Collection
Adapting to Climate Change – Promises and Pitfalls in the Diffusion of Solutions
As the impacts of climate change intensify, public actors around the world are increasing their adaptation efforts. While starting primarily in national and local settings, over time state and nonstate actors at different levels have developed support schemes, networks, and (sub)national policies to strengthen adaptation governance by diffusing and scaling-up solutions and policies across jurisdictions. While horizontal and vertical diffusion dynamics generally have the potential to reduce the risks emerging from climate change, distributional issues and political conflicts may arise if the diffusion of adaptation promotes elements that are poorly compatible with existing governance structures and practices. Against this background, diffusion processes and their underlying mechanisms likely play an important role in determining the pace, scale, and quality of adaptation. This Topical Collection explores the diffusion of adaptation governance and policies, bringing together expert authors from diverse backgrounds using a range of qualitative and quantitative methods, applied in the context of single and comparative case studies. The results suggest that vertical and horizontal diffusion can support the emergence of coherent adaptation policies, but this requires active efforts by relevant actors and dialogue between policymakers and other stakeholders. Moreover, adaptation governance and policies may not diffuse at all if other more immediate interests dominate the policy agenda, or worse, even lead to maladaptation. This underlines the need for policymakers and other stakeholders at different levels of governance to actively support and steer diffusion towards positive outcomes.
Editors
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Kai Schulze
Technical University of Darmstadt, Institute of Political Science, Darmstadt, Germany
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Jonas Schoenefeld
Institute for Housing and Environment (IWU), Darmstadt, Germany and Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
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Mikael Hildén
Finnish Environment Institute (Syke), Helsinki, Finland
Articles (7 in this collection)
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What motivates and hinders municipal adaptation policy? Exploring vertical and horizontal diffusion in Hessen and Finland
Authors (first, second and last of 4)
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Translating and embedding equity-thinking into climate adaptation: an analysis of US cities
Authors (first, second and last of 4)
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Diffusion and upscaling of municipal climate mitigation and adaptation strategies in Germany
Authors
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