged as adaptation.

These findings indicate that situated, historical factors are integral in shaping adaptation programming.

Yet this clashes with mainstream approaches to adaptation, which often frame adaptation as a universal endeavor, with rationales and approaches that can be applied across diverse domestic contexts. The article questions the extent to which standardized ‘plug and play’ approaches are realistic in climate change adaptation.

In examining the influence of international versus domestic rationales in climate change adaptation efforts, the article also considers how rationales can shift over time. It suggests that rationales behind policy and programming can be ‘rescaled’, shifting for instance from international to national scales. It also points to the power implications of whose rationales prevail in climate change programming.