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Addressing the limits to adaptation across four damage--response systems
Citation:
Felgenhauer, T. Addressing the limits to adaptation across four damage--response systems. Environmental Science & Policy. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, 50:214-224, (2015).
Impact/Purpose:
Adaptation limits matter for public policy because they exist and will be surpassed, which will require that failing adaptation be replaced with other pre-existing policy responses or new approaches that have yet to be developed and tested. In developing four archtypical climate damage and adaptation response systems, this work can inform future decisions on adaptation projects, as adaptation limits are aproached and surpassed. The work can have policy relevance within the EPA Office of Policy as well as with other federal agencies and businesses looking at long-term adaptation decisions.
Description:
Our ability to adapt to climate change is not boundless, and previous modeling shows that capacity limited adaptation will play a policy-significant role in future decisions about climate change. These limits are delineated by capacity thresholds, after which climate damages begin to overwhelm the adaptation response. The levels of such thresholds depend on the complex interaction of different environmental (climatic and ecological) and human response (technological and societal) systems. From the interactions among these sub-systems, four novel archetypical climate damage and adaptation response systems are developed. These damage-response systems can be described by the level of their adaptation limits thresholds, the pathways of adaptation capacity degradation and failure, and the recoverability or permanence of such climate losses once the adaptation limits have been surpassed. Policy options upon reaching the limits to adaptation include investment in more of the same technology, implementation of new and more effective adaptation, or transformational adaptation that allows the damage-response system to become more resilient.
