essay on climate change adaptation

Arab States

Asia and the pacific, europe & central asia, latin america & the caribbean.

You’re using an outdated browser. Old browsers are unstable, unsafe and do not support the features of of this website. Please upgrade to continue.

Your browser does not support JavaScript. This site relies on JavaScript to structure its navigation and load images across all pages. Please enable JavaScript to continue.

What is climate change adaptation and why is it crucial?

• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Facebook
• Share on twitter
• Share via email

• Adaptation refers to a wide range of measures to reduce vulnerability to climate change impacts, from planting crop varieties that are more resistant to drought to enhancing climate information and early warning systems to building stronger defences against floods.
• As the impacts of climate change accelerate — including more extreme weather and sea level rise — it is increasingly urgent that countries and communities adapt.
• Adaptation faces challenges including inadequate finance, knowledge gaps, and institutional constraints, particularly in developing countries.
• International agreements such as the Global Goal on Adaptation and the Global Stocktake are key to driving progress. So too are comprehensive National Adaptation Plans.
• Despite constraints, developing countries are among those leading the way on adaptation.

What is climate change adaptation?

Climate change adaptation refers to actions that help reduce vulnerability to the current or expected impacts of climate change like weather extremes and hazards, sea-level rise, biodiversity loss, or food and water insecurity.

Many adaptation measures need to happen at the local level, so rural communities and cities have a big role to play. Such measures include planting crop varieties that are more resistant to drought and practicing regenerative agriculture, improving water storage and use, managing land to reduce wildfire risks, and building stronger defences against extreme weather like floods and heat waves.   However, adaptation also needs to be driven at the national and international levels. In addition to developing the policies needed to guide adaptation, governments need to look at large-scale measures such as strengthening or relocating infrastructure from coastal areas affected by sea-level rise, building infrastructure able to withstand more extreme weather conditions, enhancing early warning systems and access to disaster information, developing insurance mechanisms specific to climate-related threats, and creating new protections for wildlife and natural ecosystems.

Why do we need to adapt? And why is it so urgent?

Scientific studies show that the Earth is now about 1.1°C warmer than it was in the 1800s. This warming is causing widespread and rapid changes in our planet’s atmosphere, ocean and ecosystems. As a result, weather and climate extremes are becoming more frequent in every region of the world. 

According to climate models, without significant climate action, the world is headed for 2.5 to 2.9°C temperature rise above pre-industrial levels this century, which is well above the safety limits established by scientists. 

With every fraction of a degree of warming, the impacts of climate change will become more frequent and more intense – and adaptation will become that much harder and more expensive for people and ecosystems. 

The urgency is especially great for developing countries, which are already feeling the impacts of climate change and are particularly vulnerable due to a combination of factors, including their geographical and climatic conditions, their high dependence on natural resources, and their limited capacity to adapt to a changing climate. Adaptation is also particularly important for women and young children, older populations, ethnic minorities, Indigenous Peoples, refugees and displaced persons, who are shown to be disproportionately affected by climate change.

Even in very positive scenarios in which we manage to significantly and swiftly cut greenhouse gas emissions, climate change will continue to impact our world for decades to come because of the energy already trapped in the system. This means cutting down emissions is only one part of our response to the climate crisis: adaptation is needed to limit the impacts and safeguard people and nature.

Climate change threatens the viability of agricultural livelihoods worldwide. Photo: Anesu Freddy/UNDP Zimbabwe

Nature-based solutions, such as planting mangroves, are key to adaptation. Photo: David Estrada/Grupo Creativo Naturaleza Secreta

What are the challenges related to climate change adaptation? 

Efforts to adapt to the impacts of climate change face a number of significant challenges.

The first major bottleneck for adaptation action is the availability of and access to finance. In fact, the adaptation finance needs of developing countries are estimated to be 10 to 18 times larger than what is currently available from public sources. 

Finance is needed to drive investment in a range of adaptation solutions, so countries can learn what works and scale up what is most effective. But it is also needed to empower communities – those on the frontlines of climate change – in locally-led, locally-appropriate action. 

Another major challenge is information and knowledge gaps. Accurate climate data is not easily available in many developing countries – localized risk assessments often do not exist – and systems for monitoring, learning and evaluation of adaptation are still fragmented. Without these pieces of the puzzle, it is difficult for governments, communities and the private sector to plan effectively and make sound decisions on where to invest. 

Finally, institutional and governance constraints are a major issue. Challenges of coordination among sectors and levels of government, and lack of specialized knowledge and experience – for example in realizing climate-risk informed planning and investments – are hindering effective adaptation in many countries.  

Climate information is crucial for communities, authorities and policymakers to make sound decisions. Photo: UNDP Malawi

What is the Global Goal on Adaptation?

The Global Goal on Adaptation, often referred to as "GGA”, is a key component of the Paris Agreement. It commits all 196 Parties of the Paris Agreement to enhancing resilience, reducing vulnerability, and supporting adaptation actions.

Its inclusion in the Paris Agreement was significant because it underscores the equal importance of adapting to climate change alongside efforts to reduce emissions. It also recognizes the vulnerability of developing countries to climate impacts and encourages support for their adaptation efforts.

At COP28 in Dubai , as part of the Global Stocktake , world leaders took decisions on the GGA, now named the “UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience.” Countries agreed to global time-bound targets around specific themes and sectors – for example in areas such as water and sanitation, food and agriculture, and poverty eradication and livelihoods – as well as under what’s called the “ adaptation cycle ,” a global framework guiding countries on the steps necessary to plan for and implement adaptation.

These were important steps forward, however there is still a lot of work to be done to accelerate adaptation globally. The targets set need to be more detailed and a clear roadmap for increasing finance towards adaptation needs to be drawn. This includes realizing the goal of doubling adaptation finance by 2025. Developed countries must deliver pledged contributions to the Green Climate Fund, Adaptation Fund, the Least Developed Countries Fund and Special Climate Change Fund to support the world’s most vulnerable countries. At the same time, all governments must find new innovative sources of finance, including mobilizing the private sector, which has historically favoured mitigation initiatives.

What are National Adaptation Plans and why do they matter?

National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) are comprehensive medium and long-term strategies that outline how a nation will adapt to the changing climate and reduce its vulnerability to climate-related risks. Often, countries will focus their NAPs on key sectors that contribute to their economy, food security and natural resources. 

NAPs are a way for countries to prioritize their adaptation efforts, integrating climate considerations into their national policies and development plans, and mobilizing the required finance by supporting the development of effective financing strategies and directing investments.

NAPs are also crucial because they enable countries to systematically assess their vulnerability to climate change, identify adaptation needs and design effective strategies to build resilience. 

Notably, these plans link closely to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and other national and sectoral policies and programmes.  

Land reclamation is underway in Tuvalu’s capital, Funafuti, to protect communities from sea level rise. Photo: TCAP/UNDP

Automated weather stations provide data crucial for forecasting and early warning. Photo: Jamil Akhtar/UNDP Pakistan

What are some examples of climate adaptation around the world?

There are a great number of countries leading the way in climate change adaptation, many of them showing outsized ambition and innovation, despite limited resources.

In the Pacific, the small island state of Tuvalu has drawn on the best available science – and around 270,000 cubic meters of sand – to reclaim a 780m-long, 100m-wide strip of land to protect against sea level rise and storm waves beyond 2100. This is an important initiative for a low-lying atoll country comprised of only around 26 square kilometres of land. 

Other countries such as Malawi and Pakistan are modernizing the capture and use of climate data and early warning systems, equipping communities, farmers and policy makers with the information they need to protect lives and livelihoods. 

Cuba and Colombia are leading the way on nature-based approaches, restoring crucial ecosystems – mangroves, wetlands and more – to protect against floods and drought. In this process, Colombia is capitalising on the knowledge of its Indigenous Peoples , who have invaluable expertise in adapting to extreme environmental changes.

Bhutan , the world’s first carbon-negative country, and Chad are among the world’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to finalize National Adaptation Plans. The result of years of meticulous planning and rigorous consultation, the plans are crucial roadmaps for adaptation in the years ahead. In Bhutan’s case, the plan is deeply rooted in the country’s unique ethos of Gross National Happiness.

How does UNDP support countries on climate change adaptation?

For UNDP, adapting to climate change is inseparable from sustainable development and each one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals . Adaptation is therefore a key pillar of UNDP’s support to developing countries worldwide.

Today, UNDP is the largest service provider in the UN system on climate change adaptation with active projects targeting more than 164 million people across more than 90 countries, including 13 Small Island Developing States and 44 Least Developed Countries.

Since 2002, with finance via global funds such as the Green Climate Fund, Global Environment Facility and Adaptation Fund, and hand-in-hand with governments, UNDP has completed more than 173 adaptation projects across 79 countries. This work has contributed to building the resilience of millions of people worldwide. For example, more than 3 million people are now covered by enhanced climate information and early warning systems, more than 645,000 people are benefitting from climate-smart agricultural practices, and 473,000 people have improved access to water.

To learn more about UNDP’s adaptation work, click here .

Explore More Stories

Locally led: a gallery of innovative grassroots adaptation solutions.

Three immediate actions to accelerate community resilience in Asia and the Pacific

Photo: Ab Rashid/UNDP Bangladesh

New partnerships to accelerate much-needed investment for climate adaptation

At Climate Ambition Summit, UN agencies and IFRC kickstart major initiative towards realizing Early Warnings for All by 2027

Photo: Manuth Buth, UNDP Cambodia

This site uses cookies to optimize functionality and give you the best possible experience. If you continue to navigate this website beyond this page, cookies will be placed on your browser. To learn more about cookies, click here .

•   ResearchWorks Home
• Dissertations and Theses

Essays on Climate Change Adaptation, Mitigation, and Communication

Collections

• Forestry [391]

• Open supplemental data
• Reference Manager
• Simple TEXT file

People also looked at

Review article, an overview of climate change adaptation and mitigation research in africa.

• 1 Department of Geology, Mining and Environmental Science, University of Bamenda, Bamenda, Cameroon
• 2 Graduate School of Humanities and Social Science and Network for Education and Research on Peace and Sustainability, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan
• 3 Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
• 4 Department of Geogrpahy and Planning, University of Bamenda, Bamenda, Cameroon
• 5 Pan-African University Life and Earth Science Institute (PAULESI), University of Ibanda, Ibadan, Nigeria

Research on climate change has increased significantly since the 1970s. There has also been a particular focus on Africa, given its vulnerability to climate change impacts and its urbanization trends that may have massive implications for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Despite the wealth of publications on climate change in Africa, there is a lack of review studies that highlight the overall research landscape. If this status of climate research is clarified, African countries can better deal with climate change. Hence, this paper aims to improve our understanding of the status and trends of research on climate change adaptation and mitigation in Africa. Our review, straddling from 1990 to late 2021, recognizes the foundations that underpin climate change adaptation and mitigation literature. Based on keywords associated with Africa's climate change adaptation and mitigation, we undertook bibliometric research by collecting 3,316 related SCI/SSCI articles. In addition, we provided a thematic evolution over three decades, compartmentalized into four sub-periods (1990–2007; 2008–2014; 2015–2019; 2020–2021). Priority research topics and themes have been dynamic over time, with some core concepts receiving more attention (vulnerability, food, water, and energy security). Although the number of published articles exhibited a rapidly growing trend, their distribution is extremely uneven. Articles were mainly published by institutions from certain parts of the continent, with the University of Cape Town, making the highest contribution. About 72% of the existing studies focused on climate change adaptation, while climate change mitigation was less represented with 22%. The results also showed that researchers have examined not all African countries. South Africa, Ethiopia, and Ghana are hot spots, while most countries are largely neglected. Africa and African countries need to improve their future research ability on climate change mitigation. Assessing climate change risks and measures in African countries should be prioritized.

Introduction

Climate change is a threat to humanity. Global CO 2 emissions have increased considerably from 14.9 billion metric tons in 1970 to 36.4 billion metric tons in 2021 1 . Consequently, atmospheric concentration of CO 2 emissions has increased from 325 ppm to 414 ppm over the same period. Africa, like other continents, is vulnerable, and exposed to extreme climate events ( Busby et al., 2014 ; Russo et al., 2016 ). Vulnerability is exacerbated by the continent's low adaptive capacity and its dependence on rain-fed agriculture ( Dzoga et al., 2018 ; Apraku et al., 2021 ; Azadi et al., 2021 ).

Temperatures have been reported to be increasing in Africa. North Africa's temperature has been increasing between 0.2°C per decade and 0.4°C since the 1970s ( Donat et al., 2014 ; Lelieveld et al., 2016 ). Meanwhile, in West Africa, temperatures have undergone positive trends of 0.28°C ( Russo et al., 2016 ; Nikiema et al., 2017 ). Temperature intensity has increased from 0.25 to 1.8°C in the Sahel and West Africa ( Vizy and Cook, 2012 ; Fotso-Nguemo et al., 2017 ; Iyakaremye et al., 2021 ). According to literature, South Africa has the highest projected increase ( Engelbrecht et al., 2015 ; Moron et al., 2016 ; Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2018 ). Frequent temperature increases affect arable land and reduce the production of many African crops ( Berck et al., 2018 ; Mumo et al., 2018 ).

Annual rainfall in Africa has also varied between regions. North Africa has witnessed negative trends in precipitation ( Tramblay et al., 2013 ; Hertig et al., 2014 ). Declining trends have also been observed in West Africa ( Nicholson et al., 2018 ), but East and Southern Africa are experiencing high precipitation ( Liebmann et al., 2014 ; Nicholson, 2017 ; Nikulin et al., 2018 ). The overall outcome is a negative trend in Africa's rainfall, which negatively impacts the environment, livelihoods, food, water, and energy security ( Akinsanola et al., 2021 ). Approximately, US$ 1.4 billion annually on food crops across Africa has been lost ( Sileshi and Gebeyehu, 2021 ). Aggregate annual production losses of 8.9% have been reported, translating to 2.3 million MT of wheat lost, affecting 48.2 million consumers across Africa ( Sileshi and Gebeyehu, 2021 ). About 57% of arable land in Africa produces fewer crops, resulting in poverty, affecting about 40% of the population ( Berck et al., 2018 ). About 25% reduction has been reported in East Africa's annual crop yields ( Mumo et al., 2018 ). By 2023, $1.4trillion of Africa's GDP will be vulnerable to climate change, a significant 48% of the entire continent's GDP ( Sileshi et al., 2019 ).

Economic growth and rapid urbanization have been evident in Africa. Some countries have recorded increasing economic growth, like Rwanda (8.7%), Ethiopia and Côte d'Ivoire (7.4%), Ghana (7.1%), Tanzania (6.8%), and Benin (6.7%) ( Tenaw and Hawitibo, 2021 ). Africa's urbanization rate increased from 30.8 to 38.8% between 2000 and 2018, with a 2.2% economic growth ( Nathaniel and Adeleye, 2021 ). Seventy-nine African cities are amongst the world's top 100 fast-growing cities and face extreme risks due to climate change ( Weforum, 2021 ). An increase in economic growth and urbanization translates to high energy demand and GHG emissions. Africa is also characterized by its rapid demographic change. Countries like Tanzania, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Angola have registered annual population growth rates of 4.8, 4.5, 4.3, and 3.7%, respectively ( Weforum, 2021 ). Population explosion has increased CO 2 emission from 399,239Kw in 1990 to 823,424Kt in 2018 ( Worldbank, 2022 ). In 2019, South Africa was the most polluting country, having emitted 479 billion metric tons of CO 2 emissions, followed by Egypt with 247 billion metric tons of CO 2 emissions ( Saleh, 2021 ). Countries like Nigeria, Algeria, Libya, and Morocco are other large producers of CO 2 (≥10 Mt/year) ( Boden et al., 2017 ; Habimana Simbi et al., 2021 ). Rapid economic growth and population lead to the fast growth of CO 2 emissions and environmental degradation in many African countries. This showcases the role of Africa in global climate change during its socioeconomic transformation. Therefore, policymakers must focus more on adaptation and mitigation strategies to curtail the impacts of climate change on the continent.

There has been a rapidly increasing number of reviews on climate change in Africa. Akinyi et al., look at the trade-offs and synergies related to implementing climate adaptation strategies among farmers ( Akinyi et al., 2021 ). There have been studies on the impacts of climate change on water resources ( Nkhonjera, 2017 ; Leal Filho et al., 2022a ), with a consensus that adaptation and mitigation measures are necessary to cut the impacts on water resources. A study by ( Zinyengere et al., 2013 ) projects an 18% decline in maize yields and suggests adaptation could potentially moderate the negative impacts of climate change. Nyiwul (2021) , examined if the needs of the poor somehow influence adaptation and mitigation policies and states. In addition to review studies, many research papers on climate change in Africa have been published ( Steynor et al., 2020 ; North et al., 2022 ). This significant increase in publications makes it challenging for climate change researchers to maintain an up-to-date overview of the literature. Therefore, it is imperative to obtain a full overview of climate change mitigation and adaptation research in Africa for intellectual and political reasons.

Bibliometrics stands as one of the powerful quantitative methods that can be used to analyze the development of scientific literature in a research field like climate change ( De Bakker et al., 2005 ; Hirsch, 2005 ; Sharifi et al., 2021 ). Bibliometric methods and tools can be used to trace the intellectual landscape of climate change across the globe ( Li et al., 2011 ). Several bibliometric analyses of climate change studies have been conducted. For instance, a bibliometric analysis of climate change adaption has been done, and results show that the US ranks first in terms of publication output ( Wang et al., 2018 ). Climate change vulnerability has been explored using quantitative analysis showing that food insecurity is one of the most frequently discussed areas in climate vulnerability research ( Wang et al., 2014 ). In 2015, research hotspots and models in climate policy were reviewed using a bibliometric method ( Wei et al., 2015 ). The interrelationship between resilience, adaptation, and vulnerability in the face of changing climate has been researched by Janssen et al. (2006) . There have also been studies on the impacts of global warming on tea production using a bibliometric analysis ( Marx et al., 2017 ). A study that has come so close to the present is the study of climate change in the belt and road initiative regions ( Tan et al., 2021 ) where the authors elaborated on the status and trends of climate change research in the Belt and Road Initiative regions of Central Asia, Russia and Europe Other studies have focused on climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience ( Einecker and Kirby, 2020 ), and mapped urban sustainability and its links to climate change mitigation and adaptation ( Sharifi, 2021 ; Sharifi et al., 2021 ).

Thus, there are more than a few previous bibliometric studies with comprehensive analyses of climate change. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are rare, if not none, on climate change adaptation and mitigation in Africa. As Africa is highly vulnerable to climate change, a clearer picture of climate change adaptation and mitigation research is of practical significance to the intellectual community. Therefore, this study aims to review Africa's research status and trends on climate change adaptation and mitigation. This review addresses the following questions: What are the growth trends in research on climate change adaptation and mitigation in Africa? Which authors and documents in the literature on climate change adaptation and mitigation have had the greatest impact on citation in the past 30 years? What is the intellectual structure of the knowledge base on climate change adaptation and mitigation in Africa, and how has the research on this topic evolved? This overview is one of the first attempts to quantify the growth of climate change adaptation and mitigation science literature in the African continent. It should be noted that, unlike systematic reviews, this bibliometric review does not intend to provide details on different issues related to the study topic. Instead, it provides an overview of the state of the knowledge and highlights the related structures and trends.

The paper is organized as follows: Section Methodology describes the methodology, clearly explaining the parameters used in searching articles. Section Results and discussions outlines the results and discussions. Lastly, potential new areas that are likely to influence the field of climate change in Africa are investigated in the final section.

Methodology

Literature search and selection were conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA) ( Moher et al., 2010 ). To retrieve documents related to two major themes, “Climate Change Adaptation” and “Climate Change Mitigation” a combination of keywords was used to build the search string (see the Supplementary material ). The theme of climate change adaptation referred to keywords such as adaptation, resilience, risk, management, and reduction. In contrast, the theme of climate mitigation involved keywords such as decarbonization, mitigation, carbon, CO 2 , and GHGs. Synonyms were taken into consideration. All countries in Africa were included in the search string. The search was further performed in the three fields of titles, abstracts, and keywords for a more comprehensive data retrieval. The start time of the search was 1990, and the end time was 2021. The search returned 3,958 documents in formats compatible with the VOSviewer software. The eligibility criteria included the following: (1) articles on adaptation and mitigation studies in Africa and or any African country; (2) Peer-reviewed empirical, primary research papers in academic journals, books or book chapters, or conference proceedings (3), papers pubished in English. The next step was the manual screening of the documents to exclude irrelevant ones. After exclusion, we retained 3,235 articles.

The following bibliometric databases were searched on November 15, 2021: Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), SCI-EXPANDED, Arts and Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI), and (Emerging Sources Science Citation Index (ESCI) in the Web of Science Core Collection of Clarivate Analytics, Canada. Vosviewer, which is a freely available Javan application, was used for data analysis ( van Eck and Waltman, 2010 ) (VOSviewer at: https://www.vosviewer.com ).

Text mining and bibliometric analysis

Bibliometric analysis was then conducted on related articles, and Vosviewer was used for data analysis. Among the different analyses used were the term co-occurrence analysis, bibliographic coupling, and co-citation analysis. For the term co-occurrence analysis, documents were set as the unit of analysis, while cited references, cited sources, and cited authors as units of analysis for co-citation analysis. Bibliometric coupling was also analyzed. This was done by using the full counting method, and organizations and countries were used as units of analysis.

To highlight major thematic areas, term co-occurrence analysis was used. This kind of analysis presents terms that have co-occurred frequently and are strongly connected to each other. A thesaurus file was developed and added to the VOSviewer database prior to analysis. The reason is because some terms have different variants and can easily result in separate counting of synonyms; for example, Green House Gases and GHGs. The outputs of bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer are graphs (combination of nodes and links). The size of the nodes in the outputs is proportional to the occurrence frequency, and the width of the links connecting nodes is proportional to the strength of connections. Terms that co-occur more frequently form clusters that show different thematic areas. In addition to bibliometric analysis, content analysis of the abstracts was done to determine the studies' geographic focus (country level).

To map the thematic transition over time, we divided the study period into four subperiods (1990–2007, 2007–2014, 2015–2019, and after 2020). It should be noted that 2007 and 2014 were selected as milestones considering that releases of the IPCC reports in these years might have triggered climate change research in Africa. It was possible to include sub-periods before 1990, but, as can be seen from the results in section Results and discussions, less research was published until 1990, not warranting further sub-periods. To understand the thematic shift during each period, term co-occurrence analyses were conducted for each sub-period.

Results and discussions

The growth trends of climate change adaptation and mitigation literature were examined from the initial starting point of 1990. Figure 1 shows the total number of publications in the different time periods. It displays how climate change research in Africa has increased steadily across the three decades. The results show that the number of articles in this field has progressed through four stages: slow growth, rapid growth, explosive growth, and steady growth, with an average growth rate of 21%. During the first period (1990–2007), the number of articles was very small and growing slowly. More so, the publication volume within the years of this period was not very much different, indicating the very low volume of exploration. The second period corresponds to 2008–2014. In this period, an overall upward trend was observed, indicating an attraction of extensive attention from scholars worldwide, thus entering a period of expansion and promotion. In the third period (2015–2019), the number of articles significantly increased, especially after the publication of the fifth IPPC assessment report, indicating a highly productive period. The fourth and last period, 2020-2021, shows rapid growth, with 947 articles published in <2 years. The number of publications in the four study periods was 118, 684, 1,487, and 947, respectively. There is a significant increase in the growth of publications per year, with an annual average increase of 22.5%. It is evident that this is a young field as fewer papers were published from 1990 to 2007 compared to papers published from 2020 to November 2021. In fact, only 117 publications were made from 1990 to 2017, indicating the low relevance of the topic during this period compared to 947 publications for <2 years (2020–2021), indicating the current high relevance of the topic. The very slow growth in the first period was due to the limited theoretical understanding, while the significant increase in the subsequent periods could be attributed to general causes such as digital publication, the birth of new journals, and specific factors such as the release of the two IPCC assessment reports (fourth and fifth reports in 2007 and 2014, respectively). An implication is that climate change in Africa and its impacts are increasingly recognized together with the increasing significance of climate change adaptation and mitigation to curb these impacts.

Figure 1 . The number of articles published per year and the different periods considered in this research.

Out of the 3,317 articles that were used in the analysis, the country focus was not uniform over Africa. There were 380 papers focused on South Africa alone. The second focus country was Ethiopia, with 301 ( Figure 2 ). In West Africa, only Ghana has a high research focus with 242 articles, higher than Kenya and Tanzania. Surprisingly, the most populous nation, Nigeria, is not among the countries with a large number of publications. The high research focus on South Africa is likely because the universities in the country are among the leading organization in this field. For over three decades, African countries have received relatively low research focus. More research was done on Africa as a continent or on African regions than on specific countries. A total of 1,219 studies were focused on Africa and its sub-regions, excluding specific countries. Countries like Gabon, Libya, Eritrea, Chad, Central African Republic have so far had no research on climate change adaptation and mitigation ( Figure 2 ). However, the ascending curve reveals, even if empirically, these numbers will continue to grow considerably, given the theme's relevance.

Figure 2 . Geographical presentation of country focus.

Looking at the thematic focus, 72% of the articles are on adaptation, 22% on mitigation, and 6% on both adaptation and mitigation. It, therefore, deserves attention that mitigation efforts are limited. We were also interested in knowing who the leading researchers in the continent were (in other words, authors that have published more papers on the topic). We noticed that researchers from the USA authored more publications ( N = 718; 10%), followed by researchers from South Africa ( N = 660; 9%), the United Kingdom ( N = 554; 8%), Germany ( N = 420; 6%), and Kenya ( N = 343; 5%) ( Figure 3 ). Researchers belonging to institutes based in Africa published 38.7%, while those from the West (America, Canada, Europe, and Australia) published 49%. The rest of the world (China, Indonesia, etc.) published 12.3%. Of the 54 African countries, 11% have not published anything on climate change adaptation and mitigation, 64% have carried out <100 case studies on their countries, while 9.2% have carried out above one hundred case studies in their countries. South Africa has the highest number of publications because of its well-developed science system that underpins climate change scenarios developed for South Africa. Authors based in England, South Africa, and Tanzania are those with the greatest focus on adaptation strategies. The works of Germany, the USA, and Kenya were mainly concentrated on food security, and those of Australia, Ethiopia, and China on carbon sequestration. However, a huge research gap exists on mitigation.

Figure 3 . Global research on climate change adaptation and mitigation in Africa (Publications by countries).

Regarding geographic focus, South Africa, Ethiopia and Ghana have received more attention ( Figure 2 ). In contrast, less attention has been paid to Tanzania, Kenya, and Nigeria. Also, no case studies were found on the Central African Republic, Somalia, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Libya etc ( Figure 2 ). Overall, it can be seen that climate change is poorly studied in the continent, and there is a gap in consideration of adaptation and mitigation policy designs.

Climate change is a global threat that can stress various sectors and deteriorate the sustainability of diverse sectors worldwide. Specifically, the vulnerability of the agricultural sector is globally concerning because of insufficient production and supplies. In effect, the global feeding patterns are challenged particularly in African countries where agriculture is an integral part of the economy. Therefore, mitigating the impacts of climate change is of great importance and requires global commitment.

The overall thematic focus of the literature on climate change adaptation and mitigation in africa

The overall thematic focus (1990–2021).

Based on the term co-occurrence analysis, there were four main clusters: blue, red, yellow, and green, each representing a different research focus. These clusters have been identified by the software based on the co-occurrence frequenct and the strength of connection between terms. The size of each node reflects the frequency of appearance. A term with a larger node, is a research hotspot. The thicker the line, the more frequently the terms have co-occurred. The co-occurrence analysis showcases that there has been more attention on vulnerability (blue), agriculture (red), forest management and sequestration (green), and sustainability and energy-related climate mitigation (yellow). It should be mentioned that what is discussed in the following sections is not exhaustive. While there could be other important issues related to climate change adaptation and mitigation, we have mainly focused on those key topics that were highlighted in the outputs of the bibliometric analysis.

The adaptation/vulnerability cluster (blue)

The blue cluster highlights the vulnerability of households and farmers due to climate variability and the poverty it has inflicted on communities. The literature on this cluster is centered on the vulnerability of Africa to climate change impacts. From the blue cluster, it is visible that researchers are interested in studying adaptation from the gender, household, indigenous knowledge, and livelihood perspectives that are considered to be important factors for vulnerability ( Jost et al., 2016 ; Flatø et al., 2017 ). The dominance of the terms climate variability, vulnerability, and resilience is not surprising, considering that a lot of research has been done on climate variability and the risks faced by farmers and smallholder farmers in Africa ( Bryan et al., 2009 ; Müller et al., 2011 ; Adenle et al., 2017 ; Siderius et al., 2021 ). For instance, cocoyam farmers in Nigeria face challenges adapting to climate ( Ifeanyi-Obi et al., 2017 ). Meanwhile, in Ghana, maize productivity has been affected by changes in climate ( Aidoo et al., 2021 ). This has further warranted research on the vulnerability of households and how resilient they are to climate change. Gezimua ( Gezimua, 2021 ) examined the prevalence of household food insecurity and vulnerability to climate change in East Africa and showed that households' adaptive capacity plays a significant role in reducing the prevalence of food insecurity ( Gezimua, 2021 ). Researchers have preferred to study vulnerability and resilience from an adaptative perspective, as seen in Figure 4 . Nyboer et al. (2019) presented a climate change vulnerability assessment of 85% of Africa's freshwater fishes. They concluded that vulnerable species are found in the African Rift Valley lakes, the Congo River drainage, and the coastal rivers of West Africa ( Nyboer et al., 2019 ). A study on the degree of vulnerability and its impacts on human health in Central Africa showed that, the mean monthly household cooling energy demand is expected to significantly increase by 2,046, resulting in major energy security issues ( Nematchoua et al., 2019 ). There have also been studies of vulnerability at different levels. Vulnerability has been more researched from the perspective of gender perception ( Descheemaeker et al., 2016 ; Tesfaye et al., 2019 ). For instance, changes in temperature characteristics were highly perceived among female farmers in Ghana ( Appiah and Guodaar, 2021 ). Another study done in Ghana found that there were gender-specific differences in the use of some adaptation practices ( Jamal et al., 2021 ). Another term that stands out is poverty, indicating how researchers are interested in knowing if poverty is contributing to vulnerability and if poorer households are prioritized for interventions that increase adaptive capacity ( Williams et al., 2019 ).

Figure 4 . The output of the term co-occurrence analysis for the whole study period (1990–2021).

From this cluster, we see how local and international scholars investigate how communities' efforts and changes in livelihood can display different degrees of resilience by employing different strategies. African communities are resilient to climate change through their attitudinal shifts and local technology innovations to better curb the impacts of climate change ( Simpson et al., 2019 ). Communities build on their perceptions about past practices, skills, and knowledge to build adaptive capacity and resilience to suit their current life ( Gandure et al., 2013 ; Perez et al., 2015 ; Elum et al., 2017 ; Talanow et al., 2021 ). Climate resilience is improved by incorporating gender perspectives ( Perez et al., 2015 ; Adzawla et al., 2019a ).

In addition, barriers hindering successful adaptation strategies were an area of consideration ( Murkowski, 2000 ; Betsill and Bulkeley, 2007 ). Some of the barriers that have been hindering adaptation strategies are limited financial resources, government structures, and challenges with capacity development. An issue that needs to be noticed is that despite the increasing concerns about extreme heat and its impacts on human health, related terms did not emerge from the term co-occurrence analysis. This indicates the lack of research on this issue as also highlighted in other studies ( Harrington and Otto, 2020 ; Ncongwane et al., 2021 ). More research on the adaptation to extreme heat in the context of Africa is, therefore, needed.

The food security cluster (red)

This cluster showcases the interest in understanding climate change's general impacts on food security. From Figure 4 , most of the research is on the impacts of climate change on agriculture and its contribution to food security ( Figure 4 ). The overwhelming concern of scientists is whether increased temperatures are impacting African agriculture and contributing to high levels of food insecurity ( Sultan, 2012 ; Connolly-Boutin and Smit, 2016 ; Douxchamps et al., 2016 ). There have also been studies on the uncertainty of climate impacts and the extent of their impacts on food security ( Ahmed, 2020 ; Mekonnen et al., 2021 ). The next concern from this cluster is the types of agricultural approaches used to increase food security. Conservation and smart agriculture are the main focus areas ( Branca et al., 2021 ; Thierfelder and Mhlanga, 2022 ). Another thematic focus that has attracted publication is models and simulation. Researchers are keen to develop and use different climate change models to predict temperature and rainfall trends and yield productivity to better understand how to address climate change challenges ( Jones et al., 2005 ; Araújo and Rahbek, 2006 ; Lobell and Burke, 2010 ; Semenov and Stratonovitch, 2010 ). Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly West and Southern Africa, have been the focused regions in this cluster ( Brown et al., 2009 ; Müller et al., 2011 ; Shindell et al., 2012 ).

The forestry and sequestration cluster (green)

Cluster green is centered around the concept of climate change mitigation ( Nyong et al., 2007 ; Syampungani et al., 2010 ; Tschora and Cherubini, 2020 ), which is focused on reducing GHGs emissions ( Friedrich and Trois, 2011 ; Tongwane et al., 2016 ; Tongwane and Moeletsi, 2018 ). There have also been studies on how climate change impacts ecosystem services ( Sintayehu, 2018 ). For instance, in Tanzania and Kenya, a key carbon sink, biomass has been reduced by 76% ( Wilson et al., 2021 ). Tuli-Karoo transboundary aquifer in Southern Africa has been studied to understand the interaction between groundwater ecosystems and climate change ( Majola et al., 2021 ). Furthermore, a considerable amount of mitigation research focuses on carbon sequestration ( Adetoye et al., 2018 ; Gonzalez-Sanchez et al., 2019 ), soil organic carbon ( Vågen et al., 2005 ; Swanepoel et al., 2016 ), REDD, and REDD+ ( Rahlao et al., 2012 ; Soliev et al., 2021 ). The Congo Basin, Cameroon, Madagascar, and Zambia are often the focus areas of such research that generate knowledge regarding the role of forests in climate change mitigation ( Somorin et al., 2012 ; Bele et al., 2015 ; Soazafy et al., 2021 ). Agricultural soils in Africa have been studied and found to generally have potential as a carbon sink ( Vågen et al., 2005 ; Swanepoel et al., 2016 ). Different countries in Africa have demonstrated the different costs of carbon sequestration. For example, carbon sequestration cost in Botswana is $16.75 and in Congo DRC $16.77, the highest in the continent, while lower costs are reported in Nigeria at $7, and Mali at $8 ( Adetoye et al., 2018 ). Policy implementation processes and institutional interactions have been examined in Cameroon and are known to shape Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) ( Gakou-Kakeu et al., 2022 ). In Nigeria, it was noticed that the payment of monetary incentives does not necessarily motivate communities to participate in the REDD+ program ( Isyaku, 2021 ). Here we see a link between mitigation and ecosystems services which is under-explored to the best of our knowledge. Research in this cluster improves governance of social-ecological systems at the local, regional and landscape levels.

Mitigation policy cluster (yellow)

This cluster is mainly focused on mitigation policies related to the energy sector and renewable energies. It shows how researchers are attracted to sustainability challenges faced by African countries ( Beg et al., 2002 ; Ozturk, 2017 ). Researchers are also interested in the sustainable management of forests since they are the main absorbents of CO 2 ( Teketay et al., 2010 ; Njana et al., 2021 ). The main link in this cluster is between institutions and policy. This is an indication that researchers are exploring climate policy designs and the institutions involved in policy making ( Leal Filho et al., 2018 ; Epule et al., 2021 ), and the virtue of the importance of GHGs, mainly CO 2 , in climate change policy. Despite the significance of mitigation policies, relatively limited research has been conducted on these issues. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Renewable Energy Policy has shown a significant and positive impact on primary energy ( Ali and Yu, 2021 ). In Nigeria, policies on ways to stimulate solar technology business are missing in the national solar energy policy document ( Ozoegwu and Akpan, 2021 ). The results of Müller and colleagues agree with ours in that literature of renewable energy policies in African states are rare ( Müller et al., 2020 ).

Thematic focus transitions over time

Four specific periods were investigated to see if some research topics have fluctuated, remained stable, or changed over time. Period one starts from 1990 to 2007, with 2007 corresponding to the release date of the fourth IPCC assessment report. Period two starts from 2008 to 2014, with 2014 corresponding to the publication of the fifth IPPC assessment report. Period three, from 2015 to 2019, and the fourth period from 2020, is referred to as the post-pandemic period in this study.

First period (1990–2007)

A total of 117 articles were published during this period. Although the concept of climate change can be noted as early as 1990, research focus on it was very low, as seen from the few occurrences of relevant terms ( Figure 5 ). Adaptation has been the focus area since the first period, as seen in Figure 5 . Concepts of vulnerability (blue), sustainability (red), and climate variability (green) have appeared during this period ( Bohle et al., 1994 ; Schulze, 1997 ; Dixon, 2003 ; Ogunseitan, 2003 ). The blue cluster insinuates how agricultural practices had become vulnerable to climate change during this period. Therefore, more research had begun to be carried out on the impacts on agriculture. There was also the emergence of studies on the sensitivity of water resources to climate change. The centrality of water resources is relatively low during this period, showing less connection with other topics. Studies on policy formulation and implementation relating to climate change also gained attention. The green cluster is focused on CO 2 emissions and their related studies, which further triggered studies on carbon sequestration. During this period, CO 2 as the main greenhouse gas and its impacts on biodiversity were among the major priority research topics ( Olivier et al., 1999 ; Blignaut et al., 2005 ).

Figure 5 . The output of the term co-occurrence analysis for the first period (1990–2007).

There were also studies specifically focused on modeling the optimal mitigation of the potential impact of climate change ( Jenkins et al., 2002 ). For example, in 2000, Zheng and Neelin used the atmosphere–land–vegetation model to explore vegetation–climate interactions in African savanna ( Zeng and Neelin, 2000 ). It is evident that studies were more on forestry, and its absorbing nature was seen as a mitigating measure. For instance, in 1992, sources and sinks of carbon dioxide and methane exchanges were studied in the Mayombe forest, which was proven to be a net sink of atmospheric methane ( Delmas et al., 1992 ). In this period, main research themes are not closely linked and are weakly related to external topics. This period coincided with the increasing prevalence of the term sustainability, which will be seen in subsequent analysis to dominate the thematic focus of climate change research in Africa. The importance of climate change was further recognized with the signing of the Kyoto Protocol (1992) 2 , which gradually accelerated academic discussion of climate change in the continent as well as the meetings of COP 1 in 1995 to COP 13 in 2007. The release of the IPPC fourth assessment report in 2007 was also a game changer as will be seen in the next period.

Second period (2007–2014)

This period witnessed a rapid growth of publications in the red, green, and blue clusters. This rapid growth might have been triggered by the publication of the fourth IPPC assessment report in 2007. The red cluster had seemingly gained more attention this time. Interestingly research on food security emerges. This is a keyword that was absent in the first period. During this period, it is noticed that there is more research on the climate-stressed water resources presenting a challenge for protecting food security. In the previous period, research was focused on the sensitivity of water resources to climate change, while in this period, water resources and food security are closely linked ( Yang et al., 2003 ; Ngigi, 2009 ; Sheffield et al., 2014 ). Studies on food security have attracted further research on the impacts of climate change on soil. A study on Ethiopian soils showed soil losses were 35.4 t ha −1 yr −1 under changing climate conditions ( Lanckriet et al., 2012 ). There are also other studies focused on soil. For instance, a study was carried out on ferrasols of coastal West Africa to examine soil fertility under global warming ( Amouzou et al., 2013 ). This period sees a shift from carbon sequestration models to models that detect the sensitivity of various alimentary crops. For instance, in Benin, high-resolution regional climate models were used to detect the sensitivity of alimentary crops to changing climate conditions ( Paeth et al., 2008 ). A robust model application to several African crops showed that, except for cassava, there is a 95% probability that climate change damages to crops exceed 7% ( Schlenker and Lobell, 2010 ). Scientists are, therefore, interested in simulating the impacts of climate variability on changing crop yield ( Kurukulasuriya and Mendelsohn, 2008 ; Knox et al., 2012 ; Ahmed et al., 2015 ). There is also a shift in research from water resources-from the adaptative perspective- to the food security perspective, which has gained more prominence compared with the previous period. Urama and Ozor carried out a study on the impact of climate change on water resources from the adaptative perspective and found that rising temperatures of 1.5–2°C affects fisheries in West African lakes ( Urama and Ozor, 2010 ). It was suggested by Ngoran et al., that looking beyond command and control policy will be a better regulatory measure to mitigate climate change on water resources ( Ngoran et al., 2015 ).

There is robust information in the blue cluster to understand climate variability and trends, a requirement to draw a context-specific climate change adaptation intervention. For instance, in 2010, Tshiala and Olwoch studied the relationship between tomato production and climate variability and found a positive trend ( Tshiala and Olwoch, 2010 ). While some keywords continue to be dominant and prominent, like sustainability, climate variability, and vulnerability, several new keywords emerge: energy security, ecosystem services, bioenergy, biomass, productivity, deforestation, conservation, resilience, etc. The emergence of these keywords shows how much attention has been given to the study of climate change. Some or most of these keywords will gain greater momentum in the subsequent periods, as will be discussed in the following sections. There is a drive toward studies on bioenergy (green cluster) that is considered to be an innovative approach in global climate mitigation efforts. There is mainly a new drive toward studies that primarily encompass biofuels produced from forest resources with simple and indigenous technologies ( Adedayo et al., 2010 ; Langat et al., 2016 ). Bio-energy is very potent in reducing atmospheric methane emissions ( Weiland, 2006 ). There is also the emergence of studies on policies to offset climate change impacts on ecosystem services. In South Africa, two key policies emerged: National Climate Change Response White Paper and South Africa's Second National Communication ( Ziervogel et al., 2014 ). In Ethiopia, providing farmers with farming equipment is a policy tool to facilitate farmers' adaptation to climate change ( Bryan et al., 2009 ). As seen in Figure 6 , it is evident that a significant increase has occurred in research on local perceptions about environmental awareness, attitudes, beliefs, and risk perception. Studies on the green cluster have maintained steady growth while the red cluster has bulged. Almost all themes are closely linked and strongly related to the external topics with more attention and influence compared with the first period. The research intensity during this period changed with an increase in the development and maturity of themes.

Figure 6 . The output of the term co-occurrence analysis for the second period (2007–2014).

Third period (2015–2019)

The third period has witnessed explosive growth with the birth of a new cluster ( Figure 7 ). The new yellow cluster focuses on renewable energy, showing a shift from conventional energy consumption to more renewables. The specific renewable energies used in Africa are solar, wind, and hydropower. Nigeria, Angola, DRC, Sudan, and Zambia are leading countries in hydropower, with Angola and DRC generating a net capacity of 2,763 and 2,750 MW, respectively ( Frangoul, 2019 ). Meanwhile, solar and wind energy South Africa, Morocco, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Egypt are leading states, with South Africa having the highest maximum net capacity of 6,065 MW followed by Egypt with 4,813 and Ethiopia with 4,351 ( Frangoul, 2019 ). The period sees the addition of some new keywords. Among the new keywords are agroforestry, economic growth, smallholder farmers, and conservation agriculture.

Figure 7 . The output of the term co-occurrence analysis for the third period (2014–2019).

Multiple studies have explored the link between climate change and economic growth ( Abidoye and Odusola, 2015 ; Alagidede et al., 2016 ; Adzawla et al., 2019b ). A study in 2015 shows that climate change has a negative impact on economic growth in Africa, such that a 1°C increase in temperature reduces GDP growth by 0.67% ( Abidoye and Odusola, 2015 ). Arndt et al. note that climate change impacts from 2007 to 2050 will lead to a loss of USD 610 million in Malawi ( Arndt et al., 2014 ). According to Radhouane in 2013, a 1°C rise in temperatures in the Northern African countries in a given year reduces economic growth by 1.1 points ( Radhouane, 2013 ). The intensification of studies related to renewable energy is a shift from conventional exhaustible energy resources. Conventional sources raise serious environmental concerns while hampering sustainable economic growth. In Mozambique, there have been advancements toward using renewable energy for irrigation in the agriculture sector ( Chilundo et al., 2019 ; Mahumane and Mulder, 2019 ). Renewable energy policies in Ghana have also been reviewed, and a lack of policy implementation was one of the reasons for a slow transition toward sustainable electrification ( Sakah et al., 2017 ). Another stream of research in the energy discourse mainly focuses on the relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth. Arguments on this particular theme emphasize how renewable energy consumption will increase renewable energy production as a measure of environmental sustainability and how this will impact economic growth in Africa ( Alper and Oguz, 2016 ; Bhattacharya et al., 2016 ). Aly et al., investigated the techno-economic feasibility of solar power in Tanzania and found that the net capital cost for an optimized plant in 2025 will be 4680 $/kW at 7% interest rate ( Aly et al., 2019 ).

During this period, there has been a clear focus on adaptation strategies used to deal with climate change and adaptation capacities employed by communities (blue cluster). The main adaptation link occurs with risks and strategies. This observation suggests the propensity to design strategies for climate change adaptation and their interests in how to thwart or be prepared for the likely risks this entails. For instance, developing cultivars is one of the adaptation strategies applied in Northern Cameroon, which shortens the time of cotton maturity and causes a shift in the rainy season without affecting cotton yield ( Gérardeaux et al., 2018 ). The word perception is also associated with risk perception. This indicates the increasing number of studies on indigenous knowledge and how farmers perceive risks where their activities are undertaken ( Leal Filho et al., 2022b ). Ayanlade and colleagues studied farmers' perceptions in Nigeria and confirmed that 67% of farmers had noticed fluctuations in early and late growing seasons ( Ayanlade et al., 2017 ). In South Africa, 77.3% of potato farmers and 66.7% of cabbage farmers experienced extreme temperatures, which led to a fall in their farm productivity. Potato farmers turned to integrate pest management to deal with climate risk, while cabbage farmers turned to planting drought-tolerant varieties ( Elum et al., 2017 ). More studies have adopted a holistic approach to climate change by considering stakeholders' perceptions. For instance, a heat management policy was advocated when mining workers in Ghana suffered heat-related illnesses after a stakeholder consultation meeting ( Nunfam et al., 2019 ). During this period, researchers appear to prefer studying climate change resilience from the adaptation perspective under full consideration of vulnerability. The overwhelming concern of researchers is the socio-environmental impacts on agriculture from extreme events like floods leading to food security issues under different climate variability scenarios. The next most frequent concern in dealing with food security is a shift in focus from agriculture to conservation agriculture. Overall, adaptation-related (blue cluster) studies shrunk while research on food security (red cluster) bulged and research on green cluster maintained a steady growth. The release of the fifth IPCC assessment report, with its scientific information, and technical and socio-economic relevance, triggered a good number of articles based on scientific research about adaptation and mitigation strategies. Thus, in this period, climate change studies have been increasing and becoming more diverse in Africa. These studies incorporated new concepts that allow the topic to be addressed from a range of different disciplines. The fifth IPPC assessment report in 2014 was a critical scientific contribution that led to the successful agreement on the Paris Climate Change accord, producing more research impetus.

Post pandemic period (2020–2021)

During this period, the green cluster and its related sequestration studies continue to attract more relevance ( Figure 8 ). Compared with the previous period, the blue cluster has expanded, while studies on the red cluster begin to receive less relevance. Publications on sustainability, vulnerability, and resilience continued to increase from an adaptation perspective. As seen from the green cluster, ecosystem services and conservation agriculture were studied more closely. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is a new area of research receiving more relevance and is widely studied under the red cluster. Among the climate-smart agricultural practices adopted by African farmers are diversification of crops, change of planting time, and crop rotation/mixed cropping ( Nyang'au et al., 2021 ). Climate-smart agricultural practices are recognized as one of the best adaptative strategies because they boost agricultural productivity, increase resilience, and reduce greenhouse gases that cause climate change ( Anuga et al., 2020 ). The yellow cluster that was found in the previous period now merges with the mitigation cluster, and studies on renewable energy continue to rise. Mukoro et al.'s (2021) work predict that by 2040, renewable energy capacity in Africa is expected to reach 169.4 GW from 48.5 GW in 2019. Specifically, in South Africa, as of 2021, a total of 6,422 MW of power has been acquired across 112 renewable energy Independent Power Producers ( Ayamolowo et al., 2022 ). The inevitability of more frequent and more extensive floods, displaying the inherent variability of climate, continued to be studied under the blue cluster ( Ficchi et al., 2021 ; Petrova, 2022 ). Ethiopia's location indicates it is more worried about climate effects on food security (red cluster). At the same time, South Africa and Ghana are also concerned about vulnerability issues (blue cluster). But the main concern of Sub-Saharan Africa is mitigation issues (green cluster).

Figure 8 . The output of the term co-occurrence analysis for the post-pandemic period (2020–2021).

The outset of the pandemic positively impacted climate change research as researchers were able to develop new ideas seen from the rise in publications in <2 years. Unfortunately, the unending lockdowns have drawn attention away from climate change policy nationally and internationally. Environmentalists wonder why there has not been a pandemic preparedness for climate change as it has been for the COVID pandemic ( Phillips et al., 2020 ). Pandemic recovery measures could be one of the solutions to climate change in Africa and the world. A complementary strategy is to use opportunities and lessons provided by the pandemic to accelerate the decline of carbon-intensive industries, technologies, and practices ( Rosenbloom and Markard, 2020 ). Amid the pandemic, agricultural innovation and technologies have been promoted in Africa. The African Development Bank has helped increase the uptake and use of proven high-yielding climate-smart maize technologies by smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa ( Fernando, 2020 ).

Influential sources

The co-citation analysis was used to find out which journals have contributed the most to the development of the field. Here, the size of the nodes is proportional to the number of citations, and link width is proportional to the strength of the connection between two nodes. Four major clusters can be identified from the results of the co-citation analysis ( Figure 9 ). The colors of these clusters are consistent with those reported for the term co-occurrence analysis. The largest cluster (blue) includes journals that are mainly focused on adaptation and vulnerability aspects. As expected, journals with a key focus on climate change and environmental issues have played a significant role in advancing Africa's knowledge of climate change adaptation. The most prominent journals in this cluster are Climatic Change, Global Environmental Change (GEC), Environmental Science Policy, and World Development. The results show that mitigation (green cluster) has mainly been addressed by journals such as PNAS, Science, Nature, and Forest Ecology and Management. The yellow cluster is dominated by influential journals like Agriculture, Ecosystem and Environment journal, Agricultural Systems, Field Crop Research, and Science of the Total Environment. The red cluster is dominated by journals like Nature Climate Change, Environmental Research Letters, and the Journal of Climatology.

Figure 9 . The most influential journals contributing to the development of climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Overall, the journals that have contributed the most to this literature include Global Environmental Change, PNAS, Climatic Change, Science, Agriculture, Ecosystem and Environment, Energy policy, Environmental Research Letters, Forest Ecology and Management, and Climate while the journals with the most documents are Climate and Development and Sustainability with totals of 131 and 121 documents, respectively.

An interesting observation here is the multidisciplinary nature of this field of knowledge. As seen in Figure 9 , all articles are distributed and disseminated through 66 journals, which involve different fields of application, with emphasis on food security, climate change adaptation, and mitigation studies. This requires that future studies/efforts actively involve the participation of several professionals to add learning in such a complex decision environment.

Major contributing countries and institutions

To recognize the most prominent countries that have contributed to the field, a bibliographic coupling analysis was conducted ( Figure 10 ). The list of the top 20 most prominent countries with the number of documents, number of citations, and total link strength is presented in the Supplementary Table S1 . It is noted that countries like the USA, South Africa, England, Germany, Kenya, and Ethiopia have published more on this topic ( Figure 10 ). The USA, the UK, and South Africa ranked highest in terms of the total number of citations. Interestingly, while developed countries have contributed more, several African countries have also been highlighted. South Africa, Botswana, and Tanzania are some of the African countries with a close collaboration on adaptation, while Kenya, Cameroon, Ghana, and Nigeria have some research interests in food security. Ethiopia, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria are interested in mitigation research, and Zimbabwe in the energy issues ( Figure 10 ). The first 10 publishing African universities are shown in the Supplementary material with universities from South Africa taking the lead ( Supplementary Table S2 ). Universities in South Africa are ahead of other African universities. An overwhelming number of African universities have not yet contributed to this literature.

Figure 10 . Countries have significantly contributed to the climate change adaptation and mitigation research in Africa.

International organizations like the World Bank, the Center for International Forest Research, World Agroforestry, etc. ( Supplementary Table S3 ) made significant contributions, while international universities from Europe and the USA were prominent contributors ( Supplementary Table S4 ). The focus of most African universities was on food security and adaptation, while that of some international organizations was on mitigation ( Figure 11 ).

Figure 11 . Organizations that have made significant contributions to the advancement of the field.

Influential documents

The blue and yellow clusters include studies that were mostly done from 1990 to 2007 ( Figure 12 ). Obviously, their focus on fundamental adaptation concepts has played an important role in guiding adaptation and vulnerability research. The red and green clusters include studies that were mostly done in the second period (2008–2014). The works of Roudier et al. (2011) stand out in the green cluster. This work predicted 11% yield loss in West Africa due to climate changes, with a higher yield loss of 18% in Northern West Africa ( Roudier et al., 2011 ). Still, in the green cluster, the study by Lobell et al. (2008) , concluded that there is a 95% chance that climate change will harm Southern Africa's maize and wheat, which are seen as the most important crops in need of adaptation. In the red cluster, the work of Deressa et al. (2009) is influential. They assessed the barriers to adaptation in Ethiopia. The result showed that the main barrier to adaptation was a lack of information and finance ( Deressa et al., 2009 ). The work of Brooks et al. (2005) provided a robust assessment of vulnerability to climate-related mortality. They noted that the most vulnerable nations are those situated in sub-Saharan Africa experiencing conflict ( Brooks et al., 2005 ).

Figure 12 . The most influential documents contributing to the development of the field.

Influential authors

The most published authors were Neil Adger, Philip Thornton, Temesgen Deressa, David Lobell, Elizabeth Basauri Bryan, Mike Hulme, Lal Rattan, and Barry Smit ( Figure 13 ). The works of Adger are mostly on the vulnerability of communities and ecosystems to unforeseen climatic changes, causes and consequences of these vulnerabilities, and adaptation strategies ( Adger and Barnett, 2009 ; Adger et al., 2009 ). Thornton, is interested in the impacts of climate change on livestock and livestock systems in developing countries and also curious to know how some African crops respond to climate change ( Thornton et al., 2009a , b ). These results are in line with Nalau and Verrall (2021) , where Adger is also seen as the most prominent author in climate change adaptation research. Our results are consistent with the authors' publication record. For instance, Adger is a famous author in climate change adaptation, Lobell is noted for his writings on climate change mitigation, while Deressa and Bryan are noticeable for their publications on the impacts of climate change on food security.

Figure 13 . The most influential authors contributing to the development of the field.

This overview analysis echos a clear penchant to study and understand local adaptation capacities in Africa in the face of extreme events given that the impacts of climate change are irreversible. The most common unbiased objective in the documents is to determine how people cope with climate change based on their location. Clustering results of the literature suggest that studies on climate change adaptation mainly focused on agriculture and agroforestry, forestry, food, water and energy security. The focus is mainly on climate change adaptation in the agricultural sector. In contrast, less attention is paid to mitigation. Therefore, more research on this topic would be needed.

Woefully, most African institutions lack adequate research, which hampers efforts to address climate change in the continent. Adaptation and mitigation policies need to be developed based on regional and local characteristics, and the promotion and funding of research in this domain led by local experts for the building of a green Africa. African institutions should improve their ability to conduct research on climate change adaptation and mitigation, enter corresponding climate adaptation and mitigation cooperation, and ensure research in this field is relevant and fruitful. Africa, with the highest population and urban population growth rates globally, is likely to have major implications for climate change. However, it did not emerge from our analysis.

The more that is known about climate change adaptation and mitigation in the African continent, the greater the understanding and support will be to make feasible decisions. There will also be more motivation to engage in local climate change adaptation and mitigation actions. Local knowledge and cultural practices should be recognized because they can complement scientific information in the design of adequate and effective adaptation and mitigation policies. Knowledge and technology gaps in African countries should be overcome to promote climate change mitigation research, whose progress is still due to inadequate analytical infrastructure to conduct the required measurements to assess the impacts of climate change which act as a prerequisite for adaptation planning. African countries need to enhance their research ability in the field of climate change mitigation through international cooperation and other extensive methods. This will bring more focus on African problems and, therefore, find solutions suitable to African characteristics. There is a need for a closing window of opportunity to avoid worse case scenarios in the continent. Collaboration, determination and trust across countries and amongst stakeholder groups will one way in meeting the challenge.

This study conducted statistical analysis on the data of SCI/SSCI published from 1990 to November 2021 through keyword retrieval. The study found that the publication volume of climate change adaptation and mitigation research in Africa has risen rapidly in recent years. Despite this rapid increase, some countries have contributed less to the publication volume. It is necessary to implement regional cooperation on climate change adaptation and mitigation in the region and improve the research capabilities of African countries in this field. Research on climate change adaptation and mitigation in African countries is of great concern and future research should pay more attention to African countries that have contributed less to the publication volume. In the end, it should be noted that this bibliometric review had some limitations. Using only English papers and sourcing data from the web of science database means that other potentially relevant studies published in local journals not indexed in the web of science could have been missed. Examining such sources would allow gaining a more comprehensive understanding of the structure and trend of the literatyre. Apart from articles published in local journals, the exclusion of gray literature was due to quality concerns and also because such studies are not indexed in formats compatible with the bibliometric analysis software tools. However, since our aim was to understand the overall structure and we already have a large number of articles in the database, we argue that the impacts of these limitations on the results are minimal.

Author contributions

Conceptualization, methodology, and software: AS. Formal analysis: AS and YB. Writing—original draft preparation: YB, AS, ST, NNG, and NG. Writing—review and editing: AS and ZA. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fclim.2022.976427/full#supplementary-material

1. ^ Statistica.com

2. ^ https://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol?gclid=CjwKCAjw-rOaBhA9EiwAUkLV4lwCd7zjxPdYULehR8k0wOCej_nVq5gL4YMU0B1-lIol5qgiRceuLxoCfn0QAvD_BwE

Abidoye, B. O., and Odusola, A. F. (2015). Climate change and economic growth in Africa: an econometric analysis. J. Afr. Econ. 24, 277–301. doi: 10.1093/jae/eju033

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Adedayo, A., Oyun, M., and Kadeba, O. (2010). Access of rural women to forest resources and its impact on rural household welfare in North Central Nigeria. For. Policy Econ. 12, 439–450. doi: 10.1016/j.forpol.2010.04.001

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Adenle, A. A., Ford, J. D., Morton, J., Twomlow, S., Alverson, K., Cattaneo, A., et al. (2017). Managing climate change risks in Africa-A global perspective. Ecol. Econ. 141, 190–201. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.06.004

Adetoye, A. M., Okojie, L. O., and Akerele, D. (2018). Forest carbon sequestration supply function for African countries: an econometric modelling approach. For. Policy Econ . 90, 59–66. doi: 10.1016/j.forpol.2018.01.007

Adger, W. N., and Barnett, J. (2009). Four reasons for concern about adaptation to climate change, Environ . Plann. A 41, 2800–2805. doi: 10.1068/a42244

Adger, W. N., Eakin, H., and Winkels, A. (2009). Nested and teleconnected vulnerabilities to environmental change. Front. Ecol. Environ. 7, 150–157. doi: 10.1890/070148

Adzawla, W., Azumah, S. B., Anani, P. Y., and Donkoh, S. A. (2019a). Gender perspectives of climate change adaptation in two selected districts of Ghana. Heliyon 5, e02854. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e02854

Adzawla, W., Sawaneh, M., and Yusuf, A. M. (2019b). Greenhouse gasses emission and economic growth nexus of sub-Saharan Africa. Sci. Afr. 3, e 00065. doi: 10.1016/j.sciaf.2019.e00065

Ahmed, K. F., Wang, G., Yu, M., Koo, J., and You, L. (2015). Potential impact of climate change on cereal crop yield in West Africa. Clim. Change 133, 321–334. doi: 10.1007/s10584-015-1462-7

Ahmed, S. M. (2020). Impacts of drought, food security policy and climate change on performance of irrigation schemes in Sub-saharan Africa: the case of Sudan. Agric. Water Manage. 232, 106064. doi: 10.1016/j.agwat.2020.106064

Aidoo, D. C., Boateng, S. D., Freeman, C. K., and Anaglo, J. N. (2021). The effect of smallholder maize farmers' perceptions of climate change on their adaptation strategies: the case of two agro-ecological zones in Ghana. Heliyon 7, e 08307. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e08307

Akinsanola, A. A., Ongoma, V., and Kooperman, G. J. (2021). Evaluation of CMIP6 models in simulating the statistics of extreme precipitation over Eastern Africa. Atmosp. Res. 254, 105509. doi: 10.1016/j.atmosres.2021.105509

Akinyi, D. P., Karanja Ng'ang'a, S., and E.H. Girvetz. (2021). Trade-offs and synergies of climate change adaptation strategies among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review. Reg. Sustain. 2, 130–143. doi: 10.1016/j.regsus.2021.05.002

Alagidede, P., Adu, G., and Frimpong, P. B. (2016). The effect of climate change on economic growth: evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa. Environ. Econ. Policy Stud. 18, 417–436. doi: 10.1007/s10018-015-0116-3

Ali, M. M. M., and Yu, Q. (2021). Assessment of the impact of renewable energy policy on sustainable energy for all in West Africa. Renew. Energy 180, 544–551. doi: 10.1016/j.renene.2021.08.084

Alper, A., and Oguz, O. (2016). The role of renewable energy consumption in economic growth: evidence from asymmetric causality. Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 60, 953–959. doi: 10.1016/j.rser.2016.01.123

Aly, A., Bernardos, A., Fernandez-Peruchena, C. M., Jensen, S. S., and Pedersen, A. B. (2019). Is Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) a feasible option for Sub-Saharan Africa?: Investigating the techno-economic feasibility of CSP in Tanzania. Renew. Energy 135, 1224–1240. doi: 10.1016/j.renene.2018.09.065

Amouzou, K. A., Ezui, K. S., and Sogbedji, J. M. (2013). Impacts of climate variability and soil fertility management strategies on maize grain yield on ferrralsols in Coastal Western Africa. J. Renew. Agric. 1, 44–52. doi: 10.12966/jra.06.04.2013

Anuga, S. W., Chirinda, N., Nukpezah, D., Ahenkan, A., Andrieu, N., Gordon, C., et al. (2020). Towards low carbon agriculture: Systematic-narratives of climate-smart agriculture mitigation potential in Africa. Curr. Res. Environ. Sustain. 2, 100015. doi: 10.1016/j.crsust.2020.100015

Appiah, D. O., and Guodaar, L. (2021). Smallholder farmers' perceptions and knowledge on climate variability and perceived effects in vulnerable rural communities in the Offinso Municipality, Ghana. Environ. Dev. (2021) 42, 100691. doi: 10.1016/j.envdev.2021.100691

Apraku, A., Morton, J. F., and Apraku-Gyampoh, B. (2021). Climate change and small-scale agriculture in Africa: does indigenous knowledge matter? Insights from Kenya and South Africa. Sci. Afr . 12, e00821. doi: 10.1016/j.sciaf.2021.e00821

Araújo, M. B., and Rahbek, C. (2006). How does climate change affect biodiversity?, Science 313, 1396–1397. doi: 10.1126/science.1131758

Arndt, C., Schlosser, A., Strzepek, K., and Thurlow, J. (2014). Climate change and economic growth prospects for Malawi: An uncertainty approach. J. Afr. Econ. 23, ii83–ii107. doi: 10.1093/jae/eju013

Ayamolowo, O. J., Manditereza, P., and Kusakana, K. (2022). South Africa power reforms: The Path to a dominant renewable energy-sourced grid. Energy Rep. 8, 1208–1215. doi: 10.1016/j.egyr.2021.11.100

Ayanlade, A., Radeny, M., and Morton, J. F. (2017). Comparing smallholder farmers' perception of climate change with meteorological data: a case study from southwestern Nigeria. Weather Clim. Extr. 15, 24–33. doi: 10.1016/j.wace.2016.12.001

Azadi, H., Moghaddam, S. M., Burkart, S., Mahmoudi, H., Van Passel, S., Kurban, A., et al. (2021). Rethinking resilient agriculture: from climate-smart agriculture to vulnerable-smart agriculture. J. Clean. Prod. 319, 128602. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128602

Beg, N., Morlot, J. C., Davidson, O., Afrane-Okesse, Y., Tyani, L., Denton, F., et al. (2002). Linkages between climate change and sustainable development. Clim. Pol. 2, 129–144. doi: 10.3763/cpol.2002.0216

Bele, M. Y., Sonwa, D. J., and Tiani, A-. M. (2015). Adapting the Congo Basin forests management to climate change: Linkages among biodiversity, forest loss, and human well-being. For. Policy Econ . 50, 1–10. doi: 10.1016/j.forpol.2014.05.010

Berck, P., Berck, C. S., and Jacobson, T. N. (2018). A Changing Climate in a Changing Land, Agricultural Adaptation to Climate Change in Africa. London, UK: Routledge.

Google Scholar

Betsill, M., and Bulkeley, H. (2007). Looking back and thinking ahead: a decade of cities and climate change research. Local Environ. 12, 447–456. doi: 10.1080/13549830701659683

Bhattacharya, M., Paramati, S. R., Ozturk, I., and Bhattacharya, S. (2016). The effect of renewable energy consumption on economic growth: Evidence from top 38 countries. Applied Energy 162, 733–741. doi: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.10.104

Blignaut, J. N., Chitiga-Mabugu, M., and Mabugu, R. (2005). Constructing a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Using Energy Balances: The Case of South Africa for 1998 J. Energy South. Afr. 16, 21–32.

Boden, T., Andres, R., and Marland, G. (2017). Global, Regional, and National Fossil-Fuel CO2 Emissions (1751-2014)(v. 2017). Environ. System Science Data Infrastructure for a Virtual Ecosystem .

Bohle, H. G., Downing, T. E., and Watts, M. J. (1994). Climate change and social vulnerability: toward a sociology and geography of food insecurity. Glob. Environ. Change 4, 37–48. doi: 10.1016/0959-3780(94)90020-5

Branca, G., Arslan, A., Paolantonio, A., Grewer, U., Cattaneo, A., Cavatassi, R., et al. (2021). Assessing the economic and mitigation benefits of climate-smart agriculture and its implications for political economy: a case study in Southern Africa. J. Clean. Prod. 285, 125161. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125161

Brooks, N., Adger, W. N., and Kelly, P. M. (2005). The determinants of vulnerability and adaptive capacity at the national level and the implications for adaptation. Glob. Environ. Change 15, 151–163. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2004.12.006

Brown, M. E., Hintermann, B., and Higgins, N. (2009). Markets, Climate Change, and Food Security in West Africa. Washington, D.C.: ACS Publications.

PubMed Abstract | Google Scholar

Bryan, E., Deressa, T. T., Gbetibouo, G. A., and Ringler, C. (2009). Adaptation to climate change in Ethiopia and South Africa: options and constraints. Environ. Sci. policy 12, 413–426. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2008.11.002

Busby, J. W., Smith, T. G., and Krishnan, N. (2014). Climate security vulnerability in Africa mapping 3.01. Pol. Geogr. 43, 51–67. doi: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2014.10.005

Chilundo, R. J., Neves, D., and Mahanjane, U. S. (2019). Photovoltaic water pumping systems for horticultural crops irrigation: Advancements and opportunities towards a green energy strategy for Mozambique. Sustain. Energy Technol. Assess. 33, 61–68. doi: 10.1016/j.seta.2019.03.004

Connolly-Boutin, L., and Smit, B. (2016). Climate change, food security, and livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa. Reg. Environ. Change 16, 385–399. doi: 10.1007/s10113-015-0761-x

De Bakker, F. G., Groenewegen, P., and Den Hond, F. (2005). A bibliometric analysis of 30 years of research and theory on corporate social responsibility and corporate social performance. Bus. Soc. 44, 283–317. doi: 10.1177/0007650305278086

Delmas, R., Servant, J., Tathy, J., Cros, B., and Labat, M. (1992). Sources and sinks of methane and carbon dioxide exchanges in mountain forest in equatorial Africa. J. Geophy. Res. Atmosp. 97, 6169–6179. doi: 10.1029/90JD02575

Deressa, T. T., Hassan, R. M., Ringler, C., Alemu, T., and Yesuf, M. (2009). Determinants of farmers' choice of adaptation methods to climate change in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia. Glob. Environ. Change 19, 248–255. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2009.01.002

Descheemaeker, K., Oosting, S. J., Tui, S. H-. K., Masikati, P., Falconnier, G. N., Giller, K. E., et al. (2016). Climate change adaptation and mitigation in smallholder crop–livestock systems in sub-Saharan Africa: a call for integrated impact assessments. Reg. Environ. Change 16, 2331–2343. doi: 10.1007/s10113-016-0957-8

Dixon, R. K., Smith, J., and Guill, S. (2003). Life on the edge: Vulnerability and adaptation of african ecosystems to global climate change. Mitigat. Adapt. Strateg. Glob. Chang . 8, 93–113. doi: 10.1023/A:1026001626076

Donat, M., Peterson, T., Brunet, M., King, A., Almazroui, M., Kolli, R., et al. (2014). Changes in extreme temperature and precipitation in the Arab region: long-term trends and variability related to ENSO and NAO. Int. J. Climatol. 34, 581–592. doi: 10.1002/joc.3707

Douxchamps, S., Van Wijk, M. T., Silvestri, S., Moussa, A. S., Quiros, C., Ndour, N. Y. B., et al. (2016). Linking agricultural adaptation strategies, food security and vulnerability: evidence from West Africa. Reg. Environ. Change 16, 1305–1317. doi: 10.1007/s10113-015-0838-6

Dzoga, M., Simatele, D., and Munga, C. (2018). Assessment of ecological vulnerability to climate variability on coastal fishing communities: a study of Ungwana Bay and Lower Tana Estuary, Kenya. Ocean Coast. Manage. 163, 437–444. doi: 10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2018.07.015

Einecker, R., and Kirby, A. (2020). Climate change: a bibliometric study of adaptation, mitigation and resilience. Sustainability 12, 6935. doi: 10.3390/su12176935

Elum, Z. A., Modise, D. M., and Marr, A. (2017). Farmer's perception of climate change and responsive strategies in three selected provinces of South Africa. Clim. Risk Manage. 16, 246–257. doi: 10.1016/j.crm.2016.11.001

Engelbrecht, F., Adegoke, J., Bopape, M-. J., Naidoo, M., Garland, R., Thatcher, M., et al. (2015). Projections of rapidly rising surface temperatures over Africa under low mitigation. Environ. Res. Lett. 10, 085004. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/10/8/085004

Epule, T. E., Chehbouni, A., Dhiba, D., Moto, M. W., and Peng, C. (2021). African climate change policy performance index. Environ. Sustain. Indicat. 12, 100163. doi: 10.1016/j.indic.2021.100163

Fernando, A. J. (2020). How Africa is promoting agricultural innovations and technologies amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Mol. Plant 13, 1345–1346. doi: 10.1016/j.molp.2020.08.003

Ficchi, A., Cloke, H., Neves, C., Woolnough, S., de Perez, E. C., Zsoter, E., et al. (2021). Beyond El Niño: unsung climate modes drive African floods. Weather Clim. Extr. 33, 100345. doi: 10.1016/j.wace.2021.100345

Flatø, M., Muttarak, R., and Pelser, A. (2017). Women, weather, and woes: The triangular dynamics of female-headed households, economic vulnerability, and climate variability in South Africa. World Dev. 90, 41–62. doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.08.015

Fotso-Nguemo, T. C., Vondou, D. A., Pokam, W. M., Djomou, Z. Y., Diallo, I., Haensler, A., et al. (2017). On the added value of the regional climate model REMO in the assessment of climate change signal over Central Africa. Clim. Dyn. 49, 3813–3838. doi: 10.1007/s00382-017-3547-7

Frangoul (2019). From Angola to Zambia, Here are Africa's Leaders in Green Energy . Available online at: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/10/from-angola-to-zambia-here-are-africas-leaders-in-green-energy.html (accessed on 2022, 2019).

Friedrich, E., and Trois, C. (2011). Quantification of greenhouse gas emissions from waste management processes for municipalities–A comparative review focusing on Africa. Waste Manage. 31, 1585–1596. doi: 10.1016/j.wasman.2011.02.028

Gakou-Kakeu, J., Gregorio, M. D. i., Paavola, J., and Sonwa, D. J. (2022). REDD+ policy implementation and institutional interplay: Evidence from three pilot projects in Cameroon. For. Pol. Econ. 135, 102642. doi: 10.1016/j.forpol.2021.102642

Gandure, S., Walker, S., and Botha, J. (2013). Farmers' perceptions of adaptation to climate change and water stress in a South African rural community. Environ. Dev. 5, 39–53. doi: 10.1016/j.envdev.2012.11.004

Gérardeaux, E., Loison, R., Palaï, O., and Sultan, B. (2018). Adaptation strategies to climate change using cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) ideotypes in rainfed tropical cropping systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. A modeling approach. Field Crops Res. 226, 38–47. doi: 10.1016/j.fcr.2018.07.007

Gezimua, G. (2021). Prevalence of Household Food Insecurity in East Africa: Linking Food Access with Climate Vulnerability. Clim. Risk Manage. 33, 100333. doi: 10.1016/j.crm.2021.100333

Gonzalez-Sanchez, E. J., Veroz-Gonzalez, O., Conway, G., Moreno-Garcia, M., Kassam, A., Mkomwa, S., et al. (2019). Meta-analysis on carbon sequestration through Conservation Agriculture in Africa. Soil Tillage Res. 190, 22–30. doi: 10.1016/j.still.2019.02.020

Habimana Simbi, C., Lin, J., Yang, D., Ndayishimiye, J. C., Liu, Y., Li, H., et al. (2021). Decomposition and Decoupling Analysis of Carbon Dioxide Emissions in African Countries During 1984–2014.

Harrington, L. J., and Otto, F. E. L. (2020). Reconciling theory with the reality of African heatwaves. Nat. Clim. Change 10, 796–798. doi: 10.1038/s41558-020-0851-8

Hertig, E., Seubert, S., Paxian, A., Vogt, G., Paeth, H., Jacobeit, J., et al. (2014). Statistical modelling of extreme precipitation indices for the Mediterranean area under future climate change. Int. J. Climatol. 34, 1132–1156. doi: 10.1002/joc.3751

Hirsch, J. E. (2005). An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 102, 16569–16572. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0507655102

Hoegh-Guldberg, O., Jacob, D., Bindi, M., Brown, S., Camilloni, I., Diedhiou, A., et al. (2018). Impacts of 1, 5. C Global Warming on Natural and Human Systems, Global warming of 1.5 C. An IPCC Special Report .

Ifeanyi-Obi, C., Togun, A., Lamboll, R., Adesope, O., and Arokoyu, S. (2017). Challenges faced by cocoyam farmers in adapting to climate change in Southeast Nigeria. Clim. Risk Manage. 17, 155–164. doi: 10.1016/j.crm.2017.04.002

Isyaku, U. (2021). What motivates communities to participate in forest conservation? A study of REDD+ pilot sites in Cross River, Nigeria. For. Pol. Econ. 133, 102598. doi: 10.1016/j.forpol.2021.102598

Iyakaremye, V., Zeng, G., Yang, X., Zhang, G., Ullah, I., Gahigi, A., et al. (2021). Increased high-temperature extremes and associated population exposure in Africa by the mid-21st century. Sci. Total Environ. 790, 148162. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148162

Jamal, A. M., Antwi-Agyei, P., Baffour-Ata, F., Nkiaka, E., Antwi, K., Gbordzor, A., et al. (2021). Gendered perceptions and adaptation practices of smallholder cocoa farmers to climate variability in the Central Region of Ghana. Environ. Challenges 5, 100293. doi: 10.1016/j.envc.2021.100293

Janssen, M. A., Schoon, M. L., Ke, W., and Börner, K. (2006). Scholarly networks on resilience, vulnerability and adaptation within the human dimensions of global environmental change. Glob. Environ. Change 16, 240–252. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2006.04.001

Jenkins, G. S., Adamou, G., and Fongang, S. (2002). The challenges of modeling climate variability and change in West Africa. Clim.Change 52, 263–286. doi: 10.1023/A:1013741803144

Jones, C., McConnell, C., Coleman, K., Cox, P., Falloon, P., Jenkinson, D., et al. (2005). Global climate change and soil carbon stocks; predictions from two contrasting models for the turnover of organic carbon in soil. Global Change Biol. 11, 154–166. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2004.00885.x

Jost, C., Kyazze, F., Naab, J., Neelormi, S., Kinyangi, J., Zougmore, R., et al. (2016). Understanding gender dimensions of agriculture and climate change in smallholder farming communities. Clim. Dev. 8, 133–144. doi: 10.1080/17565529.2015.1050978

Knox, J., Hess, T., Daccache, A., and Wheeler, T. (2012). Climate change impacts on crop productivity in Africa and South Asia. Environ. Res. Lett. 7, 034032. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/7/3/034032

Kurukulasuriya, P., and Mendelsohn, R. (2008). Crop switching as a strategy for adapting to climate change. Afr. J. Agric. Resour. Econ. 2, 105–126. doi: 10.22004/ag.econ.56970

Lanckriet, S., Araya, T., Cornelis, W., Verfaillie, E., Poesen, J., Govaerts, B., et al. (2012). Impact of conservation agriculture on catchment runoff and soil loss under changing climate conditions in May Zeg-zeg (Ethiopia). J. Hydrol. 475, 336–349. doi: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2012.10.011

Langat, D., Maranga, E., Aboud, A., and Cheboiwo, J. (2016). Role of forest resources to local livelihoods: The case of East Mau forest ecosystem, Kenya. Int. J. For. Res. 2016. doi: 10.1155/2016/4537354

Leal Filho, W., Balogun, A-. L., Ayal, D. Y., Bethurem, E. M., Murambadoro, M., Mambo, J., et al. (2018). Strengthening climate change adaptation capacity in Africa-case studies from six major African cities and policy implications. Environ. Sci. Policy 86, 29–37. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2018.05.004

Leal Filho, W., Barbir, J., Gwenzi, J., Ayal, D., Simpson, N. P., Adeleke, L., et al. (2022a). The role of indigenous knowledge in climate change adaptation in Africa. Environ. Sci. Policy 136, 250–260. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2022.06.004

Leal Filho, W., Totin, E., Franke, J. A., Andrew, S. M., Abubakar, I. R., Azadi, H., et al. (2022b). Understanding responses to climate-related water scarcity in Africa. Sci. Total Environ. 806, 150420. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150420

Lelieveld, J., Proestos, Y., Hadjinicolaou, P., Tanarhte, M., Tyrlis, E., Zittis, G., et al. (2016). Strongly increasing heat extremes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the 21st century. Clim. Change 137, 245–260. doi: 10.1007/s10584-016-1665-6

Li, J., Wang, M-. H., and Ho, Y-. S. (2011). Trends in research on global climate change: a science citation index expanded-based analysis. Global Planet. Change 77, 13–20. doi: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2011.02.005

Liebmann, B., Hoerling, M. P., Funk, C., Bladé, I., Dole, R. M., Allured, D., et al. (2014). Understanding recent eastern Horn of Africa rainfall variability and change. J. Climate 27, 8630–8645. doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00714.1

Lobell, D. B., and Burke, M. B. (2010). On the use of statistical models to predict crop yield responses to climate change. Agric. For. Meteorol. 150, 1443–1452. doi: 10.1016/j.agrformet.2010.07.008

Lobell, D. B., Burke, M. B., Tebaldi, C., Mastrandrea, M. D., Falcon, W. P., Naylor, R. L., et al. (2008). Prioritizing climate change adaptation needs for food security in 2030. Science 319, 607–610. doi: 10.1126/science.1152339

Mahumane, G., and Mulder, P. (2019). Expanding versus greening? Long-term energy and emission transitions in Mozambique. Energy Policy 126, 145–156. doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2018.10.056

Majola, K., Xu, Y., and Kanyerere, T. (2021). Assessment of climate change impacts on groundwater-dependent ecosystems in transboundary aquifer settings with reference to the Tuli-Karoo transboundary aquifer. Ecohydrol. Hydrobiol . 22, 126–140. doi: 10.1016/j.ecohyd.2021.08.013

Marx, W., Haunschild, R., and Bornmann, L. (2017). Global warming and tea production—the bibliometric view on a newly emerging research topic. Climate 5, 46. doi: 10.3390/cli5030046

Mekonnen, A., Tessema, A., Ganewo, Z., and Haile, A. (2021). Climate change impacts on household food security and farmers adaptation strategies. J. Agric. Food Res. 6, 100197. doi: 10.1016/j.jafr.2021.100197

Moher, D., Liberati, A., Tetzlaff, J., and Altman, D. G. (2010). Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement. Int. J. Surg. 8, 336–341. doi: 10.1016/j.ijsu.2010.02.007

Moron, V., Oueslati, B., Pohl, B., Rome, S., and Janicot, S. (2016). Trends of mean temperatures and warm extremes in northern tropical Africa (1961–2014) from observed and PPCA-reconstructed time series. J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 121, 5298–5319. doi: 10.1002/2015JD024303

Mukoro, V., Gallego-Schmid, A., and Sharmina, M. (2021). Life cycle assessment of renewable energy in Africa. Sustain. Prod. Consump. 28, 1314–1332. doi: 10.1016/j.spc.2021.08.006

Müller, C., Cramer, W., Hare, W. L., and Lotze-Campen, H. (2011). Climate change risks for African agriculture. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 108, 4313–4315. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1015078108

Müller, F., Claar, S., Neumann, M., and Elsner, C. (2020). Is green a Pan-African colour? Mapping African renewable energy policies and transitions in 34 countries. Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 68, 101551. doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2020.101551

Mumo, L., Yu, J., and Fang, K. (2018). Assessing impacts of seasonal climate variability on maize yield in Kenya. Int. J. Plant Prod. 12, 297–307. doi: 10.1007/s42106-018-0027-x

Murkowski, F. H. (2000). The Kyoto protocol in not the answer to climate change. Harv. J . Legis . 37, 345. Available online at: https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/hjl37&div=20&id=&page=

Nalau, J., and Verrall, B. (2021). Mapping the evolution and current trends in climate change adaptation science. Clim. Risk Manag . 32, 100290. doi: 10.1016/j.crm.2021.100290

Nathaniel, S. P., and Adeleye, N. (2021). Environmental preservation amidst carbon emissions, energy consumption, and urbanization in selected African countries: implication for sustainability. J . Clean. Prod. 285, 125409. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125409

Ncongwane, K. P., Botai, J. O., Sivakumar, V., and Botai, C. M. (2021). A literature review of the impacts of heat stress on human health across Africa. Sustainability 13, 5312. doi: 10.3390/su13095312

Nematchoua, M. K., Orosa, J. A., and Reiter, S. (2019). Climate change: Variabilities, vulnerabilities and adaptation analysis-A case of seven cities located in seven countries of Central Africa. Urban Clim. 29, 100486. doi: 10.1016/j.uclim.2019.100486

Ngigi, S. N. (2009). Climate Change Adaptation Strategies: Water Resources Management Options for Smallholder Farming Systems in sub-Saharan Africa. New York, NY: The Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Ngoran, S. D., Dogah, K. E., and Xue, X. (2015). Assessing the impacts of climate change on water resources: The Sub-Saharan Africa perspective. J. Econ. Sustain. Dev. 6, 185–193. Available online at; https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Suinyuy-Derrick-Ngoran/publication/288181618_Assessing_the_Impacts_of_Climate_Change_on_Water_Resources_The_Sub-Saharan_Africa_Perspective/links/567ec98c08aebccc4e05de5d/Assessing-the-Impacts-of-Climate-Change-on-Water-Resources-The-Sub-Saharan-Africa-Perspective.pdf

Nicholson, S. E. (2017). Climate and climatic variability of rainfall over eastern Africa. Rev. Geophy. 55, 590–635. doi: 10.1002/2016RG000544

Nicholson, S. E., Funk, C., and Fink, A. H. (2018). Rainfall over the African continent from the 19th through the 21st century. Global Planet. Change 165, 114–127. doi: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2017.12.014

Nikiema, P. M., Sylla, M. B., Ogunjobi, K., Kebe, I., Gibba, P., Giorgi, F., et al. (2017). Multi-model CMIP5 and CORDEX simulations of historical summer temperature and precipitation variabilities over West Africa. Int. J. Climatol. 37, 2438–2450. doi: 10.1002/joc.4856

Nikulin, G., Lennard, C., Dosio, A., Kjellström, E., Chen, Y., Hänsler, A., et al. (2018). The effects of 1.5 and 2 degrees of global warming on Africa in the CORDEX ensemble. Environ. Res. Lett. 13, 065003. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/aab1b1

Njana, M. A., Mbilinyi, B., and Eliakimu, Z. (2021). The role of forests in the mitigation of global climate change: Emprical evidence from Tanzania. Environ. Challenges 100170. doi: 10.1016/j.envc.2021.100170

Nkhonjera, G. K. (2017). Understanding the impact of climate change on the dwindling water resources of South Africa, focusing mainly on Olifants River basin: a review. Environ. Sci. Policy 71, 19–29. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2017.02.004

North, M. A., Hastie, W. W., Craig, M. H., and Slotow, R. (2022). Tracing primary sources of funding for, and patterns of authorship in, climate change research in Africa. Environ. Sci. Policy 127, 196–208. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2021.10.023

Nunfam, V. F., Van Etten, E. J., Oosthuizen, J., Adusei-Asante, K., and Frimpong, K. (2019). Climate change and occupational heat stress risks and adaptation strategies of mining workers: Perspectives of supervisors and other stakeholders in Ghana. Environ. Res. 169, 147–155. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2018.11.004

Nyang'au, J. O., Mohamed, J. H., Mango, N., Makate, C., and Wangeci, A. N. (2021). Smallholder farmers' perception of climate change and adoption of climate smart agriculture practices in Masaba South Sub-county, Kisii, Kenya. Heliyon 7, e 06789. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06789

Nyboer, E. A., Liang, C., and Chapman, L. J. (2019). Assessing the vulnerability of Africa's freshwater fishes to climate change: a continent-wide trait-based analysis. Biol. Conserv. 236, 505–520. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2019.05.003

Nyiwul, L. (2021). Innovation and adaptation to climate change: Evidence from the water sector in Africa. J. Clean. Prod. 298, 126859. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126859

Nyong, A., Adesina, F., and Elasha, B. O. (2007). The value of indigenous knowledge in climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies in the African Sahel. Mitigation Adap. Strat. Global Change 12, 787–797. doi: 10.1007/s11027-007-9099-0

Ogunseitan, O. (2003). Framing environmental change in Africa: cross-scale institutional constraints on progressing from rhetoric to action against vulnerability. Glob. Environ. Change 13, 101–111. doi: 10.1016/S0959-3780(03)00004-9

Olivier, J., Bouwman, A., Berdowski, J., Veldt, C., Bloos, J., Visschedijk, A., et al. (1999). Sectoral emission inventories of greenhouse gases for 1990 on a per country basis as well as on 1 × 1. Environ. Sci. Policy 2, 241–263. doi: 10.1016/S1462-9011(99)00027-1

Ozoegwu, C. G., and Akpan, P. U. (2021). A review and appraisal of Nigeria's solar energy policy objectives and strategies against the backdrop of the renewable energy policy of the Economic Community of West African States. Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 143, 110887. doi: 10.1016/j.rser.2021.110887

Ozturk, I. (2017). The dynamic relationship between agricultural sustainability and food-energy-water poverty in a panel of selected Sub-Saharan African Countries. Energy Policy 107, 289–299. doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2017.04.048

Paeth, H., Capo-Chichi, A., and Endlicher, W. (2008). Climate change and food security in tropical West Africa—a dynamic-statistical modelling approach. Erdkunde . 62, 101–115. doi: 10.3112/erdkunde.2008.02.01

Perez, C., Jones, E., Kristjanson, P., Cramer, L., Thornton, P. K., Förch, W., et al. (2015). How resilient are farming households and communities to a changing climate in Africa? A gender-based perspective. Global Environ. Change 34, 95–107. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.06.003

Petrova, K. (2022). Floods, communal conflict and the role of local state institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa. Pol. Geogr. 92, 102511. doi: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102511

Phillips, C. A., Caldas, A., Cleetus, R., Dahl, K. A., Declet-Barreto, J., Licker, R., et al. (2020). Compound climate risks in the COVID-19 pandemic. Nat. Clim. Change 10, 586–588. doi: 10.1038/s41558-020-0804-2

Radhouane, L. (2013). Climate change impacts on North African countries and on some Tunisian economic sectors. J. Agric. Environ. Int. Dev. (JAEID) 107, 101–113. doi: 10.12895/jaeid.20131.123

Rahlao, S., Mantlana, B., Winkler, H., and Knowles, T. (2012). South Africa's national REDD+ initiative: assessing the potential of the forestry sector on climate change mitigation. Environ. Sci. Policy 17, 24–32. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2011.11.013

Rosenbloom, D., and Markard, J. (2020). A COVID-19 recovery for climate. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 368, 447–447. doi: 10.1126/science.abc4887

Roudier, P., Sultan, B., Quirion, P., and Berg, A. (2011). The impact of future climate change on West African crop yields: what does the recent literature say?. Glob. Environ. Change 21, 1073–1083. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.04.007

Russo, S., Marchese, A. F., Sillmann, J., and Immé, G. (2016). When will unusual heat waves become normal in a warming Africa?. Environ. Res. Lett. 11, 054016. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/11/5/054016

Sakah, M., Diawuo, F. A., Katzenbach, R., and Gyamfi, S. (2017). Towards a sustainable electrification in Ghana: a review of renewable energy deployment policies. Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 79, 544–557. doi: 10.1016/j.rser.2017.05.090

Saleh, M. (2021). Production-Based Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emissions in Africa in 2020, by Country . Available online at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1268395/production-based-co2-emissions-in-africa-by-country/ (accessed January 17, 2022).

Schlenker, W., and Lobell, D. B. (2010). Robust negative impacts of climate change on African agriculture. Environ. Res. Lett. 5, 014010. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/5/1/014010

Schulze, R. (1997). Impacts of global climate change in a hydrologically vulnerable region: challenges to South African hydrologists. Progr. Phys. Geogr. 21, 113–136. doi: 10.1177/030913339702100107

Semenov, M. A., and Stratonovitch, P. (2010). Use of multi-model ensembles from global climate models for assessment of climate change impacts. Clim. Res. 41, 1–14. doi: 10.3354/cr00836

Sharifi, A. (2021). Urban sustainability assessment: An overview and bibliometric analysis. Ecol. Indicat. 121, 107102. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.107102

Sharifi, A., Allam, Z., Feizizadeh, B., and Ghamari, H. (2021). Three decades of research on smart cities: mapping knowledge structure and trends. Sustainability 13, 7140. doi: 10.3390/su13137140

Sheffield, J., Wood, E. F., Chaney, N., Guan, K., Sadri, S., Yuan, X., et al. (2014). A drought monitoring and forecasting system for sub-Sahara African water resources and food security. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 95, 861–882. doi: 10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00124.1

Shindell, D., Kuylenstierna, J. C., Vignati, E., van Dingenen, R., Amann, M., Klimont, Z., et al. (2012). Simultaneously mitigating near-term climate change and improving human health and food security. Science 335, 183–189. doi: 10.1126/science.1210026

Siderius, C., Kolusu, S. R., Todd, M. C., Bhave, A., Dougill, A. J., Reason, C. J., et al. (2021). Climate variability affects water-energy-food infrastructure performance in East Africa. One Earth 4, 397–410. doi: 10.1016/j.oneear.2021.02.009

Sileshi, G. W., and Gebeyehu, S. (2021). Emerging infectious diseases threatening food security and economies in Africa. Global Food Secur 28, 100479. doi: 10.1016/j.gfs.2020.100479

Sileshi, G. W., Gebeyehu, S., and Mafongoya, P. L. (2019). The threat of alien invasive insect and mite species to food security in Africa and the need for a continent-wide response. Food Secur . 11, 763–775. doi: 10.1007/s12571-019-00930-1

Simpson, N. P., Shearing, C. D., and Dupont, B. (2019). Climate gating: a case study of emerging responses to Anthropocene Risks. Clim. Risk Manage. 26, 100196. doi: 10.1016/j.crm.2019.100196

Sintayehu, D. W. (2018). Impact of climate change on biodiversity and associated key ecosystem services in Africa: a systematic review. Ecosyst. Health Sustain. 4, 225–239. doi: 10.1080/20964129.2018.1530054

Soazafy, M. R., Osen, K., Wurz, A., Raveloaritiana, E., Martin, D. A., Ranarijaona, H. L. T., et al. (2021). Aboveground carbon stocks in Madagascar's vanilla production landscape—exploring rehabilitation through agroforestry in the light of land-use history. Glob. Ecol. Conserv. 31, e 01853. doi: 10.1016/j.gecco.2021.e01853

Soliev, I., Theesfeld, I., Abert, E., and Schramm, W. (2021). Benefit sharing and conflict transformation: Insights for and from REDD+ forest governance in sub-Saharan Africa. For. Pol. Econ . 133, 102623. doi: 10.1016/j.forpol.2021.102623

Somorin, O. A., Brown, H. C. P., Visseren-Hamakers, I. J., Sonwa, D. J., Arts, B., Nkem, J., et al. (2012). The Congo Basin forests in a changing climate: policy discourses on adaptation and mitigation (REDD+). Glob. Environ. Change 22, 288–298. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.08.001

Steynor, A., Leighton, M., Kavonic, J., Abrahams, W., Magole, L., Kaunda, S., et al. (2020). Learning from climate change perceptions in southern African cities. Clim. Risk Manage. 27, 100202. doi: 10.1016/j.crm.2019.100202

Sultan, B. (2012). Global warming threatens agricultural productivity in Africa and South Asia. Environ. Res. Lett. 7, 041001. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/7/4/041001

Swanepoel, C., Van der Laan, M., Weepener, H., Du Preez, C., and Annandale, J. G. (2016). Review and meta-analysis of organic matter in cultivated soils in southern Africa. Nutr. Cycl. Agroecosyst. 104, 107–123. doi: 10.1007/s10705-016-9763-4

Syampungani, S., Chirwa, P., Akinnifesi, F., and Ajayi, O. (2010). The potential of using agroforestry as a win-win solution to climate change mitigation and adaptation and meeting food security challenges in Southern Africa. Agric. J. 5, 80–88. doi: 10.3923/aj.2010.80.88

Talanow, K., Topp, E. N., Loos, J., and Martín-López, B. (2021). Farmers' perceptions of climate change and adaptation strategies in South Africa's Western Cape. J. Rural Stud. 81, 203–219. doi: 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2020.10.026

Tan, X-. C., Zhu, K-. W., Sun, Y-. L., Zhao, W-. Y., and Chen, F. (2021). Bibliometric research on the Dev . of climate change in the BRI regions. Adv. Clim. Change Res. 12, 254–262. doi: 10.1016/j.accre.2021.03.010

Teketay, D., Lemenih, M., Bekele, T., Yemshaw, Y., Feleke, S., Tadesse, W., et al. (2010). Forest Resources and Challenges of Sustainable Forest Management and Conservation in Ethiopia, Degraded Forests in Eastern Africa. London, UK: Routledge, 31–75.

Tenaw, D., and Hawitibo, A. L. (2021). Carbon decoupling and economic growth in Africa: Evidence from production and consumption-based carbon emissions. Resour. Environ. Sustain. 6, 100040. doi: 10.1016/j.resenv.2021.100040

Tesfaye, A., Hansen, J., Kassie, G. T., Radeny, M., and Solomon, D. (2019). Estimating the economic value of climate services for strengthening resilience of smallholder farmers to climate risks in Ethiopia: a choice experiment approach. Ecol. Econ. 162, 157–168. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.04.019

Thierfelder, C., and Mhlanga, B. (2022). Short-term yield gains or long-term sustainability?–a synthesis of Conservation Agriculture long-term experiments in Southern Africa. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 326, 107812. doi: 10.1016/j.agee.2021.107812

Thornton, P. K., Jones, P. G., Alagarswamy, G., and Andresen, J. (2009a). Spatial variation of crop yield response to climate change in East Africa. Glob. Environ. Change 19, 54–65. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2008.08.005

Thornton, P. K., van de Steeg, J., Notenbaert, A., and Herrero, M. (2009b). The impacts of climate change on livestock and livestock systems in developing countries: a review of what we know and what we need to know. Agric. Syst. 101, 113–127. doi: 10.1016/j.agsy.2009.05.002

Tongwane, M., Mdlambuzi, T., Moeletsi, M., Tsubo, M., Mliswa, V., Grootboom, L., et al. (2016). Greenhouse gas emissions from different crop production and management practices in South Africa. Environ. Dev. 19, 23–35. doi: 10.1016/j.envdev.2016.06.004

Tongwane, M. I., and Moeletsi, M. E. (2018). A review of greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector in Africa. Agric. Syst. 166, 124–134. doi: 10.1016/j.agsy.2018.08.011

Tramblay, Y., El Adlouni, S., and Servat, E. (2013). Trends and variability in extreme precipitation indices over Maghreb countries. Nat Haz Earth Syst Sci. 13, 3235–3248. doi: 10.5194/nhess-13-3235-2013

Tschora, H., and Cherubini, F. (2020). Co-benefits and trade-offs of agroforestry for climate change mitigation and other sustainability goals in West Africa. Global Ecol. Conserv. 22, e 00919. doi: 10.1016/j.gecco.2020.e00919

Tshiala, M., and Olwoch, J. M. (2010). Impact of climate variability on tomato production in Limpopo Province, South Africa. Afr. J. Agric. Res. 5, 2945–2951. Available online at: https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/16115/Tshiala_Impact%282010%29.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Urama, K. C., and Ozor, N. (2010). Impacts of climate change on water resources in Africa: the role of adaptation. Afr. Technol. Policy Stud. Netw. 29, 1–29. Availabloe online at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicholas-Ozor/publication/267218899_Impacts_of_climate_change_on_water_resources_in_Africa_the_role_of_adaptation/links/552e5ed20cf2acd38cb92f1a/Impacts-of-climate-change-on-water-resources-in-Africa-the-role-of-adaptation.pdf

Vågen, T. G., Lal, R., and Singh, B. (2005). Soil carbon sequestration in sub-Saharan Africa: a review. Land degrad. Dev. 16, 53–71. doi: 10.1002/ldr.644

van Eck, N. J., and Waltman, L. (2010). Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping. Scientometrics 84, 523–538. doi: 10.1007/s11192-009-0146-3

Vizy, E. K., and Cook, K. H. (2012). Mid-twenty-first-century changes in extreme events over northern and tropical Africa. J. Climate 25, 5748–5767. doi: 10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00693.1

Wang, B., Pan, S-. Y., Ke, R-. Y., Wang, K., and Wei, Y-. M. (2014). An overview of climate change vulnerability: a bibliometric analysis based on Web of Science database. Nat. Haz. 74, 1649–1666. doi: 10.1007/s11069-014-1260-y

Wang, Z., Zhao, Y., and Wang, B. (2018). A bibliometric analysis of climate change adaptation based on massive research literature data. J . cleaner Prod. 199, 1072–1082. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.06.183

Weforum (2021). Africa's Fastest-Growing Cities are the Most Vulnerable to Climate Change Globally . Cologny, Switzerland: World Economic Forum (weforum.org) (accessed on December 28, 2021).

Wei, Y-. M., Mi, Z-. F., and Huang, Z. (2015). Climate policy modeling: an online SCI-E and SSCI based literature review. Omega 57, 70–84. doi: 10.1016/j.omega.2014.10.011

Weiland, P. (2006). State of the art of solid-state digestion–recent developments, solid-state digestion–state of the art and further randD requirements. Gulzower Fachgespräche 24, 22–38.

Williams, P. A., Crespo, O., and Abu, M. (2019). Adapting to changing climate through improving adaptive capacity at the local level–The case of smallholder horticultural producers in Ghana. Clim. Risk Manage. 23, 124–135. doi: 10.1016/j.crm.2018.12.004

Wilson, R. J., Sailley, S. F., Jacobs, Z. L., Kamau, J., Mgeleka, S., Okemwa, G. M., et al. (2021). Large projected reductions in marine fish biomass for Kenya and Tanzania in the absence of climate mitigation. Ocean Coast. Manage. 215, 105921. doi: 10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2021.105921

Worldbank (2022). CO2 Emissions (kt) - Sub-Saharan Africa | Data . Available online at: worldbank.org (accessed on January 17, 2022).

Yang, H., Reichert, P., Abbaspour, K. C., and Zehnder, A. J. (2003). A Water Resources Threshold and its Implications for Food Security , Washington, D.C.: ACS Publications.

Zeng, N., and Neelin, J. D. (2000). The role of vegetation–climate interaction and interannual variability in shaping the African savanna. J. Climate 13, 2665–2670. doi: 10.1175/1520-0442(2000)013<2665:TROVCI>2.0.CO;2

Ziervogel, G., New, M., Archer van Garderen, E., Midgley, G., Taylor, A., Hamann, R., et al. (2014). Climate change impacts and adaptation in South Africa. Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Change 5, 605–620. doi: 10.1002/wcc.295

Zinyengere, N., Crespo, O., and Hachigonta, S. (2013). Crop response to climate change in southern Africa: a comprehensive review. Global Planet. Change 111, 118–126. doi: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2013.08.010

Keywords: climate change, adaptation, mitigation, Africa, bibliometric analysis, urbanization, vulnerability, risk

Citation: Baninla Y, Sharifi A, Allam Z, Tume SJP, Gangtar NN and George N (2022) An overview of climate change adaptation and mitigation research in Africa. Front. Clim. 4:976427. doi: 10.3389/fclim.2022.976427

Received: 23 June 2022; Accepted: 11 October 2022; Published: 28 October 2022.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2022 Baninla, Sharifi, Allam, Tume, Gangtar and George. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Ayyoob Sharifi, sharifi@hiroshima-u.ac.jp

This article is part of the Research Topic

New Challenges and Future Perspectives in Climate Adaptation: 2022

MIT Libraries home DSpace@MIT

• DSpace@MIT Home
• MIT Libraries
• Doctoral Theses

Essays on Measuring Climate Change Damages and Adaptation

Terms of use

Date issued, collections.

The Adaptation Principles: 6 Ways to Build Resilience to Climate Change

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Climate risk cannot be reduced to zero, which means governments must take decisive action to help households and businesses manage them.
• A new World Bank report, “The Adaptation Principles: A Guide for Designing Strategies for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience”, lays out 6 universal principles to help policymakers plan for adaptation…
• … Along with 26 actions, 12 tool boxes and 111 indicators.

Over the past decades, Uganda made remarkable progress in reducing poverty and boosting socio-economic development. In 1992, some 56 percent of the population was living in poverty. By 2016, that figure had fallen to 21 percent . Yet, the global economic ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of climate change are forcing the country to confront new challenges: shocks not only threaten further progress but can reverse hard won successes of the past.

Around 72 percent of Uganda’s labor force works in agriculture – a sector that is highly climate sensitive. Take coffee: Uganda is Africa’s second largest exporter of coffee. Over 17 percent of Uganda’s exports coming from just this high-value crop. Recent droughts, however, are estimated to have destroyed half of all coffee yields. In the coming decades, changing climatic conditions are expected to pose profound challenges to Uganda’s coffee sector : without adaptive measures, only 1 percent of Uganda’s current coffee producing land is expected to be able to continue production. And coffee is just one sector that could face mounting impacts from climate change: around 2.3 million poor people in Uganda also face high levels of flood risk.

In countries around the world, climate change poses a significant risk threatening the lives and livelihoods of people. These risks cannot be reduced to zero, which means governments must take decisive action to help firms and people manage them. Doing so requires planning ahead and putting in place proactive measures that not only reduce climate risk but also accelerate development, and cut poverty, according to a new report, The Adaptation Principles: A Guide for Designing Strategies for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience .

“Adaptation cannot be an afterthought to development. Instead, by integrating it into policy thinking up front, governments can catalyze robust economic development while also reducing vulnerability to climate change,” says Lead Economist, Stéphane Hallegatte , who co-authored the report with Jun Rentschler and Julie Rozenberg, all of the World Bank.

The report lays out six universal “Principles of Adaptation and Resilience” and 26 concrete actions that governments can use to develop effective strategies. To support the development and design of these actions, it also includes 12 toolboxes with methodologies and data sources that can ensure that strategies are evidence-based.  

1. Build resilient foundations with rapid and inclusive development

Poverty and the lack of access to basic services—including infrastructure, financial services, health care, and social protection—are strong predictors of vulnerability to climate change . To put it another way: the poorer communities are, the more climate change will affect them. No adaptation strategy can be successful without ensuring high-vulnerability populations have the financial, technical, and institutional resources they need to adapt.

2. Help people and firms do their part.

It’s critical to boost the adaptive capacity of households and firms: many already have incentives to adapt, but they need help overcoming obstacles, ranging from a lack of information and financing, to behavioral biases and imperfect markets. Governments can make information on climate risks available, clarify responsibilities and liabilities, support innovation and access to the best technologies , and ensure financing is available to all especially for solutions that come with high upfront costs. And they will also need to provide direct support to the poorest people, who cannot afford to invest in adaptation but are the most vulnerable to experiencing devastating effects of climate change .

3. Revise land use plans and protect critical infrastructure.

In addition to direct support to households and businesses, governments must also play a role in protecting public investments, assets, and services. Power and water outages and transport disruptions are estimated to cost more than $390 billion per year already in developing countries. But if countries have the right data, risk models, and decision-making methods available, the incremental cost of building the resilience of new infrastructure assets is small—only around 3 percent of total investments. Urban and land use plans are also important responsibilities of the public sector, and they influence massive private investments in housing and productive assets, so it is vital these adapt to evolving long-term climate risks to avoid locking people into high-risk areas.

4. Help people and firms recover faster and better.

Risks and impacts cannot be reduced to zero. Governments must develop strategies to ensure that when disasters do occur, people and firms can cope without devastating long-term consequences, and can recover quickly. Preparation such as better hydromet data , early warning and emergency management systems reduces physical damage and economic losses—for example, shuttering windows ahead of a hurricane can reduce damage by up to 50 percent. The benefits of providing universal access to early warning systems globally have been repeatedly found to largely exceed costs, by factors of at least 4 to 10 . And then, financial inclusion, such as access to emergency borrowing, and social protection are essential ways to help firms and people get back on their feet. Adaptive social protection systems , which can be rapidly scaled up to cover more people and provide bigger support after a disaster, are particularly efficient, but they rely on delivery and finance mechanisms that have to be created before a crisis occurs.

5. Manage impacts at the macro level.

Coping with climate change impacts in one economic sector is already complicated. Coping with climate change impacts in all sectors at once requires strategic planning at the highest levels. Through many impacts in many sectors ---  from floods affecting housing prices to changes in ecosystems affecting agriculture productivity --- climate change will affect the macroeconomic situation and tax revenues. Some impacts on major sectors (especially exporting ones) can affect a country’s trade balance and capital flows. And spending needs for adaptation and resilience need to be added on top of existing contingent liabilities and current debt levels to create further pressure on public finances. The combination of these factors may result in new risks for macroeconomic stability, public finances and debt sustainability, and the broader financial sector. Governments will need to manage these risks . Because of the massive uncertainty that surrounds macroeconomic estimates of future climate change impacts, strategies to build the resilience of the economy, especially through appropriate diversification of the economic structure, export composition and tax base, are particularly attractive over the short term.

6. Prioritize according to needs, implement across sectors and monitor progress.

Governments must not only prioritize actions to make them compatible with available resources and capacity; they must also establish a robust institutional and legal framework , and a consistent system for monitoring progress. The main objective of an adaptation and resilience strategy is not to implement stand-alone projects: it is to ensure that all government departments and public agencies adopt and mainstream the strategy in all their decisions, and that governments continuously monitor and evaluate the impact of their decisions and actions, so they can address any challenges and adjust their actions accordingly.

The report provides a range of practical tools that can help governments implement adaptation strategies. For instance, economic analysis methodologies can help to select the most important interventions, and budget tagging methods can ensure spending is consistent with expectations. A set of 111 indicators is also provided to enable governments to track progress toward greater resilience, to identify areas that are lagging behind, and to prioritize effective measures. It also sheds light on how the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic crisis can affect the design of an adaptation and resilience strategy, recognizing how it has changed the development landscape in all countries.

The impacts of climate change are already here and fast increasing and there is no silver bullet to prevent them. Proactive and robust actions ahead of time, however, can go a long way to helping people and communities so that when a natural disaster strikes, not only are they better prepared to respond, but hard-won development gains are not lost.

Join us on Tuesday, December 1 2020, for a discussion on the main findings of this report .

“The Adaptation Principles: A Guide for Designing Strategies for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience” was produced with financial support from the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery .

• Report: The Adaptation Principles - A Guide for Designing Strategies for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience
• Infographic: The Adaptation Principles at a Glance

This site uses cookies to optimize functionality and give you the best possible experience. If you continue to navigate this website beyond this page, cookies will be placed on your browser. To learn more about cookies, click here .

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

The Darkest Timeline

“Deep Adaptation” made people confront the end of the world from climate change. Does it matter if it’s not correct?

By Jonah E. Bromwich

Two years ago, an influential paper suggested that we were too late to save the world.

This paper helped rewrite the direction of British universities, played a major role in reshaping the missions of climate organizations and religious institutions, had a significant impact on British activism and has been translated into at least nine languages. It made its author into something of a climate change messiah.

The report’s prediction of an imminent and unavoidable “societal collapse” from climate change had a striking and immediate effect on many of its readers. Andrew Medhurst, a longtime banker, cited it as one of four factors that made him leave his job in finance to become a radical climate activist. Joy Carter, the head of a British university, moved immediately to incorporate it into her curriculum.

Alison Green, then an academic, printed it out and passed it out at executive meetings at her university. Galen Hall, now a researcher in the climate and development lab at Brown University, said that it led him to question the value of the climate activism to which he had been committed.

Other high-profile papers, like “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene,” also from 2018, and Timothy Lenton’s overview of tipping points , published in Nature the following year, have galvanized the climate movement. But this self-published paper, “Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating the Climate Tragedy,” had a different, more personal, feel.

The paper’s central thought is that we must accept that nothing can reverse humanity’s fate and we must adapt accordingly. And the paper’s bleak, vivid details — emphasizing that the end is truly nigh, and that it will be gruesome — clearly resonated.

“When I say starvation, destruction, migration, disease and war, I mean in your own life,” wrote the author, Jem Bendell. “With the power down, soon you wouldn’t have water coming out of your tap. You will depend on your neighbors for food and some warmth. You will become malnourished. You won’t know whether to stay or go. You will fear being violently killed before starving to death.”

Since publication, much of the way the science is summarized in the paper has been debunked by climatologists. But even if the math doesn’t add up, does that make the dark conclusion any less meaningful?

The most active Deep Adaptation forum is on Facebook , though believers can gather on other platforms, including LinkedIn. The forums were established by Mr. Bendell, 48.

“I had about 800 unsolicited emails in my inbox,” Mr. Bendell said, recalling the time shortly after publication. “I decided I’d launch a forum so all these 800 people could talk to each other.”

The forums were established for people who felt wide-awake after reading the paper. Psychologists who wanted to change their practices to help those who had been uprooted by climate change; retired bankers in New York who wanted to introduce Mr. Bendell to their networks; single mothers who couldn’t stop crying when they looked at their young children.

Despair was an immediate pitfall. Because the groups attracted people who believed that human extinction was imminent, many talked about suicide. (Forum rules on Facebook bar the “discussion of suicide methods”; other rules bar discussion of climate news, asking participants to focus instead on how to adapt.)

“It did have an uncomfortable cult kind of feel about it,” said Ms. Green, now the executive director of Scientists Warning. She left the forum because she didn’t feel qualified to counsel someone considering suicide.

But despair wasn’t all that bound Deep Adaptation’s more dedicated adherents. David Baum, a 60-year-old Seattle mystic, “latched on to the spiritual implications.”

“Jem has the most massive intellectual bandwidth I have ever encountered,” he said. “He is one of the best writers alive today. And he has coped magnificently with unexpected celebrity based on a very difficult role that he is being asked to play.”

Mr. Bendell, who is a professor of sustainability leadership at the University of Cumbria in England, said: “My own conclusion that it is too late to prevent a breakdown in modern civilization in most countries within our lifetimes is not purely based on an assessment of climate science.”

“It’s based on my view of society, politics, economics from having worked on probably 25 countries across five continents, worked in the intergovernmental sector of the U.N., been part of the World Economic Forum, working in senior management in environmental groups, being on boards of investment funds,” he said. “You know, I’ve been a jack-of-all-trades.”

Others took comfort in the certainty of Mr. Bendell’s assessment. There was little of the unknown associated with usual scientific forecasting. Even those who thoroughly disagree understand that appeal.

“It’s really difficult to look at those probability distributions and know what to do,” said Kate Marvel, a climate scientist at Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. “I personally just want to be told, ‘This is what will happen. This is what you should do right now.’”

Mr. Bendell said that full apprehension of the extent of the climate crisis is naturally deeply shocking. That, he said, was why the forums needed to exist, as well as why he created the retreats he began hosting in 2019.

For the first retreat, a “safely held and gently facilitated space” to be held on Mount Pelion in Greece, Mr. Bendell emphasized that the focus would be on the inner lives of the participants.

“The focus is on inner adaptation rather than policies for reducing the harm from societal collapse,” he wrote .

The retreat cost 520 euros to 820 euros, depending on the participant’s choice of lodging. Mr. Bendell said he didn’t take any money from it personally because “I don’t need it. And it will complicate my tax affairs.”

Shu Liang, 42, the head of a Dutch climate action organization called Day of Adaptation, attended. She had a marvelous time, bonding closely with other attendees, with whom she has kept in touch.

“It was quite a rejuvenating experience” she said.

Ms. Liang described the morning exercises. In one, she said, a mini-shrine was set up in the middle of the room, adorned with objects including a rock and a piece of driftwood. Participants were asked to hold the objects and talk about what they represented. For Ms. Liang, the rock represented the burden of having to work on climate change.

In another exercise, participants were given a set of archetypes — including the warrior, the leader and the caregiver — and asked to choose one that they’d like to embody in a time of crisis.

A third exercise, designed in part by Mr. Bendell, was called “Death to the Experts.” Participants wrote down words that they associated with experts and threw the papers into a fire.

Mr. Bendell said that this exercise was intended to diminish the cultish aspects of his own authority. “We realized that people who are coming all the way to a retreat from around the world that I’m hosting are coming because of the fact that I’m doing it,” he said. “And yet we wanted to emphasize that I’m not the person who can tell you how to make sense of this.”

Earlier this year, Emily Atkin, an environmental journalist who had not even heard of Deep Adaptation — let alone read it — wrote about a repeating cycle she’d observed.

“The phenomenon is some dude who is really smart in some other way, and has expertise in something else, perhaps stumbles upon climate change, takes about one month to a year to think about it — and then decides that all of a sudden they have the solution that nobody else has thought about,” she said, asked to explain the pattern in an interview. “And they don’t consult with a diverse array of experts before releasing it. They do reporting that confirms their own biases.

“And then they put out a product that uses very strong language, stronger language than the evidence that they have justifies, to paint a picture that the reason we haven’t solved this is because everyone has been wrong. No one has thought of their great idea yet. And the idea is, honestly, usually that we’re screwed.”

One criticism that emerged of Deep Adaptation more specifically was that this vague forthcoming disaster that Mr. Bendell was describing was already happening to many people — just not yet to the Western academics, bankers and journalists whose interests he had piqued.

Justine Huxley, the chief executive of St. Ethelburga’s Center for Reconciliation and Peace in London, said that the paper had strongly influenced the center’s work, but that some reality needed to be taken into account.

“The first thing that we did was really try and weave climate justice in how we teach it,” she said. “Because I think there was a real danger in the early days of the Deep Adaptation movement starting up was that it kind of looks like a bunch of privileged white people coming to terms with a reality that half of the global south is already living in the middle of.”

Another criticism that emerged was that the central fatalism of Deep Adaptation was based on misunderstood science. According to these critics, if you strip away the misconceptions, there’s room for the hope that Mr. Bendell has cast aside.

After his self-publication, the paper attracted criticism by climate scientists. (The paper was submitted to and rejected by a peer-reviewed sustainability journal. Mr. Bendell has framed the rejection almost as an advertisement of his paper’s provocation and import. He compared it to submitting a paper that says dental health is pointless to a journal of dentistry.)

Gavin Schmidt, a colleague of Dr. Marvel’s at the NASA Goddard Institute, corresponded with Mr. Bendell directly about his concerns. Mr. Bendell wrote a blog post about that experience in February . He ended with: “None of the conclusions from the climate science section of the paper need to be retracted.”

Dr. Marvel reviewed some of the science in the paper more recently and said that it was filled with errors and misconceptions. For instance, Mr. Bendell writes that the loss of the reflective power of ice in the Arctic is such that even a removal of a quarter of the cumulative carbon dioxide emissions of the last three decades would be outweighed by the damage already done.

Dr. Marvel said that this represents a basic misunderstanding. Though ice melting represented a feedback loop, she said, in which an effect of the climate becoming warmer itself contributed to further warming, there was a conflation in Mr. Bendell’s thought between that feedback loop and a so-called tipping point.

“It’s not an example of a tipping point,” she said. “This is something that is well understood. You make it warm. You get rid of ice. You make it cold. You get ice.”

Mr. Bendell provided a list of other scientists who supported him. He said climatology was too big a field for Dr. Marvel or Mr. Schmidt to be able to assess his claims knowledgeably and recommended against “establishment figures in climatology” altogether.

“You shouldn’t be talking to Kate Marvel or whatever,” he said. “Just actually go and look at the stuff yourself.”

As it happens, someone did.

Galen Hall, the 23-year-old Brown University researcher, was studying at Oxford when Deep Adaptation was published. He had joined Extinction Rebellion, a group of British climate activists, and became friends with a fellow member, Tom Nicholas, a doctoral candidate in computational physics. The paper had a profound effect on both of them, and on their network. A friend of Mr. Nicholas’s dropped out of university, believing that his studies were futile.

Mr. Nicholas had become familiar with Deep Adaptation when he started to hear the paper’s worldview parroted by activists.

“I basically noticed undercurrents of things I thought were scientifically dodgy being repeated again and again within Extinction Rebellion circles,” he said. “And then when I read Deep Adaptation paper I was like, ‘Ah, that’s where all of this is coming from.’”

Mr. Hall and Mr. Nicholas, 26, came to believe that Deep Adaptation was wrong to teach people that the struggle was already lost. In the fall of 2019, they decided to write a rebuttal.

“The fundamental battle in climate change right now is whether or not we can understand it as a primarily political struggle — rather than a scientific or natural struggle — and then win that struggle,” Mr. Hall said. “Deep Adaptation or fatalism in general is just one way of depoliticizing it because it puts everything up to inhuman forces.”

In July, with Colleen Schmidt, who is 24 and has a degree in environmental biology from Columbia — and who acted as their de facto editor — they published a paper.

“I would call it a hit piece on the paper and by implication, the framework and the movement,” Mr. Bendell said. “It was quite upsetting, and I wasn’t sure how best to respond.”

About two weeks after Mr. Hall, Mr. Nicholas and Ms. Schmidt published their paper, Mr. Bendell released a second version of his Deep Adaptation paper.

“This paper appears to have an iconic status amongst some people who criticize others for anticipating societal collapse,” he writes. “Therefore, two years on from initial publication, I am releasing this update.”

The stark statement that had opened the original paper was altered. Once, it had said its purpose was to provide readers “with an opportunity to reassess their work and life in the face of an inevitable near term social collapse due to climate change.” Now, to emphasize that the idea remains unproven, it reads “in the face of what I believe to be an inevitable near-term societal collapse.” Mr. Bendell added a sentence stating plainly that the paper does not prove that inevitability.

As the summer of 2020 ended, he announced on his blog that he would be stepping back from the Deep Adaptation forum, a decision he said he’d been planning for a year.

In this quiet, he is working on a new paper. In it, he said, he plans to explain exactly how the coming catastrophe of our society will play itself out, describing the starvation and mass death that so many anticipate.

The three young people who wrote the paper rebutting Deep Adaptation agree that the climate crisis has already resulted in horrific loss and that it will continue to exact a heavy toll. But they also believe that governments around the world can still make a difference and should be held to account, instead of being lulled into inaction by despair.

“ We’ve lost some things,” Ms. Schmidt said. “We could lose everything. But there is no reason not to try and make what can work, work.”

“Even if you somehow knew that the chance of success was small,” Mr. Nicholas said, “you would still be morally obligated to try your best to limit the damages and to keep working.”

Jonah Engel Bromwich is a courts reporter for The New York Times metro desk. More about Jonah E. Bromwich

• < Previous

Home > Theses and Dissertations > Dissertations > All Dissertations > 1388

All Dissertations

Essays on adaptation to climate change.

Margarita Portnykh , Clemson University Follow

Date of Award

Document type.

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Legacy Department

Committee chair/advisor.

Mroz, Thomas A

Committee Member

Dougan, William R

Climate change represents a formidable challenge for mankind going forward. It is important to understand its effects. In this thesis I study how people adopt to climate change and argue that these responses could go a long way towards mitigating the effects of climate change. I show that in some cases accounting for such adaptation could completely reverse the negative effects of climate change. In the first chapter of my thesis I consider the general impact of adaptation without focusing on a particular adaptation mechanism studying mortality in Russia. Using regional monthly mortality and daily temperature data, I estimate a flexible non-parametric relation between weather and mortality. I find evidence that regions are better adapted to temperature ranges they experience more frequently. In particular, damages from the high heat are smaller in regions where the average summer temperature is higher and damages from cold are lower in regions where winters are usually more severe. On the basis of these estimates I propose a novel way to account for adaptation to climate change without restricting attention to one particular channel. Namely, I assume that if some currently cold region in the future will be exposed to the high heat on a regular basis, then its (future) response will be similar to the present response of a warmer region which currently is exposed to such heat on a regular basis. I illustrate my approach constructing predictions for the impact of climate change on mortality using business- as-usual temperature predictions from several climate change models. I find that the no- adaptation specification predicts 0.7 percent increase in mortality by 2070-2099. When adaptation response is taken into account, however, I forecast a decrease in mortality by 1 percent by 2070-2099. In the second chapter of my thesis I study migration as an adaptation mechanism to climate change. I estimate a discrete location choice model, in which households choose residence locations on the basis of potential earnings, moving costs, climate amenities, and population density. I treat population density as endogenous using geological structure as an instrument. This model allows me to estimate counterfactual migratory responses and welfare changes resulting from non-marginal changes in temperature, such as these predicted by most climate models. I also account for general equilibrium effects on population densities arising from individual migration decisions. I find that the costs of climate change are likely to be quite large. In the absence of migration, American households would require their incomes to increase by 20-30 percent on average to attain their present day level of utility. The distribution of those costs is uneven across geographical locations. Some areas in the South would require more than 50 percent increases in terms of current incomes, while some northern locations actually see benefits around 20 percent. Allowing for migratory responses decrease those extremes considerably because of the resulting shifts in population densities. For the hardest hit areas, migration would reduce the costs by more than 10 percent (4-5 percentage points). Areas benefiting the most from climate change without migration would see their benefits reduced due to migratory inflows from other locations.

Recommended Citation

Portnykh, Margarita, "ESSAYS ON ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE" (2014). All Dissertations . 1388. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/1388

Since September 11, 2014

Included in

Economics Commons

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately, you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.

Advanced Search

• Notify me via email or RSS
• All Collections
• Expert Gallery
• Theses & Dissertations
• Selected Works Gallery
• Student Works
• Conferences
• Open Access Fund Collection
• Historic Collections

Useful Links

• Author Resources
• Author Rights
• Scholarly Publishing Information
• Graduate School

Home | About | FAQ | My Account | Accessibility Statement

Privacy Copyright

• Review Paper
• Open access
• Published: 14 January 2015

Climate change impacts and adaptation in forest management: a review

• Rodney J. Keenan 1  

Annals of Forest Science volume  72 ,  pages 145–167 ( 2015 ) Cite this article

50k Accesses

348 Citations

45 Altmetric

Metrics details

Key message

Adaptation of forest management to climate change requires an understanding of the effects of climate on forests, industries and communities; prediction of how these effects might change over time; and incorporation of this knowledge into management decisions. This requires multiple forms of knowledge and new approaches to forest management decisions. Partnerships that integrate researchers from multiple disciplines with forest managers and local actors can build a shared understanding of future challenges and facilitate improved decision making in the face of climate change.

Climate change presents significant potential risks to forests and challenges for forest managers. Adaptation to climate change involves monitoring and anticipating change and undertaking actions to avoid the negative consequences and to take advantage of potential benefits of those changes.

This paper aimed to review recent research on climate change impacts and management options for adaptation to climate change and to identify key themes for researchers and for forest managers.

The study is based on a review of literature on climate change impacts on forests and adaptation options for forest management identified in the Web of Science database, focusing on papers and reports published between 1945 and 2013.

One thousand one hundred seventy-two papers were identified in the search, with the vast majority of papers published from 1986 to 2013. Seventy-six percent of papers involved assessment of climate change impacts or the sensitivity or vulnerability of forests to climate change and 11 % (130) considered adaptation. Important themes from the analysis included (i) predicting species and ecosystem responses to future climate, (ii) adaptation actions in forest management, (iii) new approaches and tools for decision making under uncertainty and stronger partnerships between researchers and practitioners and (iv) policy arrangements for adaptation in forest management.

Conclusions

Research to support adaptation to climate change is still heavily focused on assessing impacts and vulnerability. However, more refined impact assessments are not necessarily leading to better management decisions. Multi-disciplinary research approaches are emerging that integrate traditional forest ecosystem sciences with social, economic and behavioural sciences to improve decision making. Implementing adaptation options is best achieved by building a shared understanding of future challenges among different institutions, agencies, forest owners and stakeholders. Research-policy-practice partnerships that recognise local management needs and indigenous knowledge and integrate these with climate and ecosystem science can facilitate improved decision making.

1 Introduction

Anthropogenic climate change presents potential risks to forests and future challenges for forest managers. Responding to climate change, through both mitigation and adaptation, may represent a paradigm shift for forest managers and researchers (Schoene and Bernier 2012 ). Climate change is resulting in increasing air temperature and changing precipitation regimes, including changes to snowfall and to the timing, amount and inter-annual variability of rainfall (IPCC 2013 ). Forests are widespread, long-lived ecosystems that are both intensively and extensively managed. They are potentially sensitive to these longer term climatic changes, as are the societies and economies that depend on them (Bernier and Schöne 2009 ). Climate change increases the potential consequences of many existing challenges associated with environmental, social or economic change.

Whilst forest ecosystems are resilient and many species and ecosystems have adapted historically to changing conditions, future changes are potentially of such magnitudes or will occur at rates that are beyond the natural adaptive capacity of forest species or ecosystems, leading to local extinctions and the loss of important functions and services, including reduced forest carbon stocks and sequestration capacity (Seppälä et al. 2009 ).

Recent global warming has already caused many changes in forests (Lucier et al. 2009 ). Aspects of climate change may be positive for some tree species in some locations. Tree growth is observed to be increasing in some locations under longer growing seasons, warmer temperatures and increased levels of CO 2 . However, many projected future changes in climate and their indirect effects are likely to have negative consequences for forests. Observed shifts in vegetation distribution (Kelly and Goulden 2008 ; Lenoir et al. 2010 ) or increased tree mortality due to drought and heat in forests worldwide (Allen et al. 2010 ) may not be due to human-induced climate change but demonstrate the potential impacts of rapid climate change. These impacts may be aggravated by other human-induced environmental changes such as increases in low elevation ozone concentrations, nitrogenous pollutant deposition, the introduction of exotic insect pests and pathogens, habitat fragmentation and increased disturbances such as fire (Bernier and Schöne 2009 ). Other effects of climate change may also be important for forests. Sea level rise is already impacting on tidal freshwater forests (Doyle et al. 2010 ) and tidal saltwater forests (mangroves) are expanding landward in sub-tropical coastal reaches taking over freshwater marsh and forest zones (Di Nitto et al. 2014 ).

With projected future change, species ranges will expand or contract, the geographic location of ecological zones will shift, forest ecosystem productivity will change and ecosystems could reorganise following disturbances into ecological systems with no current analogue (Campbell et al. 2009 ; Fischlin et al. 2009 ). Forests types differ in their sensitivity to climatic change. Bernier and Schöne ( 2009 ) considered boreal, mountain, Mediterranean, mangrove and tropical moist forests most vulnerable to climate change. However, there has been recent debate about the vulnerability of tropical moist forests (Corlett 2011 ; Huntingford et al. 2013 ; Feeley et al. 2012 ), and temperate forests in areas subject to drier climates may be more at risk (Choat et al. 2012 ).

Adapting to these changing and uncertain future conditions can be considered from a number of perspectives (McEvoy et al. 2013 ). Policy and management might be directed at avoiding or reducing the impact of climate-related events, reducing vulnerability to future climatic conditions, managing a broader suite of climate ‘risks’ or increasing resilience and capacity in forest ecological and production systems to recover from climate ‘shocks’.

Adapting forest management to climate change involves monitoring and anticipating change and undertaking actions to avoid the negative consequences or take advantage of potential benefits of those changes (Levina and Tirpak 2006 ). Adopting the principles and practices of sustainable forest management (SFM) can provide a sound basis for addressing the challenges of climate change. However, Innes et al. ( 2009 ) pointed out that our failure to implement the multi-faceted components of sustainable forest management in many forests around the world is likely to limit capacity to adapt to climate change. Forest managers will need to plan at multiple spatial and temporal scales and adopt more adaptive and collaborative management approaches to meet future challenges.

Whilst forest managers are accustomed to thinking in long time scales—considering the long-term implications of their decisions and factoring in uncertainty and unknowns into management—many are now responding to much shorter term social or economic imperatives. Local forestry practices are often based on an implicit assumption that local climate conditions will remain constant (Guariguata et al. 2008 ). Other social and economic changes will also continue to drive changes in forest management (Ince et al. 2011 ). For example, a growing global population, rapid economic development and increased wealth are driving demand for food and fibre crops and forest conversion to agriculture in many developing countries (Gibbs et al. 2010 ). Climate change mitigation objectives are increasing demands for wood-based bioenergy and the use of wood in construction and industrial systems. Increasing urbanisation is changing the nature of social demands on forests, and decreasing rural populations is limiting the availability of labour and capacity for intensive forest management interventions.

Ecosystem-based adaptation is being promoted as having the potential to incorporate sustainable management, conservation and restoration of ecosystems into adaptation to climate change (IUCN 2008 ). This can be achieved more effectively by integrating ecosystem management and adaptation into national development policies through education and outreach to raise societal awareness about the value of ecosystem services (Vignola et al. 2009 ).

Kimmins ( 2002 ) invoked the term ‘future shock’, first coined by Toffler ( 1970 ) to describe the situation where societal expectations from forests were changing faster than the institutional capacity for change in forest management organisations. The pace of climate change is likely to intensify this phenomenon. Empirically based management based on traditional ‘evidence-based’ approaches therefore will potentially not develop quickly enough for development of effective future management options. How can managers consider rapid change and incorporate the prospect of very different, but uncertain, future climatic conditions into their management decisions? What types of tools are needed to improve decision making capacity?

This study aimed to review the literature on studies to support forest management in a changing climate. It builds on the major review of Seppala ( 2009 ), in particular Chapter 6 of that report by Innes et al. ( 2009 ).

The study involved a systematic assessment of the literature based on the database Web of Science (Thomson-Reuters 2014 ), an online scientific citation indexing service that provides the capacity to search multiple databases, allowing in-depth exploration of the literature within an academic or scientific discipline.

The following search terms were used in the titles of publications:

(forest* or tree* or (terrestrial and ecosystem)) and climat* and (adapt* or impact* or effect* or respons*) and

(forest* or tree*) and climat* and vulnerabilit* or sensitivit*)

The search was restricted to publications between 1945 and 2013. References related solely to climate change mitigation were excluded, as were references where the word ‘climate’ simply referred to a study in a particular climatic zone. This left a database of 1172 publications for analyses (a spreadsheet of the papers revealed in the search can be obtained from the author). References were classified into various types of studies and different regions, again based on the titles. Not all papers identified in the search are referenced. The selection of themes for discussion and papers for citation was a subjective one, based on scanning abstracts and results from relevant individual papers. The focus was important themes from key papers and literature from the last 5 years. The review includes additional papers not revealed in the search relating to these themes including selected papers from the literature in the year 2014.

Of the published papers relating to climate impacts or adaptation selected for analysis, the vast majority of papers were published from 1986 onwards. The earliest paper dated from 1949 (Gentilli 1949 ) analysing the effects of trees on climate, water and soil. Most studies prior to 1986 (and even some published later) focused on the effects of trees on local or wider regional climate (Lal and Cummings 1979 ; Otterman et al. 1984 ; Bonan et al. 1992 ), the implications of climate variability (Hansenbristow et al. 1988 ; Ettl and Peterson 1995 ; Chen et al. 1999 ), studies of tree and forest responses across climatic gradients (Grubb and Whitmore 1966 ; Bongers et al. 1999 ; Davidar et al. 2007 ) or responses to historical climate (Macdonald et al. 1993 ; Huntley 1990 ; Graumlich 1993 ).

One thousand twenty-six papers specifically addressed future climate change (rather than historical climate or gradient analysis). Of these, 88 % studied impacts, effects, vulnerability or responses to climate change in tree species, forests, forest ecosystems or the forest sector (Fig.  1 ). The first study analysing the potential impacts of future climate change on terrestrial ecosystems was published in 1985 (Emanuel et al. 1985 ) with other highly cited papers soon after (Pastor and Post 1988 ; Cannell et al. 1989 ).

Publication numbers by publication year for publications relating to climate change and forests from a search of the Web of Science database to the end of 2013 (1025 in total, 896 publications studied climate change impacts, responses or vulnerability, 129 studied adaptation)

Twelve percent of papers (129) considered adaptation options, including 10 papers on adaptation in the forest sector. The first papers to focus on adaptation in the context of climate change were in 1996 with a number of papers published in that year (Kienast et al. 1996 ; Kobak et al. 1996 ; Dixon et al. 1996 ). Publications were then relatively few each year until the late 2000s with numbers increasing to 11 in 2009, 22 in 2010 and 27 in 2011. Publications on adaptation dropped to 14 papers in 2013. The ratio of adaptation-related papers has increased more recently, with 19 % of total publications on adaptation in the last 5 years. Most papers considering adaptation since the early 2000s have related to the integration of adaptation and forest management (e.g. Lindner 2000 ; Spittlehouse 2005 ; Kellomaki et al. 2008 ; Guariguata 2009 ; Bolte et al. 2009 ; Keskitalo 2011 ; Keenan 2012 ; Temperli et al. 2012 ).

Analyses of the implications of climate change for the forest sector have focused heavily on North America: Canada (Ohlson et al. 2005 ; Van Damme 2008 ; Rayner et al. 2013 ; Johnston et al. 2012 ) and the USA (Joyce et al. 1995 ; Blate et al. 2009 ; Kerhoulas et al. 2013 ); and Europe (Karjalainen et al. 2003 ; von Detten and Faber 2013 ). There has been a stronger consideration in recent years of social, institutional and policy issues (Ogden and Innes 2007b ; Kalame et al. 2011 ; Nkem et al. 2010 ; Spies et al. 2010 ; Somorin et al. 2012 ) and the assessment of adaptive capacity in forest management organisations and in society more generally (Keskitalo 2008 ; Lindner et al. 2010 ; Bele et al. 2013a ).

Regionally, there have been relatively few published journal articles on impacts or adaptation in forests in the Southern Hemisphere (Hughes et al. 1996 ; Williams 2000 ; Pinkard et al. 2010 ; Gonzalez et al. 2011 ; Mok et al. 2012 ; Breed et al. 2013 ), although there have been more studies in the grey literature for Australian forests (Battaglia et al. 2009 ; Cockfield et al. 2011 ; Medlyn et al. 2011 ; Stephens et al. 2012 ). There have been some valuable analyses for the tropics (Guariguata et al. 2008 , 2012 ; Somorin et al. 2012 ; Feeley et al. 2012 ).

Analysis of the publications identified the following key themes: (i) predicting species and ecosystem responses to future climate, (ii) adaptation actions in forest management, (iii) new approaches and tools for decision making under uncertainty and stronger partnerships between researchers and practitioners and (iv) policy arrangements for adaptation in forest management. These are discussed in more detail below.

3.1 Predicting species and ecosystem responses to future climate

Forest managers have long used climatic information in a range of ways in planning and decision making. Climate information has been used extensively to define and map vegetation types and ecological zones and for modelling habitat distributions of vertebrates and invertebrates (Daubenmire 1978 ; Pojar et al. 1987 ; Thackway and Cresswell 1992 ), for species and provenance selection (Booth et al. 1988 ; Booth 1990 ) and seed zone identification (Johnson et al. 2004 ), for forest fire weather risk assessment and fire behaviour modelling (Carvalho et al. 2008 ), for modelling forest productivity (Battaglia et al. 2004 ) and analysing the dynamics of a range of ecological processes (Anderson 1991 ; Breymeyer and Melillo 1991 ). Predicting species responses to future climate change presents a different set of challenges, involving consideration of predictions of future climate that are often outside the historical range of variability of many species. These challenges are discussed in the next section.

3.1.1 Species responses to climate

Aitken et al. ( 2008 ) argued that there were three possible fates for forest tree populations in rapidly changing climatic conditions: persistence through spatial migration to track their ecological niches, persistence through adaptation to new conditions in current locations or the extirpation of the species. Predicting the potential fate of populations in these conditions requires the integration of knowledge across biological scales from individual genes to ecosystems, across spatial scales (for example, seed and pollen dispersal distances or breadth of species ranges) and across temporal scales from the phenology of annual developmental cycle traits to glacial and interglacial cycles.

Whilst there has been widespread use of climatic information to predict future distributions in species distribution models (SDMs, Pearson and Dawson 2003 ; Attorre et al. 2008 ; Wang et al. 2012 ; Ruiz-Labourdette et al. 2013 ), understanding of the range of climatic and non-climatic factors that will determine the future range of a particular species remains limited. Many now feel that SDMs are of limited value in adaptation decision making or species conservation strategies. Some of these limitations are summarised in Table  1 .

For example, models indicate significant shifts in patterns of tree species distribution over the next century but usually without any intrinsic consideration of the biological capacity of populations to move, internal population dynamics, the extent and role of local adaptation or the effects of climate and land use (Aitken et al. 2008 ; Thuiller et al. 2008 ). In a recent study, Dobrowski et al. ( 2013 ) found that the predicted speed of movement of species to match the predicted rate of climate change appears to be well beyond the historical rates of migration. Whilst modelled outputs suggest that migration rates of 1000 m per year or higher will be necessary to track changing habitat conditions (Malcolm et al. 2002 ), actual migration rates in response to past change are generally considered to have been less than 100 m per year. This was reinforced by model predictions that incorporate species dispersal characteristics for five tree species in the eastern USA indicated very low probabilities of dispersal beyond 10–20 km from current species boundaries by 2100 (Iverson et al. 2004 ). Corlett and Westcott ( 2013 ) also argued that plant movements are not realistically represented in models used to predict future vegetation or carbon-cycle feedbacks and that fragmentation of natural systems is likely to slow migration rates.

However, these estimates do not account for the role of humans in influencing tree species distributions, which they have done for thousands of years (Clark 2007 ), and managed translocation may be an option for conserving many tree species, but there are significant unresolved technical and social questions about implementing translocation at a larger scale (Corlett and Westcott 2013 ).

Most early SDMs relied primarily on temperature envelopes to model future distribution, but factors such as precipitation and soil moisture are potentially more limiting and more important in determining distribution patterns (Dobrowski et al. 2013 ). Aitken et al. ( 2008 ) found that the degree to which variation in precipitation explains phenotypic variation among populations is greater in general for populations from continental than from maritime climates and greater for lower latitude than higher latitude populations. However, precipitation alone is often not a good predictor of variation and there is often a strong interaction with temperature (Andalo et al. 2005 ). Heat to moisture index or aridity is probably more important in determining future distribution or productivity than precipitation alone (Aitken et al. 2008 ; Harper et al. 2009 ; Wang et al. 2012 ). Soil properties (depth, texture and organic matter content) have a major influence on plant-available water, but few SDMs incorporate these.

Future precipitation is proving more difficult to model than temperature, due to the complex effects of topography, and there are more widely varying estimates between global circulation models (GCMs) of future change in precipitation (IPCC 2013 ). As such, there is more uncertainty around the extent to which moisture stress will change with warming and the extent to which natural selection pressures will change as a result. Even without changes in precipitation, increased temperatures will increase the length of growing season and potential evapotranspiration (PET) resulting in more water use over the year and greater risk plant water shortage and drought death.

Changes in the intervals of extreme events (extreme heat, cold, precipitation, humidity, wind) may also matter more than changes in the mean. Current forecasting approaches that produce future climate averages may make it difficult to detect non-linear ecosystem dynamics, or threshold effects, that could trigger abrupt ecosystem change (Campbell et al. 2009 ). Zimmermann et al. ( 2009 ) found that predictions of spatial patterns of tree species in Switzerland were improved by incorporating measures of extremes in addition to means in SDMs.

The risks of future climate will also depend on the management goal. If the aim is simply to conserve genetic diversity, risks of extinction or reduction in genetic diversity may be overstated by SDMs because much of the genetic variation within tree species is found within rather than among their populations, and the extinction of a relatively large proportion of a population is generally likely to result in relatively little overall loss of genetic diversity (Hamrick 2004 ). Local habitat heterogeneity (elevation, slope aspect, moisture, etc.) can preserve adaptive genetic variation that, when recombined and exposed to selection in newly colonised habitats, can provide for local adaptation. The longevity of individual trees can also retard population extinction and allow individuals and populations to survive until habitat recovery or because animal and wind pollination can provide levels of pollen flow that are sufficient to counteract the effects of genetic drift in fragmented populations. Consequently, widespread species with large populations, high fecundity and higher levels of phenotypic plasticity are likely to persist and adapt and have an overall greater tolerance to changing climates than predicted by SDMs (Alberto et al. 2013 ).

Tree species distributions have always been dynamic, responding to changing environmental conditions, and populations are likely to be sub-optimal for their current environments (Namkoong 2001 ; Wu and Ying 2004 ). These lag effects are important in predicting species responses to climate change. In a modelling study of Scots pine and silver birch, Kuparinen et al. ( 2010 ) predicted that after 100 years of climate change, the genotypic growth period length of both species will lag more than 50 % behind the climatically determined optimum. This lag is reduced by increased mortality of established trees, whereas earlier maturation and higher dispersal ability had comparatively minor effects. Thuiller et al. ( 2008 ) suggest that mechanisms for incorporating these ‘trailing edge’ effects into SDMs are a major area of research potential.

Trees are also capable of long-distance gene flow, which can have both adaptive evolution benefits and disadvantages. Kremer et al. ( 2012 ) found that there may be greater positive effects of gene flow for adaptation but that the balance of positive to negative consequences of gene flow differs for leading edge, core and rear sections of forest distributions.

Epigenetics—heritable changes that are not caused by changes in genetic sequences but by differences in the way DNA methylation controls the degree of gene expression—is another complicating factor in determining evolutionary response to climate change (Brautigam et al. 2013 ). For example, a recent study in Norway spruce ( Picea abies ) showed that the temperature during embryo development can dramatically affect cold hardiness and bud phenology in the offspring. In some cases, the offspring’s phenotype varied by the equivalent of 6° of latitude from what was expected given the geographic origin of the parents. It remains uncertain whether these traits are persistent, both within an individual’s lifetime and in its offspring and subsequent generations (Aitken et al. 2008 ). It is suggested that analysis of the epigenetic processes in an ecological context, or ‘ecological epigenetics’, is set to transform our understanding of the way in which organisms function in the landscape. Increased understanding of these processes can inform efforts to manage and breed tree species to help them cope with environmental stresses (Brautigam et al. 2013 ). Others argue that whilst investigating this evolutionary capacity to adapt is important, understanding responses of species to their changing biotic community is imperative (Anderson et al. 2012 ) and ‘landscape genomics’ may offer a better approach for informing management of tree populations under climate change (Sork et al. 2013 ).

These recent results indicate the importance of accounting for evolutionary processes in forecasts of the future dynamics and productivity of forests. Species experiencing high mortality rates or populations that are subject to regular disturbances such as storms or fires might actually be the quickest to adapt to a warming climate.

Species life history characteristics are also not usually well represented in most climate-based distribution models. Important factors include age to sexual maturity, fecundity, seed dispersal, competition or chilling or dormancy requirements (Nitschke and Innes 2008b ).

Competitive relationships within and between species are likely to be altered by climate change. Most models also assume open site growth conditions, rather than those within a forest, where the growth environment will be quite different. However, increased disturbance associated with climate change may create stand reinitiation conditions more often than has occurred in the past, altering competitive interactions.

Process-based models of species range shifts and ecosystem change may capture more of the life history variables and competition effects that will be important in determining responses to climate change (Kimmins 2008 ; Nitschke and Innes 2008a , b ). These can provide the basis for a more robust assessment framework that integrates biological characteristics (e.g. shade tolerance and seedling establishment) and disturbance characteristics (e.g. insect pests, drought and fire topkill). Matthews et al. ( 2011 ) integrated these factors into a decision support system that communicates uncertainty inherent in GCM outputs, emissions scenarios and species responses. This demonstrated a greater diversity among species to adapt to climate change and provides a more practical assessment of future species projections.

In summary, whilst SDMs and other climate-based modelling approaches can provide a guide to potential species responses, the extent to which future climate conditions will result in major range shifts or extinction of species is unclear and the value of this approach in adaptation and decision making is limited. The evidence from genetic studies seems to suggest that many species are reasonably robust to potential future climate change. Those with a wide geographic range, large populations and high fecundity may suffer local population extinction but are likely to persist and adapt whilst suffering adaptational lag for a few generations. For example, Booth ( 2013 ) considered that many eucalyptus species, some of which are widely planted around the world, had a high adaptive capacity even though their natural ranges are quite small.

However, large contractions or shifts in distribution could have significant consequences for different forest values and species with small populations, fragmented ranges, low fecundity or suffering declines due to introduced insects or diseases may have a higher sensitivity and are at greater risk in a changing climate (Aitken et al. 2008 ).

3.1.2 Ecosystem responses to climate

Projecting the fate of forest ecosystems under a changing climate is more challenging than for species. It has been well understood for some time that species will respond individualistically to climate change, rather than moving in concert, and that this is likely to result in ‘novel’ ecosystems, or groups of species, that are not represented in current classifications (Davis 1986 ). Forecasts need to consider the importance of these new species interactions and the confounding effects of future human activities.

Climate change affects a wide range of ecosystem functions and processes (Table  2 ). These include direct effects of temperature and precipitation on physiological and reproductive processes such as photosynthesis, water use, flowering, fruiting and regeneration, growth and mortality and litter decomposition. Changes in these processes will have effects on species attributes such as wood density or foliar nutrient status. Indirect effects will be exhibited through changing fire and other climate-driven disturbances. These will ultimately have impacts on stand composition, habitat structure, timber supply capacity, soil erosion and water yield.

Most early studies of forest ecosystem responses to climate change were built around ecosystem process models at various scales (Graham et al. 1990 ; Running and Nemani 1991 ; Rastetter et al. 1991 ). A number of recent studies have investigated the effects of past and current climate change on forest processes, often with surprising effects (Groffman et al. 2012 ).

Observed forest growth has increased recently in a number of regions, for example over the last 100 years in Europe (Pretzsch et al. 2014 ; Kint et al. 2012 ), and for more recent observations in Amazon forests (Phillips et al. 2008 ). In a major review, Boisvenue and Running ( 2006 ) found that at finer spatial scales, a trend is difficult to decipher, but globally, based on both satellite and ground-based data, climatic changes seemed to have a generally positive impact on forest productivity when water was not limiting. However, there can be a strong difference between species, complicating ecosystem level assessments (Michelot et al. 2012 ), and there are areas with little observed change (Schwartz et al. 2013 ). Generally, there are significant challenges in detecting the response of forests to climate change. For example, in the tropics, the lack of historical context, long-term growth records and access to data are real barriers (Clark 2007 ) and temperate regions also have challenges, even with well-designed, long-term experiments (Leites et al. 2012 ).

Projections of net primary productivity (NPP) under climate change indicate that there is likely to be a high level of regional variation (Zhao et al. 2013 ). Using a process model and climate scenario projections, Peters et al. ( 2013 ) predicted that average regional productivity in forests in the Great Lakes region of North America could increase from 67 to 142 %, runoff could potentially increase from 2 to 22 % and net N mineralization from 10 to 12 %. Increased productivity was almost entirely driven by potential CO 2 fertilization effects, rather than by increased temperature or changing precipitation. Productivity in these forests could shift from temperature limited to water limited by the end of the century. Reyer et al. ( 2014 ) also found strong regional differences in future NPP in European forests, with potential growth increases in the north but reduced growth in southern Europe, where forests are likely to be more water limited in the future. Again, assumptions about the impact of increasing CO 2 were a significant factor in this study.

In a different type of study using analysis of over 2400 long-term measurement plots, Bowman et al. ( 2014 ) found that there was a peaked response to temperature in temperate and sub-tropical eucalypt forests, with maximum growth occurring at a mean annual temperature of 11 °C and maximum temperature of the warmest month of 25–27 °C. Lower temperatures directly constrain growth, whilst high temperatures primarily reduced growth by reducing water availability but they also appeared to exert a direct negative effect. Overall, the productivity of Australia’s temperate eucalypt forests could decline substantially as the climate warms, given that 87 % of these forests currently experience a mean annual temperature above the ‘optimal’ temperature.

Incorporating the effects of rising CO 2 in models of future tree growth continues to be a major challenge. The sensitivity of projected productivity to assumptions regarding increased CO 2 was high in modelling studies of climate change impacts in commercial timber plantations in the Southern Hemisphere (Kirschbaum et al. 2012 ; Battaglia et al. 2009 ), and a recent analysis indicated a general convergence of different model predictions for future tree species distribution in Europe, with most of the difference between models due to the way in which this effect is incorporated (Cheaib et al. 2012 ). Increased CO 2 has been shown to increase the water-use efficiency of trees, but this is unlikely to entirely offset the effects of increased water stress on tree growth in drying climates (Leuzinger et al. 2011 ; Booth 2013 ). In general, despite studies extending over decades and improved understanding of biochemical processes (Franks et al. 2013 ), the impacts of increased CO 2 on tree and stand growth are still unresolved (Kallarackal and Roby 2012 ).

Integrating process model outputs with spatially explicit landscape models can improve understanding and projection of responses and landscape planning and this could provide for simulations of changes in ecological processes (e.g. tree growth, succession, disturbance cycles, dispersal) with other human-induced changes to landscapes (Campbell et al. 2009 ).

Investigation of current species responses to changing climate conditions may also guide improved prediction of patterns of future change in ecosystem distribution. For example, Allen et al. ( 2010 ) suggest that spatially explicit documentation of environmental conditions in areas of forest die-off is necessary to link mortality to causal climate drivers, including precipitation, temperature and vapour pressure deficit. Better prediction of climate responses will also require improved knowledge of belowground processes and soil moisture conditions. Assessments of future productivity will depend on accurate measurements of rates (net ecosystem exchange and NPP), changes in ecosystem level storage (net ecosystem production) and quantification of disturbances effects to determine net biome production (Boisvenue and Running 2006 ).

Hydrological conditions, runoff and stream flow are of critical importance for humans and aquatic organisms, and many studies have focused on the implications of climate change for these ecosystem processes. However, most of these have been undertaken at small catchment scale (Mahat and Anderson 2013 ; Neukum and Azzam 2012 ; Zhou et al. 2011 ) with few basin-scale assessments (van Dijk and Keenan 2007 ). However, the effects of climate and forest cover change on hydrology are complicated. Loss of tree cover may increase stream flow but can also increase evaporation and water loss (Guardiola-Claramonte et al. 2011 ). The extent of increasing wildfire will also be a major factor determining hydrological responses to climate change (Versini et al. 2013 ; Feikema et al. 2013 ).

Changing forest composition will also affect the habitat of vertebrate and invertebrate species. The implications of climate change for biodiversity conservation have been subject to extensive analysis (Garcia et al. 2014 ; Vihervaara et al. 2013 ; Schaich and Milad 2013 ; Clark et al. 2011 ; Heller and Zavaleta 2009 ; Miles et al. 2004 ). An integrated analytical approach, considering both impacts on species and habitat is important. For example, in a study of climate change impacts on bird habitat in the north-eastern USA, the combination of changes in tree distribution and habitat for birds resulted in significant impacts for 60 % of the species. However, the strong association of birds with certain vegetation tempers their response to climate change because localised areas of suitable habitat may persist even after the redistribution of tree species (Matthews et al. 2011 ).

Understanding thresholds in changing climate conditions that are likely to result in a switch to a different ecosystem state, and the mechanisms that underlie ecosystem responses, will be critical for forest managers (Campbell et al. 2009 ). Identifying these thresholds of change is challenging. Detailed process-based ecosystem research that identifies and studies critical species interactions and feedback loops, coupled with scenario modelling of future conditions, could provide valuable insights (Kimmins et al. 1999 , 2008 ; Walker and Meyers 2004 ). Also, rather than pushing systems across thresholds into alternative states, climate change may create a stepwise progression to unknown transitional states that track changing climate conditions, requiring a more graduated approach in management decisions (Lin and Petersen 2013 ).

Ultimately, management decisions may not be driven by whether we can determine future thresholds of change, but by observing the stressors that determine physiological limits of species distributions. These thresholds will depend on species physiology and local site conditions, with recent research demonstrating already observed ecosystem responses to climate change, including die-back of some species (Allen et al. 2010 ; Rigling et al. 2013 ).

3.1.3 Fire, pests, invasive species and disturbance risks

Many of the impacts of a changing future climate are likely to be felt through changing disturbance regimes, in particular fire. Forest fire weather risk and fire behaviour prediction have been two areas where there has been strong historical interaction between climate science and forest management and where we may see major tipping points driving change in ecosystem composition (Adams 2013 ). Fire weather is fundamentally under the control of large-scale climate conditions with antecedent moisture anomalies and large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns, further exacerbated by configuration of local winds, driving fire weather (Brotak and Reifsnyder 1977 ; Westerling et al. 2002 , 2006 ). It is therefore important to improve understanding of both short- and long-term atmospheric conditions in determining meteorological fire risk (Amraoui et al. 2013 ).

Increased fuel loads and changes to forest structure due to long periods of fire exclusion and suppression are increasing fire intensity and limiting capacity to control fires under severe conditions (Williams 2004 , 2013 ). Increasing urbanisation is increasing the interface between urban populations and forests in high fire risk regions, resulting in greater impacts of wildfire on human populations, infrastructure and assets (Williams 2004 ). Deforestation and burning of debris and other types of human activities are also introducing fire in areas where it was historically relatively rare (Tacconi et al. 2007 ).

In a recent study, Chuvieco et al. ( 2014 ) assessed ecosystem vulnerability to fire using an index based on ecological richness and fragility, provision of ecosystem services and value of houses in the wildland–urban interface. The most vulnerable areas were found to be the rainforests of the Amazon Basin, Central Africa and Southeast Asia; the temperate forest of Europe, South America and north-east America; and the ecological corridors of Central America and Southeast Asia.

In general, fire management policies in many parts of the world will need to cope with longer and more severe fire seasons, increasing fire frequency, and larger areas exposed to fire risk. This will especially be the case in the Mediterranean region of Europe (Kolström et al. 2011 ) and other fire-prone parts of the world such as South Eastern Australia (Hennessy et al. 2005 ). This will require improved approaches to fire weather modelling and behaviour prediction that integrate a more sophisticated understanding of the climate system with local knowledge of topography, vegetation and wind patterns. It will also require the development of fire management capacity where it had previously not been necessary. Increased fire weather severity could push current suppression capacity beyond a tipping point, resulting in a substantial increase in large fires (de Groot et al. 2013 ; Liu et al. 2010 ) and increased investment in resources and management efforts for disaster prevention and recovery.

Biotic factors may be more important than direct climate effects on tree populations in a changing climate. For example, insects and diseases have much shorter generation length and are able to adapt to new climatic conditions more rapidly than trees. However, if insects move more rapidly to a new environment whilst tree species lag, some parts of the tree population may be impacted less in the future (Regniere 2009 ).

The interaction of pests, diseases and fire will also be important. For example, this interaction will potentially determine the vulnerability of western white pine ( Pinus monticola ) ecosystems in Montana in the USA. Loehman et al. ( 2011 ) found that warmer temperatures will favour western white pine over existing climax and shade tolerant species, mainly because warmer conditions will lead to increased frequency and extent of wildfires that facilitates regeneration of this species.

3.2 Adaptation actions in forest management

The large majority of published studies relating to forests and climate change have been on vulnerability and impacts. These have increased understanding of the various relationships between forest ecosystems and climate and improved capacity to predict and assess ecosystem responses. However, managers need greater guidance in anticipating and responding to potential impacts of climate change and methods to determine the efficiency and efficacy of different management responses because they are generally not responding sufficiently to potential climate risks.

3.2.1 Adaptation actions at different management levels

A number of recent reviews have described adaptation actions and their potential application in different forest ecosystems being managed for different types of goods or services (Bernier and Schöne 2009 ; Innes et al. 2009 ; Lindner et al. 2010 ; Kolström et al. 2011 ), and adaptation guides and manuals have been developed (Peterson et al. 2011 ; Stephens et al. 2012 ) for different types of forest and jurisdictions. Adaptation actions can be primarily aimed at reducing vulnerability to increasing threats or shocks from natural disasters or extreme events, or increasing resilience and capacity to respond to progressive change or climate extremes. Adaptation actions can be reactive to changing conditions or planned interventions that anticipate future change. They may involve incremental changes to existing management systems or longer term transformational changes (Stafford Smith et al. 2011 ). Adaptation actions can also be applied at the stand level or at ownership, estate or national scales (Keskitalo 2011 ).

Recent research at the stand level in forests in the SE USA showed that forest thinning, often recommended in systems that are likely to experience increased temperature and decreased precipitation as a result of climate change, will need to be more aggressive than traditionally practised to stimulate growth of large residual trees, improve drought resistance and provide greater resilience to future climate-related stress (Kerhoulas et al. 2013 ).

An analysis of three multi-aged stand-level options in Nova Scotia, Canada, Steenberg et al. ( 2011 ) found that leaving sexually immature trees to build stand complexity had the most benefit for timber supply but was least effective in promoting resistance to climate change at the prescribed harvest intensity. Varying the species composition of harvested trees proved the most effective treatment for maximising forest age and old-growth area and for promoting stands composed of climatically suited target species. The combination of all three treatments resulted in an adequate representation of target species and old forest without overly diminishing the timber supply and was considered most effective in minimising the trade-offs between management values and objectives.

An estate level analysis of Austrian Federal Forests indicated that management to promote mixed stands of species that are likely to be well adapted to emerging environmental conditions, silvicultural techniques fostering complexity and increased management intensity might successfully reduce vulnerability, with the timing of adaptation measures important to sustain supply of forest goods and services (Seidl et al. 2011 ).

Whilst researchers are analysing different management options, the extent to which they are being implemented in practice is generally limited. For example, in four regions in Germany, strategies for adapting forest management to climate change are in the early stages of development or simply supplement existing strategies relating to general risk reduction or to introduce more ‘nature-orientated’ forest management (Milad et al. 2013 ). Guariguata et al. ( 2012 ) found that forest managers across the tropics perceived that natural and planted forests are at risk from climate change but were ambivalent about the value of investing in adaptation measures, with climate-related threats to forests ranked below others such as clearing for commercial agriculture and unplanned logging.

Community-based management approaches are often argued to be the most successful approach for adaptation. An analysis of 38 community forestry organisations in British Columbia found that 45 % were researching adaptation and 32 % were integrating adaptation techniques into their work (Furness and Nelson 2012 ). Whilst these community forest managers appreciated support and advice from government for adaptation, balancing this advice with autonomy for communities to make their own decisions was considered challenging.

In a study of communities impacted by drought in the forest zone of Cameroon, Bele et al. ( 2013b ) identified adaptive strategies such as community-created firebreaks to protect their forests and farms from forest fires, the culture of maize and other vegetables in dried swamps, diversifying income activities or changing food regimes. However, these coping strategies were considered to be incommensurate with the rate and magnitude of change being experienced and therefore no longer seen as useful. Some adaptive actions, whilst effective, were resource inefficient and potentially translate pressure from one sector to another or generated other secondary effects that made them undesirable.

3.2.2 Integrating adaptation and mitigation

In considering responses to climate change, forest managers will generally be looking for solutions that address both mitigation objectives and adaptation. To maintain or increase forest carbon stocks over the long term, the two are obviously inextricably linked (Innes et al. 2009 ). Whilst there are potentially strong synergies, Locatelli et al. ( 2011 ) identified potential trade-offs between actions to address mitigation and the provision of local ecosystem services and those for adaptation. They argued that mitigation projects can facilitate or hinder the adaptation of local people to climate change, whereas adaptation projects can affect ecosystems and their potential to sequester carbon.

Broadly, there has been little integration to date of mitigation and adaptation objectives in climate policy. For example, there is little connection between policies supporting the reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation plus (REDD+) initiatives and adaptation. Integrating adaptation into REDD+ can advance climate change mitigation goals and objectives for sustainable forest management (Long 2013 ). Kant and Wu ( 2012 ) considered that adaptation actions in tropical forests (protection against fire and disease, ensuring adequate regeneration and protecting against coastal impacts and desertification) will improve future forest resilience and have significant climate change mitigation value.

3.2.3 Sector-level adaptation

Analyses of climate change impacts and vulnerability at the sector level have been undertaken for some time (Lindner et al. 2002 ; Johnston and Williamson 2007 ; Joyce 2007 ). However, it has recently been argued (Wellstead et al. 2014 ) that these assessments, which focus on macro system-level variables and relationships, fail to account for the multi-level or polycentric nature of governance and the possibility that policy processes may result in the non-performance of critical tasks required for adaptation.

Joyce et al. ( 2009 ) considered that a toolbox of management options for the US National Forests would include the following: practices focused on reducing future climate change effects by building resistance and resilience into current ecosystems and on managing for change by enabling plants, animals and ecosystems to adapt to climate change. Sample et al. ( 2014 ) demonstrated the utility of this approach in a coniferous forest management unit in northwestern USA. It provided an effective means for guiding management decisions and an empirical basis for setting budgetary and management priorities. In general, more widespread implementation of already known practices that reduce the impact of existing stressors represents an important ‘no regrets’ strategy.

Johnston and Hesseln ( 2012 ) found that barriers to implementing adaptation across forest sector managers in Canada included inflexible tenure arrangements and regulatory environments which do not support innovation. Echoing calls for wider implementation of SFM as a key adaptation strategy (Innes et al. 2009 ), they argued that forest certification systems, participating in the Canadian model forest programme, and adopting criteria and indicators of SFM can support sectoral level adaptation.

Decentralised management approaches are considered to be a more appropriate governance arrangement for forest management, but Rayner et al. ( 2013 ) argued that a decentralised forest policy sector in Canada has resulted in limitations where policy, such as adaptation, requires a coherent national response. Climate change adaptation has led to an expansion of departmental mandates that is not being addressed by better coordination of the available policy capacity. Relevant federal agencies are not well represented in information networks, and forest policy workers report lower levels of internal and external networking than workers in related policy subsectors.

Economic diversification can be a valuable strategy to improve resilience to climate-related shocks. This can take a range of forms: developing new industries or different types of forest-based industries based on different goods or services. For the timber sector, the value of diversification as a risk management strategy for communities is open to question. Ince et al. ( 2011 ) pointed out that the forest sector operates in an international market and is susceptible to changes in the structure of this market. In the US forest sector, globalization has accelerated structural change, favouring larger and more capital-intensive enterprises and altering historical patterns of resource use. They suggest that future markets for timber will be driven by developments in these larger scale enterprises and may not lead to expansion of opportunities for smaller scale forest enterprises because development of niche markets or customised products is likely to be pursued aggressively by larger globally oriented enterprises to develop branding, product identity and product value. How to best diversify for adaptation therefore remains an open question.

Consequently, whilst policies that support economic diversification will be important, this may involve diversification well beyond traditional sectors. For example, in areas where there is a high probability that forests will be lost in favour of other ecosystems, such as grasslands, managers should recognise early on that their efforts and resources may best be focused outside forests (Innes et al. 2009 ). These adjustments will involve taking into account the perceptions of climate risk by various stakeholders, including individuals, communities, governments, private institutions and organisations (Adger et al. 2007 ). Vulnerability assessments and adaptation measures also need to be developed in a framework that takes into account the vulnerabilities and actions in other sectors that are linked to the forest sector, such as food, energy, health and water (Sonwa et al. 2012 ).

3.3 New approaches to decision making

Climate change presents new challenges for forest managers. Change is likely to happen faster than traditional, empirical approaches can provide evidence to support changes in management. Uncertainties in a range of aspects of future climate may also not be reduced through investment in research. Given that management for activities such as timber production can no longer be based solely on empirically derived growth and yield trajectories and management plans must incorporate uncertainty and the increased probability of extreme events, what types of tools are available to support these approaches? This section presents key points from the literature on decision making under uncertainty, adaptive management and resilience as a guide to future decision making in forest management.

3.3.1 Decision making under uncertainty

The future conditions for forest managers are subject to a high degree of uncertainty, and the future prospects for reducing these large uncertainties are limited. There is uncertainty regarding the trajectory of future increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases, what kind of effects these might have on the climate system and the effects of climatic changes on ecological and social systems and their capacity to adapt (see Fig.  2 ) (Wilby and Dessai 2010 ).

The cascade of uncertainty (Wilby and Dessai 2010 )

Consequently, many forest managers consider that the future situation is too uncertain to support long-term and potentially costly decisions that may be difficult to reverse. Dessai and Hulme ( 2004 ) argued that uncertainty per se should not be a reason for inaction. However, the critical issue for managers is deciding the types of actions to take and the timing and conditions under which they should be taken (Ogden and Innes 2007a ). A more reactive ‘wait and see’ approach (or ‘purposeful procrastination’) might be justified if uncertainty or costs are high relative to the expected impacts and risks, or if it is cheaper to implement interventions by waiting until after a significant disturbance (e.g. replanting an area with more fire- or drought-resistant tree species after a wildfire or drought-induced insect outbreak).

Effective adaptation requires setting clear objectives. Managers and policy makers need to decide whether they are trying to facilitate ecosystem adaptation through changing species composition or forest structure or trying to engineer resistance to change through proactive management strategies (Joyce et al. 2008 ). Establishing objectives often depends on the integration of the preferences of different stakeholders (Prato 2008 ), but changing social preferences presents another source of potential uncertainty.

Risk assessment and management provide a foundation for decision making in considering climate change in natural resource management. This approach provides both a qualitative and quantitative framework for evaluating climate change effects and adaptation options. Incorporating risk management approaches into forest management plans can provide a basis for managers to continue to provide forest conditions that meet a range of important values (Day and Perez 2013 ).

However, risk approaches generally requiring assigning probabilities to future events. In a comprehensive review, Yousefpour et al. ( 2011 ) identified a growing body of research literature on decision making under uncertainty, much of which has focused on price uncertainty and variation in timber production but is extending to multiple forest management objectives and other types of risk. They argue that we are actually in a stochastic transition from one known stable (but variable) climate state to a new but largely unknown and likely more rapidly changing set of future conditions.

Decision makers themselves may also not be the rational actors assumed by these models, with their decisions taken according to quite different assumptions, preferences and beliefs (Ananda and Herath 2009 ; Couture and Reynaud 2008 ). Therefore, the communication approach will be important in determining whether the information is acted on. In a recent study, Yousefpour et al. ( 2014 ) considered that the speed with which decision makers will form firm beliefs about future climate depends on the divergence among climate trajectories, the speed of change and short-term climate variability. Using a Bayesian modelling approach, they found that if a large change in climate occurs, the value of investing in knowledge and taking an adaptive approach would be positive and higher than a non-adaptive approach. In communicating about uncertainty, it may be better to focus discussion on the varying time in the future when things will happen, rather than on whether they will happen at all (Lindner et al. 2014 ).

Increased investment in climate science and projections or species distribution modelling may not necessarily decrease uncertainty in climate projections or impacts. Climate models are best viewed as heuristic tools rather than as accurate forecasts of the future (Innes et al. 2009 ). Trajectories of change in many other drivers of forest management (social, political or economic) are also highly uncertain (Keskitalo 2008 ) and the effects of these on the projected performance of management can be the same order of magnitude, requiring an integrated social-ecological perspective to adaptation (Seidl and Lexer 2013 ).

In a more ‘decision-centred’ approach, plausible scenarios of the potential range of future conditions are required. These can be derived from climate models but do not need to be accurate and precise ‘predictions’ of future climate states (Wilby and Dessai 2010 ). To support this type of approach, research needs to focus on improved understanding of tree and ecosystem responses and identifying those aspects of climate to which different forest types are most sensitive.

Devising strategies that are able to meet management objectives under a range of future scenarios is likely to be the most robust approach, recognising that these strategies are unlikely to be optimal under all future conditions. In some cases, the effect of different scenarios on forest growth may not be that great and differences in the present value of different management options are relatively small. For example, Eriksson et al. ( 2011 ) found that there was limited benefit in attempting to optimise management plans in accordance with future temperature scenarios.

Integration of climate change science and adaptation in forest management planning is considered important for building resilience in forest social and ecological systems (Keskitalo 2011 ; D’Amato et al. 2011 ; Chmura et al. 2011 ; Parks and Bernier 2010 ; Lindner et al. 2014 ). Forest restoration is becoming a more prominent aspect of forest management in many parts of the world and restoration approaches will also need to integrate understanding of future climate change to be successful (Stanturf et al. 2014 ).

3.3.2 Adaptive management, resilience and decisions

Adaptive management provides a mechanism to move forward when faced with future uncertainty (Innes et al. 2009 ). It can be viewed as a systematic process for continually improving management policies and practices by monitoring and then learning from the outcomes of operational programmes as a basis for incorporating adaptation actions into forest management. Whilst many management initiatives purport to implement these principles, they often lack essential characteristics of the approach (Innes et al. 2009 ).

However, effective adaptation to changing climate cannot simply involve adaptive management as it is currently understood. The pace of climate change is not likely to allow for the use of management as a tool to learn about the system by implementing methodologies to test hypotheses concerning known uncertainties (Holling 1978 ). Future climatic conditions may result in system states and dynamics that have never previously existed (Stainforth et al. 2007 ), so observation of past experience may be a poor guide for future action. Management will need to be more ‘forward-looking’, considering the range of possible future conditions and planning actions that consider that full range.

How does this translate into the practical guidance forest managers are seeking on how to adapt their current practices and, if necessary, their goals (Blate et al. 2009 )? Managers will need to consider trade-offs between different objectives under different conditions. For example, Seidl et al. ( 2011 ) showed that, to keep climate vulnerability in an Austrian forest low, Norway spruce will have to be replaced almost entirely by better adapted species. However, indicator weights that favoured timber production over C storage or biodiversity exerted a strong influence on the results. Wider social implications of imposing such drastic changes in forest landscapes will also deserve stronger consideration in decision making.

Ecosystem management will need to be reframed to accommodate the risks of a changing climate. Adaptive strategies, even without specific information on the future climate conditions of a target ecosystem, would enhance social and ecological resilience to address the uncertainties due to changing climate (Mori et al. 2013 ). These are likely to be more subject to change over the short to medium term, in response to more rapidly changing conditions.

Analysis of ecosystem resilience can provide a framework for these assessments. Resilience can be defined as ‘the capacity of ecosystems to absorb disturbance and reorganise so as to retain essentially the same function, structure and feedbacks – to have the same identity’ (Walker and Salt 2012 ). It is a function of the capacity of an ecosystem to resist change, the extent and pace of change and the ability of an ecosystem to reorganise following disturbance. The concept of resilience holds promise for informing future forest management, but Rist and Moen ( 2013 ) argue that its contributions are, so far, largely conceptual and offer more in terms of being a problem-framing approach than analytical or practical tools. There may also be trade-offs involved with focusing on resilience through retention of current species composition or using a more adaptation-oriented management approach after disturbances (Buma and Wessman 2013 ). Complexity theory and concepts can provide an appropriate framework for managing resilience (Messier et al. 2013 ).

Management decisions will ultimately depend on the costs and benefits of different options, but there are few examples of decision making frameworks that compare the costs of future impacts with the costs of different actions and the efficacy of those actions in reducing impacts. Ogden and Innes ( 2009 ) used a structured decision making process to identify and assess 24 adaptation options that managers considered important to achieve their regional goals and objectives of sustainable forest management in light of climate change. In the analysis of options for biodiversity conservation, Wintle et al. ( 2011 ) found that the amount of funding available for adaptation was a critical factor in deciding options aimed at minimising species extinctions in the mega-diverse fynbos biome of South Africa. When the available budget is small, fire management was the best strategy. If the budget is increased to an intermediate level, the marginal returns from more fire management were limited and the best strategy was added habitat protection. Above another budget threshold, increased investment should go into more fire management. By integrating ecological predictions in an economic decision framework, they found that making the choice of how much to invest is as important as determining what actions to take.

3.3.3 Adaptation as a social learning process

Whilst adaptation has been defined as ‘adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects’ (Levina and Tirpak 2006 ), adaptation is essentially about meeting future human needs (Spittlehouse and Stewart 2003 ; Hahn and Knoke 2010 ). Consequently, it is inherently a social process. Forest landscapes are social-ecological systems that involve both nature and society (Innes et al. 2009 ), and resolving trade-offs between different management objectives to meet the different needs in society is an important element of sustainable forest management. As Kolström et al. ( 2011 ) pointed out, some proposed adaptation measures may change the balance between current objectives and stakeholder interests, and it will be important to consider the relative balance of different measures at the stand, management unit and landscape scales.

Those investigating adaptive management also recognise that it goes beyond the focus on scientific methods, statistical designs or analytical rigour favoured by its early proponents and that there is now an expectation of much greater stakeholder involvement, with the concept being renamed by some as adaptive, collaborative management (Innes et al. 2009 ). SFM and adaptation are as much about those who inhabit, work in or utilise forests as it is about managing the forest ecosystems themselves (White et al. 2010 ; Pramova et al. 2012 ; Fischer et al. 2013 ).

The choice of adaptation options will thus likely be relatively complex, even in cases where information and policy have been developed, and communication measures for forest management have been well formulated. Making such choices may require considerable knowledge, competence and commitment for implementation at the local level (Keskitalo 2011 ). Effective adaptation will require much greater cooperation between stakeholders, more flexibility for management actions and commitment of time to develop the social license for action in the absence of conclusive evidence or understanding. This will require venues for sharing perspectives on the nature of the problem (Fig.  3 ).

Adaptation as a social learning process. There is a need to provide situations to share different viewpoints on the nature of the problem as a basis for developing shared solutions (image source: John Rowley, http://ch301.cm.utexas.edu/learn/ )

3.3.4 Local and indigenous knowledge

The promotion of community-based forest management may increase local adaptive capacity by putting decisions in the hands of those people who first feel the effects of climate change (Gyampoh et al. 2009 ). In this context, local knowledge systems based on long-term observation and experience are likely to be of increasing importance in decision making. Adaptation strategies can benefit from combining scientific and indigenous knowledge, especially in developing countries (Gyampoh et al. 2009 ), with the translation of local forest knowledge into the language of formal forest science being considered an important step towards adaptation (Roberts et al. 2009 ). However, conservation and natural resource managers in government agencies have often discounted traditional local management systems (Scott 2005 ), although Spathelf et al. ( 2014 ) provided a useful approach for capturing local expert knowledge. Linking this type of knowledge with broader scientific understanding of ecosystem functioning and the global climate system will be a major challenge, requiring consideration of both technical and cultural issues (Caverley 2013 ), including intellectual property concerns of indigenous people (Lynch et al. 2010 ).

3.4 Policy arrangements for adaptation

Increasingly, many are arguing that effectively responding to climate change will require polycentric and multi-level governance arrangements (Peel et al. 2012 ). However, Nilsson et al. ( 2012 ) found that institutionalising of knowledge and knowledge exchange regarding climate change adaptation in Sweden was weak and that improved mechanisms are required for feedback from the local to the national level. Recent studies have described stronger relationships between scientific research and forest management to assess trade-offs and synergies, for participatory decision making and for shared learning (Blate et al. 2009 ; Littell et al. 2012 ; Klenk et al. 2011 ).

Many papers emphasised the need for greater flexibility in the policies, cultures and structures of forest management organisations (Brown 2009 ; von Detten and Faber 2013 ; Rayner et al. 2013 ). Because no single community or agency can prepare on their own for future impacts, inter-sectoral policy coordination will be required to ensure that policy developments in related policy sectors are not contradictory or counterproductive. Greater integration of information, knowledge and experience and collaborative projects involving scientists, practitioners and policy makers from multiple policy communities could increase focus on resilience, identify regions of large-scale vulnerability and provide a more rigorous framework for the analysis of vulnerability and adaptation actions (Thomalla et al. 2006 ).

There is also likely to be a greater need for cross-border implementation of different forest management options, requiring greater coordination between nation states and sub-national governments (Keenan 2012 ). Policy is the product of both ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ processes and these might sometimes be in conflict. Simply having ‘good policy’ in place is unlikely to be sufficient, as a great deal of what takes place at ‘street level’ is not determined by formal aims of central policy (Urwin and Jordan 2008 ). Having the right policies can send a strong political signal that adaptation needs to be considered seriously but flexibility in policy systems will be required to facilitate adaptive planning.

4 Discussion and conclusions

This broad survey of the literature indicated that, whilst there has been considerable development in research and thinking about adaptation in forest management over the last 10 years, research is still strongly focused on assessment of future impacts, responses and vulnerability of species and ecosystems (and in some cases communities and forest industries) to climate change. There has been some movement from a static view of climate based on long-term averages to a more detailed understanding of the drivers of different climate systems and how these affect the factors of greatest influence on different forest ecosystems processes, such as variability and extremes in temperature or precipitation or fire disturbance. For example, Guan et al. ( 2012 ) demonstrated that quasi-periodic climate variation on an inter-annual (ENSO) to inter-decadal (PDO) time scale can significantly influence tree growth and should be taken into account when assessing the impact of climate changes on forest productivity.

Adaptation is, in essence, about making good decisions for the future, taking into account the implications of climate change. It involves recognising and understanding potential future climate impacts and planning and managing for their consequences, whilst also considering the broader social, economic or other environmental changes that may impact on us, individually or collectively. To effectively provide a role in mitigation, delivering associated ecosystem services and benefits in poverty reduction (Eliasch 2008 ) forest management will have to adapt to a changing and highly variable climate. In achieving this, the roles and responsibilities of different levels of government, the private sector and different parts of the community are still being defined.

The broader literature emphasises that adaptation is a continuous process, involving a process of ‘adapting well’ to continuously changing conditions (Tompkins et al. 2010 ). This requires organisational learning based on past experience, new knowledge and a comprehensive analysis of future options. This can take place through ‘learning by doing’ or through a process of search and planned modification of routines (Berkhout et al. 2006 ). However, interpreting climate signals is not easy for organisations, the evidence of change is ambiguous and the stimuli are not often experienced directly within the organisation. For example, many forest managers in Australia currently feel little need to change practices to adapt to climate change, given both weak policy signals and limited perceived immediate evidence of increasing climate impacts (Cockfield et al. 2011 ). To explain and predict adaptation to climate change, the combination of personal experience and beliefs must be considered (Blennow et al. 2012 ). ‘Climate smart’ forest management frameworks can provide an improved basis for managing forested landscapes and maintaining ecosystem health and vitality based on an understanding of landscape vulnerability to future climatic change (Fig. 4 ) (Nitschke and Innes 2008a ).

Components of climate smart forest management (after Nitschke and Innes 2008a , b )

Many are now asking, do we really need more research to start adapting forest management to climate change? Whilst adaptation is often considered ‘knowledge deficit’ problem—where scientists provide more information and forest managers will automatically make better decisions—the reality is that the way in which this information is presented and how it is interpreted and received, will play major roles in determining potential responses. Successful adaptation will require dissemination of knowledge of potential climate impacts and suitable adaptation measures to decision makers at both practice and policy levels (Kolström et al. 2011 ) but it needs to go well beyond that.

Adaptation is, above all, a social learning process. It requires an understanding of sense of place, a capacity for individuals and society to consider potential future changes and what they mean for their circumstances. Leaders in forest management organisations will need to support a greater diversity of inputs into decision making, avoid creating rigid organisational hierarchies that deter innovation, and be inclusive, open and questioning (Konkin and Hopkins 2009 ). They will need to create more opportunities for interaction between researchers, managers and the community and space for reflection on the implications and the outcomes of management actions and unplanned events. Researchers will need to develop new modes of communication, providing knowledge in forms that are appropriate to the management decision and suitable for digestion by a range of different audiences.

From this analysis, key gaps in knowledge for adaptation may not be improved climate scenarios or better understanding of the biophysical responses of individual tree species or forest ecosystems to future climate. Knowledge gaps lie more in understanding the social and community attitudes and values that drive forest management and the decision making processes of forest managers, in order to work out how ‘climate intelligence’ can be built in to these processes.

The impacts of changing climate will vary locally. Consequently, managers must be given the flexibility to respond in ways that meet their particular needs and capacity to choose management options that are applicable to the local situation (Innes et al. 2009 ). This may not be consistent with rigid indicator-driven management assessment processes like forest certification. Whilst policy to support climate change mitigation is primarily a task for national governments and international agreements and processes, responsibility for supporting adaptation will fall more to sub-national and local governments, communities and the private sector. More active management will be required if specific values are to be maintained, particularly for forests in conservation reserves. This will require additional investment, but there has been little analysis to support the business case for investment in adaptation or to determine who should pay, particularly in developing countries.

We need to strengthen the relationship between climate science, forest research, forest managers and the community. Key challenges will include the setting of objectives for desired future conditions and accepting that we may not be able to maintain everything that forests have traditionally provided. It is important to discuss and agree on common goals in order to cope with, or benefit from, the challenges of future climates. Actively managing our forest ecosystems effectively and intelligently, using the best available knowledge and foresight capacity, can make those goals a reality.

Adams MA (2013) Mega-fires, tipping points and ecosystem services: managing forests and woodlands in an uncertain future. For Ecol Manag 294:250–261. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2012.11.039

Google Scholar  

Adger WN, Agrawala S, Mirza MMQ, Conde C, O’Brien K, Pulhin J, Pulwarty R, Smit B, Takahashi K (2007) Assessment of adaptation practices, options, constraints and capacity. In: Parry ML, Canziani OF, Palutikof JP, van der Linden PJ, Hanson CE (eds) Climate change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 717–743

Aitken SN, Yeaman S, Holliday JA, Wang T, Curtis-McLane S (2008) Adaptation, migration or extirpation: climate change outcomes for tree populations. Evol Appl 1:95–111. doi: 10.1111/j.1752-4571.2007.00013.x

PubMed Central   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Alberto FJ, Aitken SN, Alia R, Gonzalez-Martinez SC, Hanninen H, Kremer A, Lefevre F, Lenormand T, Yeaman S, Whetten R, Savolainen O (2013) Potential for evolutionary responses to climate change evidence from tree populations. Glob Chang Biol 19:1645–1661. doi: 10.1111/gcb.12181

Allen CD, Macalady AK, Chenchouni H, Bachelet D, McDowell N, Vennetier M, Kitzberger T, Rigling A, Breshears DD, Hogg EH, Gonzalez P, Fensham R, Zhang Z, Castro J, Demidova N, Lim J-H, Allard G, Running SW, Semerci A, Cobb N (2010) A global overview of drought and heat-induced tree mortality reveals emerging climate change risks for forests. For Ecol Manag 259:660–684. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2009.09.001

Amraoui M, Liberato MLR, Calado TJ, DaCamara CC, Coelho LP, Trigo RM, Gouveia CM (2013) Fire activity over Mediterranean Europe based on information from Meteosat-8. For Ecol Manag 294:62–75. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2012.08.032

Ananda J, Herath G (2009) A critical review of multi-criteria decision making methods with special reference to forest management and planning. Ecol Econ 68:2535–2548. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.010

Andalo C, Beaulieu J, Bousquet J (2005) The impact of climate change on growth of local white spruce populations in Québec, Canada. For Ecol Manag 205:169–182. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2004.10.045

Anderson JM (1991) The effects of climate change on decomposition processes in grassland and coniferous forests. Ecol Appl 1:326–347. doi: 10.2307/1941761

Anderson JT, Panetta AM, Mitchell-Olds T (2012) Evolutionary and ecological responses to anthropogenic climate change. Plant Physiol 160:1728–1740. doi: 10.1104/pp. 112.206219

PubMed Central   CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Attorre F, Francesconi F, Scarnati L, De Sanctis M, Alfo M, Bruno F (2008) Predicting the effect of climate change on tree species abundance and distribution at a regional scale. For Biogeosci For 1:132–139. doi: 10.3832/ifor0467-0010132

Battaglia M, Bruce J, Brack C, Baker T (2009) Climate change and Australia’s plantation estate: analysis of vulnerability and preliminary investigation of adaptation options.

Battaglia M, Sands P, White D, Mummery D (2004) CABALA: a linked carbon, water and nitrogen model of forest growth for silvicultural decision support. For Ecol Manag 193:251–282

Bele MY, Sonwa DJ, Tiani AM (2013a) Supporting local adaptive capacity to climate change in the Congo basin forest of Cameroon a participatory action research approach. Int J Clim Chang Strateg Manag 5:181–197. doi: 10.1108/17568691311327587

Bele MY, Tiani AM, Somorin OA, Sonwa DJ (2013b) Exploring vulnerability and adaptation to climate change of communities in the forest zone of Cameroon. Clim Chang 119:875–889. doi: 10.1007/s10584-013-0738-z

Berkhout F, Hertin J, Gann D (2006) Learning to adapt: organisational adaptation to climate change impacts. Clim Chang 78:135–156. doi: 10.1007/s10584-006-9089-3

Bernier P, Schöne D (2009) Adapting forests and their management to climate change: an overview. Unasylva 60:5–11

Blate GM, Joyce LA, Littell JS, McNulty SG, Millar CI, Moser SC, Neilson RP, O’Halloran K, Peterson DL (2009) Adapting to climate change in United States national forests. Unasylva 60:57–62

Blennow K, Persson J, Tome M, Hanewinkel M (2012) Climate change: believing and seeing implies adapting. PLoS ONE 7:e50182. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0050182

Boisvenue C, Running SW (2006) Impacts of climate change on natural forest productivity—evidence since the middle of the 20th century. Glob Chang Biol 12:862–882. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2006.01134.x

Bolte A, Eisenhauer DR, Ehrhart HP, Gross J, Hanewinkel M, Kolling C, Profft I, Rohde M, Rohe P, Amereller K (2009) Climate change and forest management—accordances and differences between the German states regarding assessments for needs and strategies towards forest adaptation. Landbauforschung Volkenrode 59:269–278

Bonan GB, Pollard D, Thompson SL (1992) Effects of boreal forest vegetation on global climate. Nature 359:716–718. doi: 10.1038/359716a0

Bongers F, Poorter L, Van Rompaey R, Parren MPE (1999) Distribution of twelve moist forest canopy tree species in Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire: response curves to a climatic gradient. J Veg Sci 10:371–382. doi: 10.2307/3237066

Booth TH (1990) Mapping regions climatically suitable for particular tree species at the global scale. For Ecol Manag 36:47–60

Booth TH (2013) Eucalypt plantations and climate change. For Ecol Manag 301:28–34. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2012.04.004

Booth TH, Nix HA, Hutchinson MF, Jovanovic T (1988) Niche analysis and tree species introduction. For Ecol Manag 23:47–59

Bowman DMJS, Williamson GJ, Keenan RJ, Prior LD (2014) A warmer world will reduce tree growth in evergreen broadleaf forests: evidence from Australian temperate and subtropical eucalypt forests. Glob Ecol Biogeogr 23:925–934. doi: 10.1111/geb.12171

Brautigam K, Vining KJ, Lafon-Placette C, Fossdal CG, Mirouze M, Marcos JG, Fluch S, Fraga MF, Guevara MA, Abarca D, Johnsen O, Maury S, Strauss SH, Campbell MM, Rohde A, Diaz-Sala C, Cervera MT (2013) Epigenetic regulation of adaptive responses of forest tree species to the environment. Ecol Evol 3:399–415. doi: 10.1002/ece3.461

Breed MF, Stead MG, Ottewell KM, Gardner MG, Lowe AJ (2013) Which provenance and where? Seed sourcing strategies for revegetation in a changing environment. Conserv Genet 14:1–10. doi: 10.1007/s10592-012-0425-z

Breymeyer A, Melillo JM (1991) Global climate change—the effects of climate change on production and decomposition in coniferous forests and grasslands. Ecol Appl 1:111–111. doi: 10.2307/1941804

Brooker RW, Travis JMJ, Clark EJ, Dytham C (2007) Modelling species’ range shifts in a changing climate: the impacts of biotic interactions, dispersal distance and the rate of climate change. J Theor Biol 245:59–65. doi: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2006.09.033

PubMed   Google Scholar  

Brotak EA, Reifsnyder WE (1977) Predicting major wildland fire occurrence. Fire Manag Notes 38:5–8

Brown HCP (2009) Climate change and Ontario forests: prospects for building institutional adaptive capacity. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Chang 14:513–536. doi: 10.1007/s11027-009-9183-8

Buma B, Wessman CA (2013) Forest resilience, climate change, and opportunities for adaptation: a specific case of a general problem. For Ecol Manag 306:216–225. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2013.06.044

Campbell EM, Saunders SC, Coates KD, Meidinger DV, MacKinnon A, O’Neil GA, MacKillop DJ, DeLong SC, Morgan. DG (2009) Ecological resilience and complexity: a theoretical framework for understanding and managing British Columbia’s forest ecosystems in a changing climate. B.C. Min. For. Range, For. Sci. Prog., Victoria, B.C.

Cannell MGR, Grace J, Booth A (1989) Possible impacts of climatic warming on trees and forests in the United Kingdom—a review. Forestry 62:337–364. doi: 10.1093/forestry/62.4.337

Carvalho A, Flannigan MD, Logan K, Miranda AI, Borrego C (2008) Fire activity in Portugal and its relationship to weather and the Canadian Fire Weather Index System. Int J Wildl Fire 17:328–338. doi: 10.1071/WF07014

Castagneri D, Motta R (2010) A research gap in the interactive effects of climate and competition on trees growth. In: Karam WP (ed) Tree growth: influences, layers and types. Nova Science, Hauppauge, pp 93–102

Caverley N (2013) The guardians of Mother Earth: a qualitative study of aboriginal knowledge keepers and their views on climate change adaptation in the South Selkirks region. Nativ Stud Rev 21:125–150

Cheaib A, Badeau V, Boe J, Chuine I, Delire C, Dufrêne E, François C, Gritti ES, Legay M, Pagé C, Thuiller W, Viovy N, Leadley P (2012) Climate change impacts on tree ranges: model intercomparison facilitates understanding and quantification of uncertainty. Ecol Lett 15:533–544. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01764.x

Chen WJ, Black TA, Yang PC, Barr AG, Neumann HH, Nesic Z, Blanken PD, Novak MD, Eley J, Ketler RJ, Cuenca A (1999) Effects of climatic variability on the annual carbon sequestration by a boreal aspen forest. Glob Chang Biol 5:41–53. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2486.1998.00201.x

CAS   Google Scholar  

Chmura DJ, Anderson PD, Howe GT, Harrington CA, Halofsky JE, Peterson DL, Shaw DC, St. Brad Clair J (2011) Forest responses to climate change in the northwestern United States: ecophysiological foundations for adaptive management. For Ecol Manag 261:1121–1142. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2010.12.040

Choat B, Jansen S, Brodribb TJ, Cochard H, Delzon S, Bhaskar R, Bucci SJ, Feild TS, Gleason SM, Hacke UG, Jacobsen AL, Lens F, Maherali H, Martinez-Vilalta J, Mayr S, Mencuccini M, Mitchell PJ, Nardini A, Pittermann J, Pratt RB, Sperry JS, Westoby M, Wright IJ, Zanne AE (2012) Global convergence in the vulnerability of forests to drought. Nature 491:752–755

CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Chuvieco E, Martinez S, Roman MV, Hantson S, Pettinari ML (2014) Integration of ecological and socio-economic factors to assess global vulnerability to wildfire. Glob Ecol Biogeogr 23:245–258. doi: 10.1111/geb.12095

Clark DA (2007) Detecting tropical forests’ responses to global climatic and atmospheric change: current challenges and a way forward. Biotropica 39:4–19. doi: 10.1111/j.1744-7429.2006.00227.x

Clark JS, Bell DM, Hersh MH, Nichols L (2011) Climate change vulnerability of forest biodiversity: climate and competition tracking of demographic rates. Glob Chang Biol 17:1834–1849. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2010.02380.x

Cockfield G, Maraseni T, Buys L, Sommerfeld J, Wilson C, Athukorala W (2011) Socioeconomic implications of climate change with regard to forests and forest management. Contribution of Work Package 3 to the Forest Vulnerability Assessment. National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast

Corlett RT (2011) Impacts of warming on tropical lowland rainforests. Trends Ecol Evol 26:606–613

Corlett RT, Westcott DA (2013) Will plant movements keep up with climate change? Trends Ecol Evol 28:482–488. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2013.04.003

Couture S, Reynaud A (2008) Multi-stand forest management under a climatic risk: do time and risk preferences matter? Environ Model Assess 13:181–193

D’Amato AW, Bradford JB, Fraver S, Palik BJ (2011) Forest management for mitigation and adaptation to climate change: insights from long-term silviculture experiments. For Ecol Manag 262:803–816. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2011.05.014

Daubenmire RF (1978) Plant geography. Academic, New York

Davidar P, Rajagopal B, Mohandass D, Puyravaud JP, Condit R, Wright SJ, Leigh EG (2007) The effect of climatic gradients, topographic variation and species traits on the beta diversity of rain forest trees. Glob Ecol Biogeogr 16:510–518. doi: 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2007.00307.x

Davis MB (1986) Climatic instability, time lags and community disequilibrium. In: Diamond J, Case TJ (eds) Community ecology. Harper and Row, New York, pp 269–284

Day JK, Perez DM (2013) Reducing uncertainty and risk through forest management planning in British Columbia. For Ecol Manag 300:117–124. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2012.11.035

de Groot WJ, Flannigan MD, Cantin AS (2013) Climate change impacts on future boreal fire regimes. For Ecol Manag 294:35–44. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2012.09.027

Dessai S, Hulme M (2004) Does climate adaptation policy need probabilities? Clim Pol 4:107–128. doi: 10.1080/14693062.2004.9685515

Di Nitto D, Neukermans G, Koedam N, Defever H, Pattyn F, Kairo JG, Dahdouh-Guebas F (2014) Mangroves facing climate change: landward migration potential in response to projected scenarios of sea level rise. Biogeosciences 11:857–871. doi: 10.5194/bg-11-857-2014

Dixon RK, Krankina ON, Kobak KI (1996) Global climate change adaptation: examples from Russian boreal forests. Adapting to climate change: an international perspective.

Dobrowski SZ, Abatzoglou J, Swanson AK, Greenberg JA, Mynsberge AR, Holden ZA, Schwartz MK (2013) The climate velocity of the contiguous United States during the 20th century. Glob Chang Biol 19:241–251. doi: 10.1111/gcb.12026

Doyle TW, Krauss KW, Conner WH, From AS (2010) Predicting the retreat and migration of tidal forests along the northern Gulf of Mexico under sea-level rise. For Ecol Manag 259:770–777. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2009.10.023

Eliasch J (2008) Climate change: financing global forests. The Eliasch Review. HMSO

Emanuel WR, Shugart HH, Stevenson MP (1985) Climatic-change and the broad-scale distribution of terrestrial ecosystem complexes. Clim Chang 7:29–43. doi: 10.1007/bf00139439

Eriksson LO, Backéus S, Garcia F (2011) Implications of growth uncertainties associated with climate change for stand management. Eur J For Res 131:1199–1209. doi: 10.1007/s10342-011-0591-4

Ettl GJ, Peterson DL (1995) Extreme climate and variation in tree growth—individualistic response in sub-alpine fir ( Abies-lasiocarpa ). Glob Chang Biol 1:231–241. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.1995.tb00024.x

Feeley KJ, Rehm EM, Machovina B (2012) Perspective: the responses of tropical forest species to global climate change: acclimate, adapt, migrate, or go extinct? Frontiers of Biogeography 4 (2)

Feikema PM, Sherwin CB, Lane PNJ (2013) Influence of climate, fire severity and forest mortality on predictions of long term streamflow: potential effect of the 2009 wildfire on Melbourne’s water supply catchments. J Hydrol 488:1–16. doi: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2013.02.001

Fischer AP, Paveglio T, Carroll M, Murphy D, Brenkert-Smith H (2013) Assessing social vulnerability to climate change in human communities near public forests and grasslands: a framework for resource managers and planners. J For 111:357–365. doi: 10.5849/jof. 12-091

Fischlin A, Ayres M, Karnosky D, Kellomäki S, Louman B, Ong C, Plattner G-K, Santoso H, Thompson I, Booth TH, Marcar N, Scholes B, Swanston C, Zamolodchikov D (2009) Future environmental impacts and vulnerabilities. In: Seppälä R, Buck A, Katila P (eds) Adaptation of forests and people to climate change: a global assessment report, vol 22. IUFRO World Series, Helsinki, pp 53–100

Franks PJ, Adams MA, Amthor JS, Barbour MM, Berry JA, Ellsworth DS, Farquhar GD, Ghannoum O, Lloyd J, McDowell N, Norby RJ, Tissue DT, von Caemmerer S (2013) Sensitivity of plants to changing atmospheric CO2 concentration: from the geological past to the next century. New Phytol 197:1077–1094. doi: 10.1111/nph.12104

Furness E, Nelson H (2012) Community forest organizations and adaptation to climate change in British Columbia. For Chron 88:519–524

Garcia RA, Cabeza M, Rahbek C, Araújo MB (2014) Multiple dimensions of climate change and their implications for biodiversity. Science 344 (6183). doi:10.1126/science.1247579

Gentilli J (1949) Forest influences: the effects of woody vegetation on climatic water, and soil, with applications to the conservation of water and the control of floods and erosion. Geogr Rev 39:164–164. doi: 10.2307/211169

Gibbs HK, Ruesch AS, Achard F, Clayton MK, Holmgren P, Ramankutty N, Foley JA (2010) Tropical forests were the primary sources of new agricultural land in the 1980s and 1990s. Proc Natl Acad Sci 107:16732–16737. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0910275107

Gilman RT, Fabina NS, Abbott KC, Rafferty NE (2012) Evolution of plant–pollinator mutualisms in response to climate change. Evol Appl 5:2–16. doi: 10.1111/j.1752-4571.2011.00202.x

Gonzalez ME, Lara A, Urrutia R, Bosnich J (2011) Climatic change and its potential impact on forest fire occurrence in south-central Chile (33 degrees-42 degrees S). Bosque 32:215–219. doi: 10.4067/s0717-92002011000300002

Graham RL, Turner MG, Dale VH (1990) How increasing CO2 and climate change affect forests—at many spatial and temporal scales, there will be forest responses that will be affected by human activities. Bioscience 40:575–587. doi: 10.2307/1311298

Graumlich LJ (1993) Response of tree growth to climatic variation in the mixed conifer and deciduous forests of the upper Great-Lakes region. Can J For Res 23:133–143. doi: 10.1139/x93-020

Groffman PM, Rustad LE, Templer PH, Campbell JL, Christenson LM, Lany NK, Socci AM, Vadeboncoeur MA, Schaberg PG, Wilson GF, Driscoll CT, Fahey TJ, Fisk MC, Goodale CL, Green MB, Hamburg SP, Johnson CE, Mitchell MJ, Morse JL, Pardo LH, Rodenhouse NL (2012) Long-term integrated studies show complex and surprising effects of climate change in the northern hardwood forest. Bioscience 62:1056–1066. doi: 10.1525/bio.2012.62.12.7

Grubb PJ, Whitmore TC (1966) A comparison of montane and lowland rain forest in Ecuador. 2. Climate and its effects on distribution and physiognomy of forests. J Ecol 54:303. doi: 10.2307/2257951

Guan BT, Wright WE, Chung C-H, Chang S-T (2012) ENSO and PDO strongly influence Taiwan spruce height growth. For Ecol Manag 267:50–57. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2011.11.028

Guardiola-Claramonte M, Troch PA, Breshears DD, Huxman TE, Switanek MB, Durcik M, Cobb NS (2011) Decreased streamflow in semi-arid basins following drought-induced tree die-off: a counter-intuitive and indirect climate impact on hydrology. J Hydrol 406:225–233. doi: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2011.06.017

Guariguata MR (2009) Tropical forest management and climate change adaptation. Rev Estud Soc 32:98–112

Guariguata MR, Cornelius JP, Locatelli B, Forner C, Sánchez-Azofeifa GA (2008) Mitigation needs adaptation: tropical forestry and climate change. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Chang 13:793–808. doi: 10.1007/s11027-007-9141-2

Guariguata MR, Locatelli B, Haupt F (2012) Adapting tropical production forests to global climate change: risk perceptions and actions. Int For Rev 14:27–38

Gyampoh BA, Amisah S, Idinoba M, Nkem J (2009) Using traditional knowledge to cope with climate change in rural Ghana. Unasylva 60:70–74

Hahn WA, Knoke T (2010) Sustainable development and sustainable forestry: analogies, differences, and the role of flexibility. Eur J For Res 129:787–801. doi: 10.1007/s10342-010-0385-0

Hamrick JL (2004) Response of forest trees to global environmental changes. For Ecol Manag 197:323–335. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2004.05.023

Hansenbristow KJ, Ives JD, Wilson JP (1988) Climatic variability and tree response within the forest alpine tundra ecotone. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 78:505–519. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8306.1988.tb00221.x

Harper RJ, Smettem KRJ, Carter JO, McGrath JF (2009) Drought deaths in Eucalyptus globulus (Labill.) plantations in relation to soils, geomorphology and climate. Plant Soil 324:199–207. doi: 10.1007/s11104-009-9944-x

Heller NE, Zavaleta ES (2009) Biodiversity management in the face of climate change: a review of 22 years of recommendations. Biol Conserv 142:14–32. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2008.10.006

Hennessy K, Lucas C, Nicholls N, Bathols J, Suppiah R, Ricketts J (2005) Climate change impacts on fire-weather in south-east Australia. CSIRO Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research, Aspendale

Holling CS (1978) Adaptive environmental assessment and management. Wiley, Chichester

Hughes L, Cawsey EM, Westoby M (1996) Climatic range sizes of Eucalyptus species in relation to future climate change. Glob Ecol Biogeogr Lett 5:23–29. doi: 10.2307/2997467

Huntingford C, Zelazowski P, Galbraith D, Mercado LM, Sitch S, Fisher R, Lomas M, Walker AP, Jones CD, Booth BBB, Malhi Y, Hemming D, Kay G, Good P, Lewis SL, Phillips OL, Atkin OK, Lloyd J, Gloor E, Zaragoza-Castells J, Meir P, Betts R, Harris PP, Nobre C, Marengo J, Cox PM (2013) Simulated resilience of tropical rainforests to CO2-induced climate change. Nat Geosci 6:268–273

Huntley B (1990) European postglacial forests—compositional changes in response to climatic-change. J Veg Sci 1:507–518. doi: 10.2307/3235785

Ince PJ, Kramp AD, Skog KE, Yoo DI, Sample VA (2011) Modeling future U.S. forest sector market and trade impacts of expansion in wood energy consumption. J For Econ 17:142–156. doi: 10.1016/j.jfe.2011.02.007

Innes J, Joyce LA, Kellomäki S, Louman B, Ogden A, Parrotta J, Thompson I, Ayres M, Ong C, Santoso H, Sohngen B, Wreford A (2009) Management for adaptation. In: Seppälä R, Buck A, Katila P (eds) Adaptation of forests and people to climate change: a global assessment report, vol World Series Volume 22. IUFRO Helsinki, pp 135–186

IPCC (2013) Climate Change 2013: The physical science basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA

IUCN (2008) Ecosystem-based adaptation: an approach for building resilience and reducing risk for local communities and ecosystems. Submission to the Chair of the AWG-LCA with respect to the Shared Vision and Enhanced Action on Adaptation. International Union for the Conservation of Nature,

Iverson LR, Schwartz MW, Prasad AM (2004) How fast and far might tree species migrate in the eastern United States due to climate change? Glob Ecol Biogeogr 13:209–219

Johnson G, Sorensen FC, St Clair JB, Cronn RC (2004) Pacific Northwest forest tree seed zones: a template for native plants? Nativ Plants J 5:131–140

Johnston M, Hesseln H (2012) Climate change adaptive capacity of the Canadian forest sector. For Policy Econ 24:29–34. doi: 10.1016/j.forpol.2012.06.001

Johnston M, Lindner M, Parrotta J, Giessen L (2012) Adaptation and mitigation options for forests and forest management in a changing climate. For Policy Econ 24:1–2. doi: 10.1016/j.forpol.2012.09.007

Johnston M, Williamson T (2007) A framework for assessing climate change vulnerability of the Canadian forest sector. For Chron 83:358–361

Joyce LA (2007) The impacts of climate change on forestry. In: Adams DM, Haynes RW (eds) Resource and market projections for forest policy development: twenty-five years of experience with the US RPA Timber Assessment, vol 14. Managing Forest Ecosystems. pp 449–488

Joyce LA, Blate GM, Littell JS, McNulty SG, Millar CI, Moser SC, Neilson RP, O’Halloran K, Peterson DL (2008) National forests. Preliminary review of adaptation options for climate-sensitive ecosystems and resources. A report by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research. US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC

Joyce LA, Blate GM, McNulty SG, Millar CI, Moser S, Neilson RP, Peterson DL (2009) Managing for multiple resources under climate change: national forests. Environ Manag 44:1022–1032. doi: 10.1007/s00267-009-9324-6

Joyce LA, Mills JR, Heath LS, McGuire AD, Haynes RW, Birdsey RA (1995) Forest sector impacts from changes in forest productivity under climate change. J Biogeogr 22:703–713. doi: 10.2307/2845973

Kalame FB, Luukkanen O, Kanninen M (2011) Making the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) more responsive to the livelihood needs of tree planting farmers, drawing on previous experience in dryland Sudan. Forests 2:948–960. doi: 10.3390/f2040948

Kallarackal J, Roby TJ (2012) Responses of trees to elevated carbon dioxide and climate change. Biodivers Conserv 21:1327–1342. doi: 10.1007/s10531-012-0254-x

Kant P, Wu S (2012) Should adaptation to climate change be given priority over mitigation in tropical forests? Carbon Manag 3:303–311. doi: 10.4155/cmt.12.29

Karjalainen T, Pussinen A, Liski J, Nabuurs GJ, Eggers T, Lapvetelainen T, Kaipainen T (2003) Scenario analysis of the impacts of forest management and climate change on the European forest sector carbon budget. For Policy Econ 5:141–155. doi: 10.1016/s1389-9341(03)00021-2

Keenan RJ (2012) Adaptation of forests and forest management to climate change: an editorial. Forests 3:75–82. doi: 10.3390/f3010075

Kellomaki S, Peltola H, Nuutinen T, Korhonen KT, Strandman H (2008) Sensitivity of managed boreal forests in Finland to climate change, with implications for adaptive management. Phil Trans R Soc B 363:2341–2351. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2007.2204

Kelly AE, Goulden ML (2008) Rapid shifts in plant distribution with recent climate change. Proc Natl Acad Sci 105:11823–11826. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0802891105

Kerhoulas LP, Kolb TE, Hurteau MD, Koch GW (2013) Managing climate change adaptation in forests: a case study from the US Southwest. J Appl Ecol 50:1311–1320. doi: 10.1111/1365-2664.12139

Keskitalo EC (2008) Vulnerability and adaptive capacity in forestry in northern Europe: a Swedish case study. Clim Chang 87:219–234. doi: 10.1007/s10584-007-9337-1

Keskitalo ECH (2011) How can forest management adapt to climate change? Possibilities in different forestry systems. Forests 2:415–430. doi: 10.3390/f2010415

Kienast F, Brzeziecki B, Wildi O (1996) Long-term adaptation potential of Central European mountain forests to climate change: a GIS-assisted sensitivity assessment. For Ecol Manag 80:133–153. doi: 10.1016/0378-1127(95)03633-4

Kimmins JP (2002) Future shock in forestry—where have we come from; where are we going; is there a “right way” to manage forests? Lessons from Thoreau, Leopold, Toffler, Botkin and Nature. For Chron 78:263–271

Kimmins JP (2008) From science to stewardship: harnessing forest ecology in the service of society. For Ecol Manag 256:1625–1635. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2008.02.057

Kimmins JP, Blanco JA, Seely B, Welham C, Scoullar K (2008) Complexity in modelling forest ecosystems: how much is enough? For Ecol Manag 256:1646–1658. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2008.03.011

Kimmins JP, Mailly D, Seely B (1999) Modelling forest ecosystem net primary production: the hybrid simulation approach used in forecast. Ecol Model 122:195–224

Kint V, Aertsen W, Campioli M, Vansteenkiste D, Delcloo A, Muys B (2012) Radial growth change of temperate tree species in response to altered regional climate and air quality in the period 1901–2008. Clim Chang 115:343–363. doi: 10.1007/s10584-012-0465-x

Kirschbaum MUF, Watt MS, Tait A, Ausseil A-GE (2012) Future wood productivity of Pinus radiata in New Zealand under expected climatic changes. Glob Chang Biol 18:1342–1356. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02625.x

Klenk NL, Adams BW, Bull GQ, Innes JL, Cohen SJ, Larson BC (2011) Climate change adaptation and sustainable forest management: a proposed reflexive research agenda. For Chron 87:351–357

Kobak KI, Turchinovich IY, Kondrasheva NY, Schulze ED, Schulze W, Koch H, Vygodskaya NN (1996) Vulnerability and adaptation of the larch forest in eastern Siberia to climate change. Water Air Soil Pollut 92:119–127

Kolström M, Lindner M, Vilén T, Maroschek M, Seidl R, Lexer MJ, Netherer S, Kremer A, Delzon S, Barbati A, Marchetti M, Corona P (2011) Reviewing the science and Implementation of climate change adaptation measures in European forestry. Forests 2:961–982. doi: 10.3390/f2040961

Konkin D, Hopkins K (2009) Learning to deal with climate change and catastrophic forest disturbances. Unasylva 60:17–23

Kremer A, Ronce O, Robledo-Arnuncio JJ, Guillaume F, Bohrer G, Nathan R, Bridle JR, Gomulkiewicz R, Klein EK, Ritland K, Kuparinen A, Gerber S, Schueler S (2012) Long-distance gene flow and adaptation of forest trees to rapid climate change. Ecol Lett 15:378–392. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01746.x

PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Kuparinen A, Savolainen O, Schurr FM (2010) Increased mortality can promote evolutionary adaptation of forest trees to climate change. For Ecol Manag 259:1003–1008. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2009.12.006

Lal R, Cummings DJ (1979) Clearing a tropical forest. 1. Effects on soil and micro-climate. Field Crop Res 2:91–107. doi: 10.1016/0378-4290(79)90012-1

Leites LP, Rehfeldt GE, Robinson AP, Crookston NL, Jaquish B (2012) Possibilities and limitations of using historic provenance tests to infer forest species growth responses to climate change. Nat Resour Model 25:409–433. doi: 10.1111/j.1939-7445.2012.00129.x

Lenoir J, Gegout JC, Dupouey JL, Bert D, Svenning JC (2010) Forest plant community changes during 1989–2007 in response to climate warming in the Jura Mountains (France and Switzerland). J Veg Sci 21:949–964. doi: 10.1111/j.1654-1103.2010.01201.x

Leuzinger S, Luo Y, Beier C, Dieleman W, Vicca S, Körner C (2011) Do global change experiments overestimate impacts on terrestrial ecosystems? Trends Ecol Evol 26:236–241

Levina E, Tirpak D (2006) Adaptation to climate change: key terms. OECD/IEA, Paris

Lin BB, Petersen B (2013) Resilience, regime shifts, and guided transition under climate change: examining the practical difficulties of managing continually changing systems. Ecology and Society 18 (1). doi:10.5751/es-05128-180128

Lindner M (2000) Developing adaptive forest management strategies to cope with climate change. Tree Physiol 20:299–307

Lindner M, Fitzgerald JB, Zimmermann NE, Reyer C, Delzon S, van der Maaten E, Schelhaas MJ, Lasch P, Eggers J, van der Maaten-Theunissen M, Suckow F, Psomas A, Poulter B, Hanewinkel M (2014) Climate change and European forests: what do we know, what are the uncertainties, and what are the implications for forest management? J Environ Manag 146:69–83. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.07.030

Lindner M, Maroschek M, Netherer S, Kremer A, Barbati A, Garcia-Gonzalo J, Seidl R, Delzon S, Corona P, Kolström M, Lexer MJ, Marchetti M (2010) Climate change impacts, adaptive capacity, and vulnerability of European forest ecosystems. For Ecol Manag 259:698–709. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2009.09.023

Lindner M, Sohngen B, Joyce LA, Price DT, Bernier PY, Karjalainen T (2002) Integrated forestry assessments for climate change impacts. For Ecol Manag 162:117–136. doi: 10.1016/S0378-1127(02)00054-3

Littell JS, Peterson DL, Millar CI, O’Halloran KA (2012) U.S. national forests adapt to climate change through science-management partnerships. Clim Chang 110:269–296. doi: 10.1007/s10584-011-0066-0

Liu Y, Stanturf J, Goodrick S (2010) Trends in global wildfire potential in a changing climate. For Ecol Manag 259:685–697. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2009.09.002

Locatelli B, Evans V, Wardell A, Andrade A, Vignola R (2011) Forests and climate change in Latin America: linking adaptation and mitigation. Forests 2:431–450. doi: 10.3390/f2010431

Loehman RA, Clark JA, Keane RE (2011) Modeling effects of climate change and fire management on Western White Pine (Pinus monticola) in the Northern Rocky Mountains, USA. Forests 2:832–860. doi: 10.3390/f2040832

Long A (2013) REDD plus, adaptation, and sustainable forest management: toward effective polycentric global forest governance. Trop Conserv Sci 6:384–408

Lucier A, Ayres M, Karnosky D, Thompson I, Loehle C, Percy K, Sohngen B (2009) Forest responses and vulnerabilities to recent climate change. In: Seppälä R, Buck A, Katila P (eds) Adaptation of forests and people to climate change: a global assessment report, vol World Series Volume 22. IUFRO Helsinki, pp 29–52

Lynch AJJ, Fell DG, McIntyre-Tamwoy S (2010) Incorporating Indigenous values with ‘Western’ conservation values in sustainable biodiversity management. Aust J Environ Manag 17:244–255

Macdonald GM, Edwards TWD, Moser KA, Pienitz R, Smol JP (1993) Rapid response of treeline vegetation and lakes to past climate warming. Nature 361:243–246. doi: 10.1038/361243a0

Mahat V, Anderson A (2013) Impacts of climate and catastrophic forest changes on streamflow and water balance in a mountainous headwater stream in Southern Alberta. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 17:4941–4956. doi: 10.5194/hess-17-4941-2013

Malcolm JR, Markham A, Neilson RP, Garaci M (2002) Estimated migration rates under scenarios of global climate change. J Biogeogr 29:835–849. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2699.2002.00702.x

Matthews SN, Iverson LR, Prasad AM, Peters MP (2011) Changes in potential habitat of 147 North American breeding bird species in response to redistribution of trees and climate following predicted climate change. Ecography 34:933–945. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0587.2011.06803.x

McEvoy D, Fünfgeld H, Bosomworth K (2013) Resilience and climate change adaptation: the importance of framing. Plan Pract Res 28:280–293. doi: 10.1080/02697459.2013.787710

Medlyn B, Zeppel M, Brouwers N, Howard K, O’Gara E, Hardy G, Lyons T, Li L, Evans B (2011) Biophysical impacts of climate change on Australia’s forests. Contribution of Work Package 2 to the Forest Vulnerability Assessment. National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast

Messier C, Puettmann K, Coates DJ (2013) Managing forests as complex adaptive systems: building resilience to the challenge of global change. Earthscan, London

Michelot A, Breda N, Damesin C, Dufrene E (2012) Differing growth responses to climatic variations and soil water deficits of Fagus sylvatica, Quercus petraea and Pinus sylvestris in a temperate forest. For Ecol Manag 265:161–171. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2011.10.024

Milad M, Schaich H, Konold W (2013) How is adaptation to climate change reflected in current practice of forest management and conservation? A case study from Germany. Biodivers Conserv 22:1181–1202. doi: 10.1007/s10531-012-0337-8

Miles L, Grainger A, Phillips O (2004) The impact of global climate change on tropical forest biodiversity in Amazonia. Glob Ecol Biogeogr 13:553–565. doi: 10.1111/j.1466-822X.2004.00105.x

Mok H-F, Arndt SK, Nitschke CR (2012) Modelling the potential impact of climate variability and change on species regeneration potential in the temperate forests of South-Eastern Australia. Glob Chang Biol 18:1053–1072. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02591.x

Mori AS, Spies TA, Sudmeier-Rieux K, Andrade A (2013) Reframing ecosystem management in the era of climate change: issues and knowledge from forests. Biol Conserv 165:115–127. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2013.05.020

Namkoong G (2001) Forest genetics: pattern and complexity. Can J For Res 31:623–632. doi: 10.1139/cjfr-31-4-623

Neukum C, Azzam R (2012) Impact of climate change on groundwater recharge in a small catchment in the Black Forest, Germany. Hydrogeol J 20:547–560. doi: 10.1007/s10040-011-0827-x

Nilsson AE, Gerger Swartling Å, Eckerberg K (2012) Knowledge for local climate change adaptation in Sweden: challenges of multilevel governance. Local Environ 17:751–767. doi: 10.1080/13549839.2012.678316

Nitschke CR, Innes JL (2008a) Integrating climate change into forest management in South-Central British Columbia: an assessment of landscape vulnerability and development of a climate-smart framework. For Ecol Manag 256:313–327. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2008.04.026

Nitschke CR, Innes JL (2008b) A tree and climate assessment tool for modelling ecosystem response to climate change. Ecol Model 210:263–277. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2007.07.026

Nkem J, Kalame FB, Idinoba M, Somorin OA, Ndoye O, Awono A (2010) Shaping forest safety nets with markets: adaptation to climate change under changing roles of tropical forests in Congo Basin. Environ Sci Pol 13:498–508. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2010.06.004

Ogden AE, Innes J (2007a) Incorporating climate change adaptation considerations into forest management planning in the boreal forest. Int For Rev 9:713–733. doi: 10.1505/ifor.9.3.713

Ogden AE, Innes JL (2007b) Perspectives of forest practitioners on climate change adaptation in the Yukon and Northwest Territories of Canada. For Chron 83:557–569

Ogden AE, Innes JL (2009) Application of structured decision making to an assessment of climate change vulnerabilities and adaptation options for sustainable forest management. Ecology and Society 14 (1). doi:11

Ohlson DW, McKinnon GA, Hirsch KG (2005) A structured decision-making approach to climate change adaptation in the forest sector. For Chron 81:97–103

Otterman J, Chou MD, Arking A (1984) Effects of nontropical forest cover on climate. J Clim Appl Meteorol 23:762–767. doi: 10.1175/1520-0450(1984)023<0762:eonfco>2.0.co;2

Parks CG, Bernier P (2010) Adaptation of forests and forest management to changing climate with emphasis on forest health: a review of science, policies and practices. For Ecol Manag 259:657–659. doi: 10.1016/s0378-1127(09)00903-7

Pastor J, Post WM (1988) Response of northern forests to CO2-induced climate change. Nature 334:55–58. doi: 10.1038/334055a0

Pearson RG, Dawson TP (2003) Predicting the impacts of climate change on the distribution of species: are bioclimate envelope models useful? Glob Ecol Biogeogr 12:361–371. doi: 10.1046/j.1466-822X.2003.00042.x

Peel J, Godden L, Keenan RJ (2012) Climate change law in an era of multi-level governance. Transl Environ Law 1:245–280. doi: 10.1017/S2047102512000052

Peters EB, Wythers KR, Zhang SX, Bradford JB, Reich PB (2013) Potential climate change impacts on temperate forest ecosystem processes. Can J For Res 43:939–950. doi: 10.1139/cjfr-2013-0013

Peterson DL, Millar CI, Joyce LA, Furniss MJ, Halofsky JE, Neilson RP, Morelli TL (2011) Responding to climate change in national forests: a guidebook for developing adaptation options. General Technical Report. USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station

Phillips OL, Lewis SL, Baker TR, Chao K-J, Higuchi N (2008) The changing Amazon forest. Phil Trans R Soc B 363:1819–1827. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2007.0033

Pinkard EA, Battaglia M, Bruce J, Leriche A, Kriticos DJ (2010) Process-based modelling of the severity and impact of foliar pest attack on eucalypt plantation productivity under current and future climates. For Ecol Manag 259:839–847. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2009.06.027

Pojar J, Klinka K, Meidinger DV (1987) Biogeoclimatic ecosystem classification in British Columbia. For Ecol Manag 22:119–154

Pramova E, Locatelli B, Djoudi H, Somorin OA (2012) Forests and trees for social adaptation to climate variability and change. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Clim Chang 3:581–596. doi: 10.1002/wcc.195

Prato T (2008) Conceptual framework for assessment and management of ecosystem impacts of climate change. Ecol Complex 5:329–338

Pretzsch H, Biber P, Schütze G, Uhl E, Rötzer T (2014) Forest stand growth dynamics in Central Europe have accelerated since 1870. Nat Commun 5. doi:10.1038/ncomms5967

Rastetter EB, Ryan MG, Shaver GR, Melillo JM, Nadelhoffer KJ, Hobbie JE, Aber JD (1991) A general biogeochemical model describing the responses of the C and N cycles in terrestrial ecosystems to changes in CO2, climate, and N deposition. Tree Physiol 9:101–126

Rayner J, McNutt K, Wellstead A (2013) Dispersed capacity and weak coordination: the challenge of climate change adaptation in Canada’s forest policy sector. Rev Policy Res 30:66–90. doi: 10.1111/ropr.12003

Regniere J (2009) Predicting insect continental distributions from species physiology. Unasylva 60:37–42

Reyer C, Lasch-Born P, Suckow F, Gutsch M, Murawski A, Pilz T (2014) Projections of regional changes in forest net primary productivity for different tree species in Europe driven by climate change and carbon dioxide. Ann For Sci 71:211–225. doi: 10.1007/s13595-013-0306-8

Rigling A, Bigler C, Eilmann B, Feldmeyer-Christe E, Gimmi U, Ginzler C, Graf U, Mayer P, Vacchiano G, Weber P, Wohlgemuth T, Zweifel R, Dobbertin M (2013) Driving factors of a vegetation shift from Scots pine to pubescent oak in dry Alpine forests. Glob Chang Biol 19:229–240. doi: 10.1111/gcb.12038

Rist L, Moen J (2013) Sustainability in forest management and a new role for resilience thinking. For Ecol Manag 310:416–427. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2013.08.033

Roberts G, Parrotta J, Wreford A (2009) Current adaptation measures and policies. In: Seppälä R, Buck A, Katila P (eds) Adaptation of forests and people to climate change: a global assessment report, vol World Series Volume 22. IUFRO Helsinki, pp 123–134

Ruiz-Labourdette D, Schmitz MF, Pineda FD (2013) Changes in tree species composition in Mediterranean mountains under climate change: indicators for conservation planning. Ecol Indic 24:310–323. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2012.06.021

Running SW, Nemani RR (1991) Regional hydrologic and carbon balance responses of forests resulting from potential climate change. Clim Chang 19:349–368. doi: 10.1007/bf00151173

Sample VA, Halofsky JE, Peterson DL (2014) US strategy for forest management adaptation to climate change: building a framework for decision making. Ann For Sci 71:125–130. doi: 10.1007/s13595-013-0288-6

Schaich H, Milad M (2013) Forest biodiversity in a changing climate: which logic for conservation strategies? Biodivers Conserv 22:1107–1114. doi: 10.1007/s10531-013-0491-7

Schoene DHF, Bernier PY (2012) Adapting forestry and forests to climate change: a challenge to change the paradigm. For Policy Econ 24:12–19. doi: 10.1016/j.forpol.2011.04.007

Schwartz MW, Dolanc CR, Gao H, Strauss SY, Schwartz AC, Williams JN, Tang Y (2013) Forest structure, stand composition, and climate-growth response in montane forests of Jiuzhaigou National Nature Reserve, China. Plos One 8 (8). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0071559

Scott D (2005) Integrating climate change into Canada’s National Parks System. In: Lovejoy T, Hannah L (eds) Climate change and biodiversity. Yale University Press, New Haven, pp 343–345

Seidl R, Lexer MJ (2013) Forest management under climatic and social uncertainty: trade-offs between reducing climate change impacts and fostering adaptive capacity. J Environ Manag 114:461–469. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2012.09.028

Seidl R, Rammer W, Lexer MJ (2011) Adaptation options to reduce climate change vulnerability of sustainable forest management in the Austrian Alps. Can J For Res 41:694–706. doi: 10.1139/x10-235

Seppala R (2009) A global assessment on adaptation of forests to climate change. Scand J For Res 24:469–472. doi: 10.1080/02827580903378626

Seppälä R, Buck A, Katila P (2009) Adaptation of forests and people to climate change: a global assessment report, vol World Series Volume 22. Helsinki, IUFRO

Six DL (2009) Climate change and mutualism. Nat Rev Microbiol 7:686–686

Somorin OA, Brown HCP, Visseren-Hamakers IJ, Sonwa DJ, Arts B, Nkem J (2012) The Congo Basin forests in a changing climate: Policy discourses on adaptation and mitigation (REDD+). Glob Environ Chang 22:288–298. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.08.001

Sonwa DJ, Somorin OA, Jum C, Bele MY, Nkem JN (2012) Vulnerability, forest-related sectors and climate change adaptation: the case of Cameroon. For Policy Econ 23:1–9. doi: 10.1016/j.forpol.2012.06.009

Sork VL, Aitken SN, Dyer RJ, Eckert AJ, Legendre P, Neale DB (2013) Putting the landscape into the genomics of trees: approaches for understanding local adaptation and population responses to changing climate. Tree Genet Genome 9:901–911. doi: 10.1007/s11295-013-0596-x

Spathelf P, van der Maaten E, van der Maaten-Theunissen M, Campioli M, Dobrowolska D (2014) Climate change impacts in European forests: the expert views of local observers. Ann For Sci 71:131–137. doi: 10.1007/s13595-013-0280-1

Spies TA, Giesen TW, Swanson FJ, Franklin JF, Lach D, Johnson KN (2010) Climate change adaptation strategies for federal forests of the Pacific Northwest, USA: ecological, policy, and socio-economic perspectives. Landsc Ecol 25:1185–1199. doi: 10.1007/s10980-010-9483-0

Spittlehouse DL (2005) Integrating climate change adaptation into forest management. For Chron 81:691–695

Spittlehouse DL, Stewart RB (2003) Adaption to climate change in forest management. BCJ Ecosyst Manag 4:1–11

Stafford Smith M, Horrocks L, Harvey A, Hamilton C (2011) Rethinking adaptation for a 4 degrees C world. Philos Transact A Math Phys Eng Sci 369:196–216

Stainforth DA, Allen MR, Tredger ER, Smith LA (2007) Confidence, uncertainty and decision-support relevance in climate predictions. Philos Trans R Soc A Math Phys Eng Sci 365:2145–2161. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2007.2074

Stanturf JA, Palik BJ, Dumroese RK (2014) Contemporary forest restoration: a review emphasizing function. For Ecol Manag 331:292–323

Steenberg JWN, Duinker PN, Bush PG (2011) Exploring adaptation to climate change in the forests of central Nova Scotia, Canada. For Ecol Manag 262:2316–2327. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2011.08.027

Stephens M, Pinkard L, Keenan RJ (2012) Plantation forest industry climate change adaptation handbook. Australian Forest Products Association, Canberra

Tacconi L, Moore PF, Kaimowitz D (2007) Fires in tropical forests—what is really the problem? Lessons from Indonesia. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Chang 12:55–66. doi: 10.1007/s11027-006-9040-y

Temperli C, Bugmann H, Elkin C (2012) Adaptive management for competing forest goods and services under climate change. Ecol Appl 22:2065–2077

Thackway R, Cresswell ID (1992) Environmental regionalisations of Australia: a user-oriented approach. Environmental Resources Information Network, Canberra

Thomalla F, Downing T, Spanger-Siegfried E, Han GY, Rockstrom J (2006) Reducing hazard vulnerability: towards a common approach between disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation. Disasters 30:39–48. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9523.2006.00305.x

Thomson-Reuters (2014) Web of Science. http://thomsonreuters.com/thomson-reuters-web-of-science/ . Accessed 21 Aug 2014

Thuiller W, Albert C, Araújo MB, Berry PM, Cabeza M, Guisan A, Hickler T, Midgley GF, Paterson J, Schurr FM, Sykes MT, Zimmermann NE (2008) Predicting global change impacts on plant species’ distributions: future challenges. Perspect Plant Ecol Evol Syst 9:137–152. doi: 10.1016/j.ppees.2007.09.004

Toffler A (1970) Future shock. Bantam, Toronto

Tompkins EL, Adger WN, Boyd E, Nicholson-Cole S, Weatherhead K, Arnell N (2010) Observed adaptation to climate change: UK evidence of transition to a well-adapting society. Glob Environ Chang Hum Policy Dimens 20:627–635. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2010.05.001

Urwin K, Jordan A (2008) Does public policy support or undermine climate change adaptation? Exploring policy interplay across different scales of governance. Glob Environ Chang Hum Policy Dimens 18:180–191. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2007.08.002

Van Damme L (2008) Can the forest sector adapt to climate change? For Chron 84:633–634

van Dijk AIJM, Keenan RJ (2007) Planted forests and water in perspective. For Ecol Manag 251:1–9. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2007.06.010

Versini PA, Velasco M, Cabello A, Sempere-Torres D (2013) Hydrological impact of forest fires and climate change in a Mediterranean basin. Nat Hazards 66:609–628. doi: 10.1007/s11069-012-0503-z

Vignola R, Locatelli B, Martinez C, Imbach P (2009) Ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change: what role for policy-makers, society and scientists? Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Chang 14:691–696. doi: 10.1007/s11027-009-9193-6

Vihervaara P, D’Amato D, Forsius M, Angelstam P, Baessler C, Balvanera P, Boldgiv B, Bourgeron P, Dick J, Kanka R, Klotz S, Maass M, Melecis V, Petrik P, Shibata H, Tang JW, Thompson J, Zacharias S (2013) Using long-term ecosystem service and biodiversity data to study the impacts and adaptation options in response to climate change: insights from the global ILTER sites network. Curr Opin Environ Sustain 5:53–66. doi: 10.1016/j.cosust.2012.11.002

von Detten R, Faber F (2013) Organizational decision-making by German state-owned forest companies concerning climate change adaptation measures. For Policy Econ 35:57–65. doi: 10.1016/j.forpol.2013.06.009

Walker B, Meyers JA (2004) Thresholds in ecological and social-ecological systems: a developing database. Ecology and Society 9 (2)

Walker B, Salt D (2012) Resilience practice: engaging the sources of our sustainability. Island Press, Washington, DC

Wang T, Campbell EM, O’Neill GA, Aitken SN (2012) Projecting future distributions of ecosystem climate niches: uncertainties and management applications. For Ecol Manag 279:128–140. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2012.05.034

Wellstead A, Rayner J, Howlett M (2014) Beyond the black box: forest sector vulnerability assessments and adaptation to climate change in North America. Environ Sci Pol 35:109–116. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2013.04.002

Westerling AL, Gershunov A, Cayan DR, Barnett TP (2002) Long lead statistical forecasts of area burned in western US wildfires by ecosystem province. Int J Wildl Fire 11:257–266. doi: 10.1071/wf02009

Westerling AL, Hidalgo HG, Cayan DR, Swetnam TW (2006) Warming and earlier spring increase western U.S. forest wildfire activity. Science 313:940–943. doi: 10.1126/science.1128834

White A, Hatcher J, Khare A, Liddle M, Molnar A, Sunderlin WD (2010) Seeing people through the trees and the carbon: mitigating and adapting to climate change without undermining rights and livelihoods. Social dimensions of climate change: equity and vulnerability in a warming world: 277–301

Wilby RL, Dessai S (2010) Robust adaptation to climate change. Weather 65:180–185. doi: 10.1002/wea.543

Williams J (2013) Exploring the onset of high-impact mega-fires through a forest land management prism. For Ecol Manag 294:4–10. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2012.06.030

Williams JE (2000) The biodiversity crisis and adaptation to climate change: a case study from Australia’s forests. Environ Monit Assess 61:65–74. doi: 10.1023/a:1006361917359

Williams JT (2004) Managing fire-dependent ecosystems: we need a public lands policy debate. Fire Manag Today 64:6–11

Wintle BA, Bekessy SA, Keith DA, van Wilgen BW, Cabeza M, Schroder B, Carvalho SB, Falcucci A, Maiorano L, Regan TJ, Rondinini C, Boitani L, Possingham HP (2011) Ecological-economic optimization of biodiversity conservation under climate change. Nat Clim Chang 1:355–359. doi: 10.1038/nclimate1227

Wu HX, Ying CC (2004) Geographic pattern of local optimality in natural populations of lodgepole pine. For Ecol Manag 194:177–198. doi: 10.1016/j.foreco.2004.02.017

Yousefpour R, Jacobsen JB, Meilby H, Thorsen BJ (2014) Knowledge update in adaptive management of forest resources under climate change: a Bayesian simulation approach. Ann For Sci 71:301–312. doi: 10.1007/s13595-013-0320-x

Yousefpour R, Jacobsen JB, Thorsen BJ, Meilby H, Hanewinkel M, Oehler K (2011) A review of decision-making approaches to handle uncertainty and risk in adaptive forest management under climate change. Ann For Sci 69:1–15. doi: 10.1007/s13595-011-0153-4

Zhao D, Wu S, Yin Y (2013) Responses of terrestrial ecosystems’ net primary productivity to future regional climate change in China. PLoS ONE 8:e60849. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0060849

Zhou GY, Wei XH, Wu YP, Liu SG, Huang YH, Yan JH, Zhang DQ, Zhang QM, Liu JX, Meng Z, Wang CL, Chu GW, Liu SZ, Tang XL, Liu XD (2011) Quantifying the hydrological responses to climate change in an intact forested small watershed in Southern China. Glob Chang Biol 17:3736–3746. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02499.x

Zimmermann NE, Yoccoz NG, Edwards TC, Meier ES, Thuiller W, Guisan A, Schmatz DR, Pearman PB (2009) Climatic extremes improve predictions of spatial patterns of tree species. Proc Natl Acad Sci 106:19723–19728. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0901643106

Download references

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Linda Joyce for her comments on an earlier draft of this paper, to a number of anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions and to many colleagues that I have discussed these ideas with over the past five years.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, 221 Bouverie St., Carlton, VIC, 3010, Australia

Rodney J. Keenan

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rodney J. Keenan .

Additional information

Handling Editor: Erwin Dreyer

This research was partly undertaken during the period the author was Director of the Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research and part-funded by the Victorian Government. It was completed with support from the University of Melbourne under a Special Studies Program grant.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Keenan, R.J. Climate change impacts and adaptation in forest management: a review. Annals of Forest Science 72 , 145–167 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13595-014-0446-5

Download citation

Received : 01 September 2014

Accepted : 10 December 2014

Published : 14 January 2015

Issue Date : March 2015

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s13595-014-0446-5

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Climate change
• Vulnerability
• Forest management

Annals of Forest Science

ISSN: 1297-966X

• Submission enquiries: [email protected]
• General enquiries: [email protected]

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Springer Nature - PMC COVID-19 Collection

Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Change Adaptation and Their Linkages with Sustainable Development over the Past 30 Years: A Review

Jiahong wen.

1 School of Environment and Geographical Sciences, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, 200234 China

Chengcheng Wan

2 Integrated Risk Governance Project, Beijing, 100875 China

Jianping Yan

3 Rodel Risk Solutions Inc., Toronto, ON M1W1J3 Canada

Weijiang Li

The severe damage and impacts caused by extreme events in a changing climate will not only make the sustainable development goals difficult to achieve, but also erode the hard-won development gains of the past. This article reviews the major impacts and challenges of disaster and climate change risks on sustainable development, and summarizes the courses and linkages of disaster risk reduction (DRR), climate change adaptation (CCA), and sustainable development over the past 30 years. Our findings show that the conceptual development of DRR actions has gone through three general phases: disaster management in the 1990s, risk management in the 2000s, and resilient management and development in the 2010s. Gradually, CCA has been widely implemented to overcome the adverse effects of climate change. A framework is proposed for tackling climate change and disaster risks in the context of resilient, sustainable development, indicating that CCA is not a subset of DRR while they have similarities and differences in their scope and emphasis. It is crucial to transform governance mechanisms at different levels, so as to integrate CCA and DRR to reduce disaster and climate change risks, and achieve safe growth and a resilient future in the era of the Anthropocene.

Introduction

Frequent disasters triggered by natural hazards around the world have caused huge losses of life and property to human society (CRED and UNDRR 2020 ). Climate change is further exacerbating disaster risks, increasing the frequency and severity of disaster damage and losses, and seriously hindering our efforts to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) (IPCC 2022 ). Disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) have become significant common challenges facing the international community in the era of the Anthropocene.

In December 1989, the United Nations adopted a historical resolution, declaring that the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) would be launched on 1 January 1990 (United Nations 1989 ). Since then, international disaster reduction efforts have been developing vigorously for more than 30 years. Global actions on climate change mitigation and adaptation also go back more than 30 years. In November 1988, the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme jointly established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 1 In December 1990, the 45th session of the United Nations General Assembly endorsed resolution 45/212, deciding to establish the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (United Nations 1992a ) with the participation of all member states of the United Nations, to negotiate international conventions on climate change, which was finally adopted in May 1992 (United Nations 1992a ). Since then DRR and CCA have become the core themes for international sustainable development.

Some previous studies have considered that CCA is a subset of disaster risk reduction and one of many processes within disaster risk reduction (Kelman 2015 ; Kelman et al. 2015 ). This may not be the case, however, in many ways, disaster risk reduction and CCA have overlapping aims and involve similar kinds of intervention (Twigg 2015 ; Islam et al. 2020 ). Therefore, many studies have suggested that addressing CCA and DRR together could be more beneficial (Clegg et al. 2019 ), and various studies have also explored ways and barriers of integrating DRR with CCA, as well as mainstreaming both into development (Mitchell et al. 2010 ; Florano 2015 ; Twigg 2015 ; Hore et al. 2018 ; Mal et al. 2018 ; Gabriel et al. 2021 ).

In the context that more than three years of the COVID-19 pandemic have affected all dimensions of social-ecological systems, and the proposed 2015−2030 sustainable development agenda has already been implemented halfway, the three main objectives of this study are to: (1) review the challenges, impacts, and risks of climate change and extreme events; (2) summarize the agenda and concept evolution of international DRR, CCA, and sustainable development since 1990; and (3) discuss the governance mechanisms and practices of integration of DRR and CCA—and their linkages with sustainable and resilient development—employed by the members of the international community over the past 30 years. Such work could help us find ways to achieve the goals set by the United Nations’ Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015−2030 (United Nations 2015a ), the Paris Agreement (United Nations 2015b ), and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations 2015c ).

Disaster Risk Reduction and Sustainable Development

From 2000 to 2019, 7,348 disaster events were recorded worldwide by EM-DAT (The International Disaster Database at the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters) (CRED and UNDRR 2020 ). These disasters claimed approximately 1.23 million lives, an annual average of 60,000 lost lives, and affected a total of over 4 billion people (many on more than one occasion) (CRED and UNDRR 2020 ). These disasters also led to approximately USD 2.97 trillion in direct economic losses worldwide. If the expected annual losses induced by natural hazards were shared equally among the world’s population, it would be equivalent to an annual loss of almost USD 70 for each individual of working age, or two months’ income for people living below the poverty line (UNISDR 2015 ). Clearly, sustainable development cannot be achieved without taking account of disaster risk reduction (UNDP 2004 ; UNDRR 2022 ). To do so, however, there are three major obstacles that need to be addressed.

First, there is still a lack of scientific and technological capabilities (including risk monitoring, risk assessment, early warning, and so on) and risk governance mechanisms to reduce the loss of life and property caused by very large-scale disasters globally. The 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake in China caused a total of 87,150 deaths and missing persons; in 2010, the Haiti Earthquake killed 222,500 people; the 2015/2016 droughts in India affected 330 million people; the direct economic losses caused by the 2011 East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami were as high as USD 210 billion (CRED and UNDRR 2020 ).

Second, EM-DAT does not record many small-scale but recurring disasters caused by extensive risks (minor but recurrent disaster risks) (UNISDR 2015 ), as well as indirect losses. From 2005 to 2014, direct economic losses due to extensive risks in 85 countries and territories were equivalent to a total of USD 94 billion (UNISDR 2015 ). Extensive risks are responsible for most disaster morbidity and displacement, and represent an ongoing erosion of development assets, such as houses, schools, health facilities, and local infrastructures. However, the cost of extensive risk is not visible and tends to be underestimated, as it is usually absorbed by low-income households and communities and small businesses. In addition, better recording and sharing of disaster information is needed for disaster loss accounting, forensics, and risk modeling (De Groeve et al. 2013 ; De Groeve et al. 2015 ; Hallegatte 2015 ; Khadka 2022 ; UNDRR 2022 ).

Third, in today’s crowded and interconnected world, indirect, cascading impacts can also be significant, and disaster impacts increasingly cascade across geographies and sectors (UNDRR 2022 ). Indirect losses, including output losses (such as business interruptions, supply-chain disruptions, and lost production due to capital damages), and macroeconomic feedbacks, may extend over a longer period of time than the event, and affect a larger spatial scale or different economic sectors (Hallegatte 2015 ). Therefore, indirect, cascading impacts may cause more serious harm to socioeconomic development in a region or society (Khadka 2022 ; UNDRR 2022 ).

Climate Change Risks and Sustainable Development

The best estimate of total human-caused global surface temperature increase from 1850–1900 to 2010–2019 is around 1.1 °C, and each of the last four decades has been successively warmer than any decade that preceded it since 1850 (IPCC 2021 ; WMO 2021 ). If the temperature continues to rise at the current rate, global warming could reach 1.5 °C between 2030 and 2052 (IPCC 2018 ). Increasing risks associated with health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth are all expected in a rapidly changing climate (Carleton and Hsiang 2016 ; IPCC 2018 ). The Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR6) has identified over 130 key risks (KRs) that may become severe under particular conditions of climate hazards, exposure, and vulnerability. These key risks are represented in eight so-called Representative Key Risk (RKR) clusters of key risks relating to low-lying coastal systems; terrestrial and ocean ecosystems; critical physical infrastructure, networks, and services; living standards; human health; food security; water security; and peace and mobility (IPCC 2022 ). The international scientific community has warned that without quick actions on the following three urgent issues, the severe damage and impacts of climate change and extreme events will not only put the achievement of the SDGs out of reach but also erode the hard-won development gains of the past.

The first issue is that as human-induced climate change, including more frequent and intense extreme events, has affected and will continue to threaten the lives and livelihoods of millions to billions of people, the challenges of how to significantly reduce the emerging risks of climate change are enormous ((IPCC 2018 , 2022 ; Rising et al. 2022 ). Currently, climate-related disasters account for more than 80% of disasters caused by natural hazards (UNDRR 2021 ). Around the world 3.3−3.6 billion people live in areas of high vulnerability to climate change (IPCC 2022 ).

The second issue is that under higher warming scenarios (for example, 3−4 °C) it is almost certain that Planet Earth will cross tipping points, leading to irreversible changes in ecosystems or climate patterns, which will significantly limit our ability to adapt (Steffen et al. 2018 ; Lenton et al. 2019 ; Ritchie et al. 2021 ). The challenges of how to address the adaptation limits that are already being confronted across the world will only increase (Future Earth et al. 2022 ). For example, in high-emission scenarios, week-long heat extremes that break records by three or more standard deviations are two to seven times more probable in 2021–2050 and three to 21 times more probable in 2051–2080, compared to the last three decades (Fischer et al. 2021 ). Building codes in many areas have to be modified and even redesigned.

The third issue is the lack of scientific research to better understand the mechanisms of systemic risks caused by climate change in the context of deep uncertainty. For example, record-shattering extremes—nearly impossible in the absence of warming—are likely to occur in the coming decades (Fischer et al. 2021 ), which may lead to the emergence of systemic risks with large-scale, non-linear, and cascading consequences in socioeconomic systems (Helbing 2012 ; Renn et al. 2019 ). Deep uncertainty is mainly reflected in three aspects, including uncertain scenarios of climate change, uncertain consequences of decision making, and uncertain schemes of decision making. Due to the deep uncertainty of the changes, over- or under-adaptation can occur, leading policymakers and planners to make suboptimal decisions (Linstone 2004 ; Kwakkel et al. 2016 ; Marchau et al. 2019 ; Webber and Samaras 2022 ).

Agenda and Evolution of International Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Change Adaptation, and Sustainable Development

A landmark year for DRR, CCA, and sustainable development was 2015 because three important events occurred in that year—the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015−2030, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the Paris Agreement under the UNFCCC (United Nations 2015a ; United Nations 2015b ; United Nations 2015c ) were adopted by the international community. Looking back in history can help us understand the governance of international DRR and CCA, and their important processes and context (Fig. ​ (Fig.1 1 ).

Important events of disaster risk reduction (DRR), climate change adaptation (CCA), and sustainable development since 1990. IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Source Modified from Mal et al. ( 2018 )

International Disaster Risk Reduction Action Framework and Concept Evolution

In 1987, the 42nd session of the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution and decided to designate the 1990s as the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) (United Nations 1987 ), calling on governments from all over the world to actively participate in and support this action. The main goal of the IDNDR was to minimize the losses of life and property, as well as the impacts and damage to the economy and society caused by disasters. In 1999, the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) and the UNISDR Secretariat were established as the successor arrangements for the IDNDR to be responsible for the implementation of DRR plans and strategies among UN member states, with a view to further strengthening international disaster reduction efforts. In 2019, the Secretariat changed its name to the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). 2

The First World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction held at Yokohama, Japan in 1994 adopted the Yokohama Strategy and Plan of Action for a Safer World (IDNDR 1994 ), reiterating the focus of the IDNDR. The Yokohama Plan of Action urged the incorporation of disaster prevention, preparedness, early warning, recovery, local capacity building, and improvement of disaster response mechanisms into national policies in order to reduce the impacts of disasters.

In 2005, the Second World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction held at Kobe, Hyogo, Japan, adopted the Hyogo Declaration and the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005−2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters (United Nations 2005 ). The goals of the Hyogo Framework were to substantially reduce the loss of human, socioeconomic, and environmental assets of communities and countries from disasters by 2015 by integrating DRR into strategies and planning processes, and by promoting the effective role of local knowledge, resilience building, and climate adaptation. The action framework includes an expected outcome, three strategic goals, and five priorities for actions (Fig. ​ (Fig.2 2 ).

The Hyogo Framework for Action 2005−2015: Expected outcome, strategic goals, and priorities for action (United Nations 2005 )

In March 2015, the Third World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction held in Sendai, Japan, adopted the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015−2030 (United Nations 2015a ). The Sendai Framework set out an expected outcome and seven quantitative goals to be achieved in the following 15 years, together with four priorities for actions—understanding disaster risk, strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk, investing in DRR for resilience, and enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to “Build Back Better” in recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction (Fig. ​ (Fig.3). 3 ). The endorsement of the Sendai Framework opened a new chapter for DRR and sustainable development.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015−2030: Expected outcome, strategic goals, and priorities for action (United Nations 2015a )

Over the past 30 years, in general, the development of DRR and related goals and priorities for action can be divided into three stages of disaster management in the 1990s, disaster risk management in the 2000s, and resilience management and development in the 2010s. The three stages reflect the key characteristics and important conceptual development of DRR actions at different stages rather than being separated from each other. Disaster management focuses on disaster-centered approaches (Fig. ​ (Fig.4), 4 ), and countermeasures are focused on disaster preparedness and response. Disaster risk management is to prevent new disaster risk, reduce existing disaster risk, and manage residual risk on the basis of risk-based decisions. It emphasizes risk-centered approaches (Fig. ​ (Fig.4), 4 ), and prevention and reduction are superior to response and relief. Resilience management (Fig. ​ (Fig.4) 4 ) is a new paradigm, which puts the emphasis on enhancing the ability of a system, community, or society to resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform, and recover from the effects of a hazard (predictable or unpredictable) in a timely and efficient manner, including through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions through risk management. 3 These ideas are embodied in the three World Conferences on Natural Disaster Reduction held by the United Nations and the adopted disaster risk reduction strategies and action frameworks.

A comparison between disaster management, risk management, and resilience management

The 1990s coincided with the IDNDR, which emphasized the enhancement of national disaster management capabilities in disaster prevention, mitigation, preparedness, and relief. The Yokohama Strategy urged the enhancement of disaster management for achieving sustainable development, and clarified that to achieve the goals of the IDNDR, disaster prevention, mitigation, and preparedness were more effective than disaster relief (IDNDR 1994 ). The 2000s witnessed the transition from disaster management to risk management. The Hyogo Framework emphasized that the focus of DRR should shift to disaster risk management and that DRR should be a national and a local priority and incorporated into national development policies (United Nations 2005 ). In the 2010s, the concept of the DRR field further shifted to resilience building. Researchers and practitioners at different levels worked a lot on the theory and practice of resilience, and gradually resilient management and development became an international consensus (Cutter et al. 2013 ; Florin and Linkov 2016 ; Gencer 2017 ).

Climate Change Risk Assessment and Adaptation

Over the past 30 years, the IPCC has issued a series of comprehensive assessment reports about the state of scientific, technical, and socioeconomic knowledge on climate change impacts, risks, and adaptation. The adaptation negotiations under the UNFCCC have also made significant progress, and gradually, CCA has been widely implemented to overcome the adverse effects of climate change at all levels.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Reports

Since 1988, every 6−7 years, nearly a thousand scientists around the world have engaged in various fields of climate change and socioeconomic and sustainable development to provide policymakers with a comprehensive explanation of the current international scientific community’s latest understanding of climate system changes in so far six assessment reports (see Fig. ​ Fig.1). 1 ). Since 1990, IPCC’s six climate change assessment reports have made fruitful evaluations of the scientific progress of climate system changes, the impacts and risks of climate change on natural and socioeconomic systems, and the options for limiting greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating climate change. The reports have become authoritative documents for the international community’s combat of climate change, providing a scientific basis for the negotiations of the UNFCCC, and an important scientific basis for governments to formulate policies and take actions on climate change mitigation and adaptation (Qin 2018 ). In order to assess the relationship between climate change and extreme weather events, and their impacts on the sustainable development of society, the IPCC issued a special report on “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation” in February 2012 (IPCC 2012 ). The report pointed out that the extent of damage caused by extreme weather to elements at risk depends not only on the extreme events, but also on the exposure and vulnerability of the social-ecological systems. The report also systematically explains the paths and methods of disaster risk management to adapt to climate change.

Adaptation is an important part of the IPCC reports. The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) summarizes the adaptation needs, options, plans, and measures of climate change, and assesses the role of adaptation, the limitations of adaptation, and the transformation of adaptation in four chapters. The report gives a variety of adaptation measures, which can be grouped into three categories—measures to reduce exposure, incremental adaptation measures, and transformational adaptation measures (IPCC 2014 ). The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group II (WGII) report describes the current status of adaptation and its benefit, future adaptation options and their feasibility, adaptation limitations, and maladaptation and how to avoid it. The feasibility of 23 adaptation measures is evaluated, which shows adaptation is subject to hard and soft limits (IPCC 2022 ).

Adaptation Negotiations Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Damage and loss associated with climate change impacts have emerged as key issues underpinning climate change adaptation at the global level during recent climate change negotiations under the UNFCCC (Prabhakar et al. 2015 ). Along with the rise in climate-related hazards, and the impacts and risks of fast-onset extremes and slow-onset changes (such as sea level rise) in the climate system, adaptation started attracting more attention at COP 10 (Conference of the Parties in 2004), then received successive boosts from the adoption of the Bali Action Plan in 2007 and the following COPs in Cancun (Mexico) in 2010 and others leading up to the 2015 Paris Agreement (Shaw et al. 2016 ) (see Fig. ​ Fig.1 1 ).

In December 2015, the Paris Climate Change Conference reached a series of results centered on the Paris Agreement, which became an important historical and binding international framework aiming to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change (United Nations 2015b ).The Paris Agreement puts forward three goals:

• Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and striving to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above the pre-industrial levels;
• Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production; and
• Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.

In terms of adaptation and reduction of the damage and loss caused by climate change, global adaptation goals have been proposed to enhance adaptability, strengthen resilience, and reduce vulnerability to climate change.

Over the past 30 years, the adaptation negotiations under the UNFCCC can be roughly divided into three stages of early slow progress, equal emphasis on adaptation and mitigation, and enhanced adaptation action. The climate negotiations were characterized by “emphasis on mitigation, neglect of adaptation” in the early stage. After the 2007 Bali Roadmap adopted by the 13th Conference of the Parties (COP 13) that put equal emphasis on mitigation and adaptation, the adaptation-related agenda and its importance were increased under the UNFCCC negotiation regime. The 2010 Cancun Adaptation Framework and the 2015 Paris Agreement put forward specific action frameworks to enhance global adaptation actions, and to establish an international governance and mechanism for global adaptation to climate change, which laid a good foundation for enhancing climate resilience, reducing vulnerability, and achieving the goals of the UNFCCC (Tao 2014 ; Chen et al. 2016 ; Chen 2020 ).

Linkages of Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Change Adaptation, and the Sustainable Development Goals

In 1987, the Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development “Our Common Future” put forward the strategy of sustainable development, marking the birth of a new concept of development (WCED 1987 ). In June 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (also known as the Earth Summit) adopted a series of important documents—the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (also known as the Earth Charter); Agenda 21; the Framework Convention on Climate Change; and the Convention on Biological Diversity. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification was adopted on 17 June 1994. The Earth Summit established a road map of sustainable development with harmonious coexistence between humans and nature (United Nations 1992b ; Cicin-Sain 1996 ). A considerable incentive for rethinking disaster risk as an integral part of the development process comes from the aim of achieving the goals laid out in the Millennium Declaration. The Declaration sets forth a road map for human development supported by 191 nations in 2000 (UNDP 2004 ). Following the end of the 2000−2015 Millennium Development Goals (United Nations 2000 ), the United Nations Development Summit in September 2015 unanimously adopted the draft resolution “Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” submitted by the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly (United Nations 2015c ). The SDGs in the United Nations 2030 Agenda replaced the Millennium Development Goals launched by the United Nations at the beginning of the 21st century.

The agenda includes 17 SDGs and 169 associated targets. These development goals all closely interact and influence climate change and disaster risks. For example, Goal 9 building resilient infrastructure, Goal 11 building inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities and human settlements, and Goal 13 taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts, all are directly related to DRR and CCA. Many of these 169 associated targets also involve reducing disaster risks and disaster impacts. For example, one of the specific targets of Goal 1 is to build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social, and environmental shocks and disasters by 2030. Disasters put development at risk, and losses caused by climate change and extreme events may severely hinder many countries from achieving SDGs. At the same time, the realization of the SDGs will also help reduce human vulnerability to climate change and disasters, thereby greatly reducing disaster risks.

Climate change adaptation and DRR have similarities and differences in their scope and emphasis (Twigg 2015 ; Clegg et al. 2019 ). The common aim of CCA and DRR is to manage the risk induced by weather/climate-related hazards, including extreme events and climate-related creeping environmental changes, which is part of climate risk management (see Fig. ​ Fig.4). 4 ). Their difference is that DRR not only deals with hydrometeorological disaster risk closely related to climate change, but also manages risks caused by other natural hazards, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions (Twigg 2015 ). In addition, DRR focuses more on reducing the potential losses of people and assets. Climate change adaptation also has its focus areas, such as the impact of climate change on ecosystems and biodiversity, and infectious diseases and health (IPCC 2022 ). According to the Adaptation Gap Report 2022 (UNEP 2022 ), CCA actions are currently mainly focused on agriculture, water, ecosystems, and cross-cutting sectors. Disaster risk reduction and CCA are two major areas of integrated risk management (Fig. ​ (Fig.5), 5 ), thus both should be joined within the integrated risk management that is an important pillar and field of resilient, sustainable development. Under the framework of resilient development, there are two areas that are closely related to climate change and DRR, that is, emergency management and climate change mitigation (Fig. ​ (Fig.5). 5 ). The synergistic effects of integrated risk management, emergency management, and climate change mitigation will effectively ensure safe growth and resilient development.

A framework for addressing disaster and climate change risks in the context of resilient, sustainable development

In many ways, DRR and CCA have overlapping aims and involve similar kinds of intervention (Begum et al. 2014 ; Forino et al. 2015 ; Twigg 2015 ; Amaratunga et al. 2017 ).

People and ecosystems across the world are already confronted with limits to adaptation, and if the planet warms beyond 1.5 °C or even 2 °C, more widespread breaching of adaptation limits is expected (Forino et al. 2015 ; Twigg 2015 ).

Addressing climate change may have the potential to create or exacerbate other development concerns (Kelman et al. 2015 ). Large dams might contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation through reduced dependence on fossil fuels and regulating floods. But large dams tend to increase flood risk over the long term in a process termed ‘‘risk transference’’ (Etkin 1999 ). Seawalls and infrastructural development along coastlines may also induce changes in water currents, destruction of natural ecosystems, and increased or shifted erosion from protected to unprotected areas (Dahl et al. 2017 ; Rahman and Hickey 2019 ; Piggott-Mckellar et al. 2020 ; Simon et al. 2020 ). Seawalls may effectively reduce impacts to people and assets in the short term but may also result in lock-ins and increase exposure to coastal hazards in the long term unless they are integrated into a long-term climate risk management plan. Although fire suppression in naturally fire-adapted ecosystems prevents fire damage, such action reduces the space for natural processes, thus reducing the ecosystem’s resistance to climate change and its ecosystem service value (Ruffault and Mouillot 2015 ; Hope et al. 2016 ).

Therefore, DRR and CCA should be addressed together under integrated risk management to overcome limits and maladaptation, and optimize the use of limited resources (Mitchell et al. 2010 ; Twigg 2015 ; Flood et al. 2022 ). Thus, the integration of CCA and DRR can contribute to achieving the goals of international frameworks such as the SDGs (Kelman and Gaillard 2010 ; UN DESA 2014 ; Kelman 2017 ; Clegg et al. 2019 ), the Sendai Framework, and the Paris Agreement (Amaratunga et al. 2017 ).

However, there are many factors that hinder successful integration of CCA and DRR (Amaratunga et al. 2017 ; Seidler et al. 2018 ; Dias et al. 2020 ; Islam et al. 2020 ). Barriers include poor communication between organizations, coordination challenges, lack of political willingness, lack of capacity among actors and institutions, policy gaps, mismatches, different funding systems, fund shortages, and so on. Disaster risk reduction and CCA are frequently addressed, studied, and analyzed independently (O’Brien and Li 2006 ; Ireland 2010 ; Kelman et al. 2015 ; Chmutina et al. 2016 ; Clegg et al. 2019 ), separated by institutional and administrative boundaries (Schipper and Pelling 2006 ; Kelman 2017 ; Pilli-Sihvola 2020 ). For historical and political reasons, internationally, the way we are currently working addresses climate change, DRR, development-related projects, and humanitarian relief separately (Fig. ​ (Fig.6). 6 ). International funding mechanisms establish and implement independent projects of CCA, DRR, and so on in target countries through international organizations (such as different agencies of the United Nations), resulting in segmented practices.

A scheme showing international funding mechanisms for target countries

At the national level, CCA and DRR are also frequently handled independently, separated by institutional and administrative boundaries (Schipper and Pelling 2006 ; Kelman 2017 ; Dias et al. 2018 ; Clegg et al. 2019 ). In China, for example, the Fourteenth Five Year Plan for National Comprehensive Disaster Prevention and Reduction (2021−2025) was formulated by the National Disaster Reduction Commission, which is only a deliberative body and thus it is difficult to promote the implementation of the plan. In 2022, 17 national departments jointly issued the National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy 2035, with the Ministry of Ecology and Environment as the leading department. Climate change adaptation and DRR efforts are still addressed by two sets of organizations in China. In the Philippines, DRR and CCA are operationalized independently of one another (Florano 2015 ; De Leon and Pittock 2017 ). There are two separate laws on climate change and disaster risk reduction and management—the Climate Change Act of 2009 and the Philippine National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010, respectively. This is also the case in national level arrangements in the UK, where DRR and CCA are managed by separate government departments (Dias et al. 2018 ; Clegg et al. 2019 ).

To change this situation, effective governance mechanisms, such as policy, agreement, culture, leadership, and coordination need to be established among international organizations, as well as between international organizations and target countries, while countries also need to establish overarching national risk governance systems (Fig. ​ (Fig.7). 7 ). Thus, tailored country programs can be established through international risk governance solutions, and implemented in target countries by a unified mechanism under the national risk governance system.

Integrated risk governance solution among international organizations and countries

Moreover, a wide range of climate change impacts and disaster risks (especially the cascading and systemic risks) are understudied or challenging to quantify, and are missing from current evaluations of climate change and other disaster risks to lives and assets (Mamuji and Etkin 2019 ; Mcglade et al. 2019 ; Rising et al. 2022 ). Importantly, integrated risk and resilience management is about managing known risks but also about preparing for the unpredictable (Pirani and Tolkoff 2015 ). Thus, better data, actionable information, and relevant knowledge on climate change and disaster risk are needed to promote the integration of CCA and DRR (Mysiak et al. 2018 ; Zuccaro et al. 2020 ).

This study reviews the major impacts and challenges of disaster and climate change risks on sustainable development, summarizes the important events and evolution of international disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation over the past 30 years, and reviews the linkages of DRR and CCA to sustainable development. The three main conclusions are:

• Disasters caused by both intensive and extensive disaster risks have a huge impact on lives and livelihoods. Indirect losses and cascading effects may cause even more serious damage to the socioeconomic development of a region or a society. Most disasters triggered by natural hazards are related to weather/climate events. Especially under a changing climate, compound events and systemic risks are increasing, and record-shattering extremes are likely to occur in the coming decades, which will significantly limit our ability to adapt.
• Over the past 30 years, the evolution of paradigms in DRR actions can be roughly divided into three stages—disaster management in the 1990s, disaster risk management in the 2000s, and resilient management and development in the 2010s. These ideas are embodied in the three World Conferences on Natural Disaster Reduction held by the United Nations and the adopted disaster reduction strategies and action frameworks. The adaptation negotiations under the UNFCCC over the past 30 years also can be roughly divided into three stages of early slow progress, equal emphasis on adaptation and mitigation, and enhanced adaptation action. Climate change adaptation has been widely carried out to overcome the adverse effects of climate change. The integrated risk management community has also learned the current status of adaptation and its benefit, future adaptation options and their feasibility, adaptation limitations, and maladaptation and how to avoid it.
• This article proposes a framework for addressing climate change and disaster risks in the context of resilient, sustainable development. Climate change adaptation is not a subset of DRR, and they have both similarities and differences in their scope and emphasis. Disaster risk reduction and CCA should be joined under the integrated risk management that is an important pillar of resilient and sustainable development. Under the umbrella of resilient development, there are two areas that are closely related to climate change and DRR—disaster management and climate change mitigation. The synergistic effects of integrated risk management, emergency management, and climate change mitigation will effectively support safe growth and resilient development.

To successfully integrate CCA and DRR, it is urgently needed to transform governance mechanisms, and to strengthen cooperation among international organizations, as well as between international organizations and countries, while countries also need to establish overarching national risk governance systems. Moreover, better data, actionable information, and relevant knowledge are needed for understanding climate change and disaster risks in a context of deep uncertainty.

The severe effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on our health and socioeconomic well-being are a stark warning of the dangers of insufficient actions, prevention, and preparedness—but people and societies can adopt new behaviors when the problems and situations are changing. In the context of climate emergency, the feasibility and effectiveness of adaptation measures will decrease with increasing warming. It is urgently needed to leverage the synergies of CCA and DRR, together with climate change mitigation and disaster management, in order to prevent new risks, reduce and mitigate existing vulnerabilities and risks, and to realize the goals of the Sendai Framework, the Paris Agreement, and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 42171080, 41771540), the National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 18ZDA105), and the Humanities and Social Sciences Program of the Ministry of Education (Grant No. 21YJC630146).

1 https://www.ipcc.ch/about/history/ .

2 https://www.undrr.org/about-undrr/history .

3 https://www.undrr.org/terminology/resilience .

• Amaratunga, D., R. Haigh, C. Malalgoda, and M. Dias. 2017. Synthesis report of legal, policy and science approaches within the frame of CCA and DRR: Global perspectives. Project report. University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/33429/ . Accessed 26 Jan 2023.
• Begum, R.A., M.S.K. Sarkar, A.H. Jaafar, and J.J. Pereira. 2014. Toward conceptual frameworks for linking disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 10(Part A): 362–373.
• Carleton, T.A., and S.M. Hsiang. 2016. Social and economic impacts of climate. Science 353(6304): Article aad9837. [ PubMed ]
• Chen M. Progress and outlook of adaptation negotiation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Climate Change Research. 2020; 16 (1):105–116. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chen MP, Zhang YC, Li B, Li YE. Interpretation of adaptation and loss and damage elements in Paris Agreement and possible solution for China. Climate Change Research. 2016; 12 (1):251–257. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chmutina, K., R. Jigyasu, and L. Bosher. 2016. Integrating disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation into the built environment. In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Building Resilience 2016 , 7–9 September 2016, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
• Cicin-Sain B. Earth summit implementation: Progress since Rio. Marine Policy. 1996; 20 (2):123–143. doi: 10.1016/S0308-597X(96)00002-4. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Clegg, G., N. Dias, D. Amaratunga, R. Haigh, and A. Panda. 2019. Integration of CCA and DRR for flood resilience: A review of good practices in the United Kingdom. Contributing paper to Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR 2019). https://www.unisdr.org/files/66296_f337finalcleggintegrationofccaanddr.pdf . Accessed 30 Jan 2023
• CRED (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters), and UNDRR (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction). 2020. Human cost of disasters: An overview of the last 20 years (2000–2019). Brussels: CRED and Geneva: UNDRR. https://www.undrr.org/sites/default/files/inlineiles/Human%20Cost%20of%20Disasters%202000-2019%20FINAL.pdf . Accessed 30 Jan 2023.
• Cutter, S.L., J.A. Ahearn, B. Amadei, P. Crawford, E.A. Eide, G.E. Galloway, M.F. Goodchild, H.C. Kunreuther, et al. 2013. Disaster resilience: A national imperative. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 55(2): 25–29.
• Dahl, K.A., E. Spanger-Siegfried, A. Caldas, and S. Udvardy. 2017. Effective inundation of continental united states communities with 21st century sea level rise. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene 5: Article 37.
• De Groeve, T., K. Poljansek, and D. Ehrlich. 2013. Recording disaster losses. Recommendations for a European Research. European Commission, Joint Research Centre scientific and policy reports. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
• De Groeve, T., C. Corbane, and D. Ehrlich. 2015. Guidance for recording and sharing disaster damage and loss data: Towards the development of operational indicators to translate the Sendai Framework into action. Report by the European Commission, Joint Research Centre. EUR 27192. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
• De Leon EG, Pittock J. Integrating climate change adaptation and climate-related disaster risk-reduction policy in developing countries: A case study in the Philippines. Climate and Development. 2017; 9 (5):471–478. doi: 10.1080/17565529.2016.1174659. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Dias N, Amaratunga D, Haigh R. Challenges associated with integrating CCA and DRR in the UK – A review on the existing legal and policy background. Procedia Engineering. 2018; 212 :978–985. doi: 10.1016/j.proeng.2018.01.126. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Dias N, Amaratunga D, Haigh R, Clegg G, Malalgoda C. Critical factors that hinder integration of CCA and DRR: Global perspective. In: Filho WL, Luetz J, Ayal D, editors. Handbook of climate change management: Research, leadership, transformation. Cham, Switzerland: Springer; 2020. pp. 1–22. [ Google Scholar ]
• Etkin D. Risk transference and related trends: Driving forces towards more mega-disasters. Global Environmental Change Part B: Environmental Hazards. 1999; 1 (2):69–75. doi: 10.1016/S1464-2867(00)00002-4. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fischer EM, Sippel S, Knutti R. Increasing probability of record-shattering climate extremes. Nature Climate Change. 2021; 11 (8):689–695. doi: 10.1038/s41558-021-01092-9. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Flood, S., Y. Jerez Columbié, M. Le Tissier, and B. O’Dwyer. 2022. Creating resilient futures: Integrating disaster risk reduction, sustainable development goals and climate change adaptation agendas . Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature.
• Florano ER. Mainstreaming integrated climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction in local development plans in the Philippines. In: Filho WL, editor. Handbook of climate change adaptation. Berlin: Springer; 2015. pp. 433–456. [ Google Scholar ]
• Florin, M., and I. Linkov. 2016. IRGC resource guide on resilience. Lausanne, Switzerland: EPFL International Risk Governance Center (IRGC).
• Forino G, von Meding J, Brewer GJ. A conceptual governance framework for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction integration. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science. 2015; 6 (4):372–384. doi: 10.1007/s13753-015-0076-z. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Future Earth, The Earth League, and WCRP (World Climate Research Programme). 2022. 10 New Insights in Climate Science 2022.10.5281/zenodo.7228926. Accessed 30 Jan 2023.
• Gabriel AG, Santiago PNM, Casimiro RR. Mainstreaming disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in comprehensive development planning of the cities in Nueva Ecija in the Philippines. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science. 2021; 12 (3):367–380. doi: 10.1007/s13753-021-00351-9. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gencer, E. 2017. How to make cities more resilient: A handbook for local government leaders. Geneva: United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR).
• Hallegatte, S. 2015. The indirect cost of natural disasters and an economic definition of macroeconomic resilience. World Bank policy research working paper No.7357. Washington, DC: World Bank.
• Helbing, D. 2012. Systemic risks in society and economics. In Social self-organization: Agent-based simulation and experiments to study emergent social behavior , ed. D. Helbing, 261–284: New York: Springer.
• Hope, E.S., D.W. Mckenney, J.H. Pedlar, B.J. Stocks, and S. Gauthier. 2016. Wildfire suppression costs for Canada under a changing climate. PloS One 11(8): Article e157425. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ]
• Hore K, Kelman I, Mercer J, Gaillard JC. Climate change and disasters. In: Rodríguez H, Donner W, Trainor JE, editors. Handbook of disaster research. Cham, Switzerland: Springer; 2018. pp. 145–159. [ Google Scholar ]
• IDNDR (International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction). 1994. Yokohama Strategy and Plan of Action for a safer world: Guidelines for natural disaster prevention, preparedness and mitigation. In Proceedings of World Conference on Natural Disaster Reduction , 23–27 May, Yokohama, Japan. https://www.preventionweb.net/files/8241_doc6841contenido1.pdf . Accessed 26 Jan 2023.
• IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2012. Summary for policymakers. In Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation. A special report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , ed. C.B. Field, V. Barros, T.F. Stocker, D. Qin, D.J. Dokken, K.L. Ebi, M.D. Mastrandrea, K.J. Mach, et al., 1–19. Cambridge, UK and New York, USA: Cambridge University Press.
• IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2014. Climate change 2014: Impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability: Part A: Global and sectoral aspects . Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK and New York, USA: Cambridge University Press.
• IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2018. Global warming of 1.5°C . An IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty. Cambridge, UK and New York, USA: Cambridge University Press.
• IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2021. Summary for policymakers. In Climate change 2021: The physical science basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , ed. V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, et al. 3−32. Cambridge, UK and New York, USA: Cambridge University Press.
• IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2022. Climate change 2022: Impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6wg2/pdf/IPCC_AR6_WGII_SummaryForPolicymakers.pdf . Accessed 30 Jan 2023.
• Ireland P. Climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction: Contested spaces and emerging opportunities in development theory and practice. Climate and Development. 2010; 2 (4):332–345. doi: 10.3763/cdev.2010.0053. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Islam S, Chu C, Smart JC, Liew L. Integrating disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation: A systematic literature review. Climate and Development. 2020; 12 (3):255–267. doi: 10.1080/17565529.2019.1613217. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kelman I. Climate change and the Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science. 2015; 6 (2):117–127. doi: 10.1007/s13753-015-0046-5. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kelman I. Linking disaster risk reduction, climate change, and the sustainable development goals. Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal. 2017; 26 (3):254–258. doi: 10.1108/DPM-02-2017-0043. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kelman I, Gaillard JC. Embedding climate change adaptation within disaster risk reduction. In: Shaw R, Pulhin JM, Pereira JJ, editors. Climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction: Issues and challenges. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing; 2010. pp. 23–46. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kelman I, Gaillard J, Mercer J. Climate change’s role in disaster risk reduction’s future: Beyond vulnerability and resilience. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science. 2015; 6 (1):21–27. doi: 10.1007/s13753-015-0038-5. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Khadka, K. 2022. United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and stakeholder engagement mechanism value proposition. Geneva: United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. https://policycommons.net/artifacts/2391961/united-nations-office-for-disaster-risk-reduction-and-stakeholder-engagement-mechanism-value-proposition/3413390/ . Accessed 17 Dec 2022.
• Kwakkel JH, Haasnoot M, Walker WE. Comparing robust decision-making and dynamic adaptive policy pathways for model-based decision support under deep uncertainty. Environmental Modelling & Software. 2016; 86 :168–183. doi: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2016.09.017. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lenton TM, Rockström J, Gaffney O, Rahmstorf S, Richardson K, Steffen W, Schellnhuber HJ. Climate tipping points – Too risky to bet against. Nature. 2019; 575 (7784):592–595. doi: 10.1038/d41586-019-03595-0. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Linstone, H.A. 2004. Review of: Shaping the Next One Hundred Years: New Methods for Quantitative, Long-Term Policy Analysis . R.J. Lempert, S.W. Popper, and S.C. Bankes, Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 2003. Technological Forecasting & Social Change 71(3): 305–307.
• Mal, S., R.B. Singh, C. Huggel, and A. Grover. 2018. Introducing linkages between climate change, extreme events, and disaster risk reduction. In Climate change, extreme events and disaster risk reduction , ed. S. Mal, R.B. Singh, and C. Huggel, 1–14. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
• Mamuji AA, Etkin D. Disaster risk analysis part 2: The systemic underestimation of risk. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. 2019; 16 (1):1–18. doi: 10.1515/jhsem-2017-0006. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Marchau VA, Walker WE, Bloemen PJ, Popper SW. Decision making under deep uncertainty: From theory to practice. Cham, Switzerland: Springer; 2019. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mcglade J, Bankoff G, Abrahams J, Cooper-Knock S-J, Cotecchia F, Desanker P, Erian W, Gencer E, et al. Global assessment report on disaster risk reduction 2019. Geneva: United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction; 2019. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mitchell, T., M. van Aalst, and P. Silva Villanueva. 2010. Assessing progress on integrating disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in development processes. Strengthening Climate Resilience Discussion Paper No. 2. Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies.
• Mysiak J, Castellari S, Kurnik B, Swart R, Pringle P, Schwarze R, Wolters H, Jeuken A, van der Linden P. Brief communication: Strengthening coherence between climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences. 2018; 18 (11):3137–3143. doi: 10.5194/nhess-18-3137-2018. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• O’Brien KJ, Li L. Rightful resistance in rural China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2006. [ Google Scholar ]
• Piggott-Mckellar AE, Nunn PD, Mcnamara KE, Sekinini ST. Dam(n) seawalls: A case of climate change maladaptation in Fiji. In: Filho WL, editor. Managing climate change adaptation in the Pacific region. Cham, Switzerland: Springer; 2020. pp. 69–84. [ Google Scholar ]
• Pilli-Sihvola, K. 2020. Building a bridge between inundated shores: Analyses on integrated disaster risk management and climate change adaptation policies and measures. Finnish Meteorological Institute Contributions No. 168. Helsinki: Finnish Meteorological Institute.
• Pirani R, Tolkoff L. Lessons from Sandy: Federal policies to build climate-resilient coastal regions. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; 2015. [ Google Scholar ]
• Prabhakar, S.V.R.K, K. Kamat, A. Hakimov, Y. Chiba, and M. Nakata. 2015. Loss and damage associated with climate change: What and why, stakeholder perspectives, and a way forward. The Paris Climate Agreement and beyond: Linking short-term climate actions to long-term goals, ed. K. Tamura, and S. Kojima, 101–125. Kanagawa, Japan: Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES).
• Qin DH. Introduction to climate change science. Beijing: Science Press; 2018. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rahman, H.M.T., and G.M. Hickey. 2019. What does autonomous adaptation to climate change have to teach public policy and planning about avoiding the risks of maladaptation in Bangladesh? Frontiers in Environmental Science 7: Article 2.
• Renn O, Lucas K, Haas A, Jaeger C. Things are different today: The challenge of global systemic risks. Journal of Risk Research. 2019; 22 (4):401–415. doi: 10.1080/13669877.2017.1409252. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rising J, Tedesco M, Piontek F, Stainforth DA. The missing risks of climate change. Nature. 2022; 610 (7933):643–651. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-05243-6. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ritchie PDL, Clarke JJ, Cox PM, Huntingford C. Overshooting tipping point thresholds in a changing climate. Nature. 2021; 592 (7855):517–523. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03263-2. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ruffault J, Mouillot F. How a new fire-suppression policy can abruptly reshape the fire-weather relationship. Ecosphere. 2015; 6 (10):1–19. doi: 10.1890/ES15-00182.1. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Schipper L, Pelling M. Disaster risk, climate change and international development: Scope for, and challenges to, integration. Disasters. 2006; 30 (1):19–38. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9523.2006.00304.x. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Seidler R, Dietrich K, Schweizer S, Bawa KS, Chopde S, Zaman F, Sharma A, Bhattacharya S, et al. Progress on integrating climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction for sustainable development pathways in South Asia: Evidence from six research projects. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 2018; 31 :92–101. doi: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2018.04.023. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shaw, R., S. Prabhakar, and Y. Chiba. 2016. SDGs, DRR and CCA: Potential for strengthening inter-linkages. Policy Brief Number 34. Kanagawa, Japan: Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES).
• Simon, K., G. Diprose, and A.C. Thomas. 2020. Community-led initiatives for climate adaptation and mitigation. Kōtuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online 15(1): 93–105.
• Steffen W, Rockström J, Richardson K, Lenton TM, Folke C, Liverman D, Summerhayes CP, Barnosky AD, et al. Trajectories of the earth system in the anthropocene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2018; 115 (33):8252–8259. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1810141115. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Tao L. The international climate adaptation regime process and its outlook. Journal of Nanjing University. 2014; 51 :52–60. [ Google Scholar ]
• Twigg, J. 2015 Disaster risk reduction . New edition. Good Practice Review 9. London: Humanitarian Practice Network, Overseas Development Institute.
• UN Desa (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs) TST Issues Briefs: A compendium of issues briefs prepared by the United Nations inter-agency technical support team for the United Nations General Assembly Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals. New York: UN DESA; 2014. [ Google Scholar ]
• UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) A global report: Reducing disaster risk a challenge for development. New York: United Nations Development Programme, Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery; 2004. [ Google Scholar ]
• UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme). 2022. Adaptation Gap Report 2022: Too little, too slow – Climate adaptation failure puts world at risk. Nairobi: UNEP. https://www.unep.org/adaptation-gap-report-2022 . Accessed 26 Jan 2023.
• UNDRR (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction). 2021. UNDRR Strategic Framework 2022–2025. https://www.undrr.org/publication/undrr-strategic-framework-2022-2025 . Accessed 26 Jan 2023.
• UNDRR (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction). 2022. Global assessment report on disaster risk reduction 2022: Our world at risk: Transforming governance for a resilient future. Geneva, Switzerland: UNDRR.
• UNISDR (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction). 2015. Making development sustainable: The future of disaster risk management. Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR).
• United Nations. 1987. International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/42/169. https://www.preventionweb.net/files/resolutions/42_169.pdf . Accessed 26 Jan 2023.
• United Nations. 1989. International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/44/236. New York: United Nations.
• United Nations. 1992a. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. https://unfccc.int/files/essential_background/background_publications_htmlpdf/application/pdf/conveng.pdf . Accessed 26 Jan 2023.
• United Nations. 1992b. Agenda 21. United Nations Conference on Environment & Development, 3–14 June 1992b, Rio de Jeneiro, Brazil. https://www.un.org/en/conferences/environment/rio1992b . Accessed 29 Jan 2023.
• United Nations. 2000. United Nations Millennium Declaration. United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/55/2. https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/generalassembly/docs/globalcompact/A_RES_55_2.pdf . Accessed 26 Jan 2023.
• United Nations. 2005. Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015: Building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters. Extract from the final report of the World Conference on Disaster Reduction. https://www.preventionweb.net/files/1037_hyogoframeworkforactionenglish.pdf . Accessed 26 Jan 2023.
• United Nations. 2015a. Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015a–2030. Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction https://www.undrr.org/implementing-sendai-framework/what-sendai-framework . Accessed 26 Jan 2023.
• United Nations. 2015b. Adoption of the Paris Agreement. UNFCCC COP 21st Session, 30 November–11 December 2015b, Paris, France.
• United Nations. 2015c. Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/70/1. New York: United Nations.
• WCED (World Commission on Environment and Development). 1987. Our common future . New York: United Nations. https://idl-bncidrc.dspacedirect.org/bitstream/handle/10625/152/WCED_v17_doc149.pdf . Accessed 30 Jan 2023.
• Webber MK, Samaras C. A review of decision making under deep uncertainty applications using green infrastructure for flood management. Earth’s Future. 2022; 10 (7):e2021E–e2322E. doi: 10.1029/2021EF002322. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• WMO (World Meteorological Organization). 2021. State of the global climate 2020. Geneva, Switzerland: World Meteorological Organization. https://public.wmo.int/en/our-mandate/climate/wmo-statement-state-of-global-climate . Accessed 26 Jan 2023.
• Zuccaro, G., M.F. Leone, and C. Martucci. 2020. Future research and innovation priorities in the field of natural hazards, disaster risk reduction, disaster risk management and climate change adaptation: A shared vision from the ESPREssO project. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 51: Article 101783.

Why some climate change adaptations just make things worse

Short-term and poorly thought-out solutions are hardly solutions at all.

By Sara Kiley Watson | Published Mar 19, 2022 11:00 AM EDT

• Environment

We’ve all been in a situation where trying to help merely makes the outcomes worse. But, when this happens on a large scale with the climate crisis, things can get disastrous fast. 

One of the main focuses of the 2022 IPCC report is exactly that: maladaptation. Back in 2014, the IPCC defined maladaptation as “actions that may lead to increased risk of adverse climate-related outcomes, increased vulnerability to climate change, or diminished welfare, now or in the future.” But to really understand the practice, we first need to understand adaptation—and why we so desperately need it.

As the climate changes at an increasingly quicker rate , people are becoming more vulnerable to risks like flooding and extreme heat, says Luna Khirfan, an associate professor in the school of planning at Canada’s University of Waterloo. “So when we adapt, what we try to do is to limit the negative impact of these hazards by decreasing the exposure and decreasing the vulnerability, and consequently, decreasing the risk,” she adds.

But because climate change is unprecedented and unfolding in real time, political leaders and everyday people are improvising solutions, says Lisa Schipper, a research fellow at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. And some of their adaptation attempts are plain wrong.

“One thing that we’re seeing is that when we plan too quickly and we plan in ways that locks us into certain kinds of trajectories of development, then we risk these adaptation strategies backfiring so that we become more vulnerable to climate change,” Schipper explains.

Of course, there’s more than one way to make these mistakes. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most common varieties of climate maladaptation—and how we can make better choices in an increasingly volatile future.

Day-to-day solutions that make greenhouse gas emissions worse

The simplest form of maladaptation, Khirfan says, is when the quick solution to a climate dilemma comes with longer-term sustainability problems. Take, for example, heatwaves and air conditioning. Across the world, there have been more and more drastic heatwaves, from the Pacific Northwest’s last fall to Europe’s last summer . 

[Related: This California company wants to make modern AC obsolete ]

Kirfan notes that in Vancouver, which was in the northern limits of the Pacific Northwest heat dome, the first response many residents had was to crank up the AC. 

“If we’re using air conditioning that is based on carbon intensive energy, then we are increasing greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn will increase heat,” she says. The same can be said for extreme cold weather, which leads some to rely on fossil-fuel dependent generators when the power goes out during winter storms.

Short-sighted solutions that harm more people than they benefit

Climate change currently affects low-income populations more than rich ones. That inequity will likely deepen over time, and maladaptation could be a part of that. The IPCC report shows that the harmful consequences of maladaptation are hitting already-vulnerable communities first.

When it comes to city planning, especially for nature-based solutions like blue and green infrastructure, Khirfan says wealthier communities get the main focus.

“Nature-based solutions are expensive,” she explains. “The logic for policymakers typically is a cost-benefit analysis. Investments go where the money goes, and we prioritize valuable assets, real estate that is valuable, and so on when we intervene.” 

The investments shift the problems, like extreme heat and pollution, to neighborhoods with less greenery and higher population density. A study from 2007 showed how in Phoenix (America’s hottest city), neighborhoods in the lowest 10 percent of income distribution are on average 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than those in the top 10 percent. High-income neighborhoods are also the ones to be more lush with trees and greenery , the report found.

“The spatial distribution of these interventions are inequitable to begin with,” Khirfan says. 

[Related: Urban green spaces can’t beat climate change on their own ]

Another issue with maladaptation is that it often shifts one community’s climate problems onto another. For instance, a certain neighborhood in a city might be able to build dykes and flood walls—but the rainwater still has to go somewhere. Often, it ends up in an area with fewer resources and no way to take on these costly projects, Khirfan says.

Solutions to sea level rise often pose the same problem. Schipper points to Fiji as a case study: Recently, the island nation added a seawall on Vanua Levu Island that eventually exacerbated flooding. Coastal erosion presents similar challenges for countries in the South Pacific.

“They put up protection for a settlement to minimize the coastal erosion, so kind of driving it away and reshaping the coastline,” Schipper says. “But actually it just shifted the coastal erosion further down the coastline. The next people living further down then experience the same thing.”

These kinds of poorly planned strategies can lead to forced relocation or retreat, says Khirfan, which can have serious negative impacts on communities that are already struggling the most with climate change. 

Systemic solutions that create problems that didn’t exist before

Some of the worst maladaptation policies can trigger new climate vulnerabilities for a group of people. Khirfan gives the example of water distribution in places like the Middle East. She notes that Amman, the capital of Jordan, has very low water security, which led the government to start piping in supplies from 190 miles away in the past decade. Now the taps are flowing in the heavily populated areas of Amman—but it comes with unexpected issues. 

“It is impacting agricultural products and water security at the reservoir’s point of origin,” Khirfan says. “So you are creating a new type of instability for the community, and it’s a very short-term measure as well. It’s not renewable; it’s not sustainable.”

These kinds of interventions can also lead populations to make less sustainable decisions overall. For example, Ethiopia has plenty of water resources available, but they aren’t particularly well spread-out, says Schipper. When farmers in drier parts of the country are able to feed their irrigation systems, they tend to plant high-value crops that require a lot of water, instead of starting to prepare for when the resources will run out. 

“It’s kind of like they haven’t adapted at all to the fact that there’s less water,” Schipper says. “Instead, they’ve gone the other direction. They’ve just adapted their behavior to the available ability of more water.”

[Related: Climate change is coming for Indonesia’s cocoa farms ]

In a similar vein, Schipper points out that agricultural insurance policies can also be maladaptive. If farmers are insured for their crops, she says, they might make riskier decisions with what they plant—which could open up a can of worms down the road when resources become even more scarce and communities aren’t prepared.

“[Farmers] may feel like they have more security, so they end up focusing on cash crops rather than drought-resistant subsistence crops,” Schipper explains. Water-retention and conservation techniques might also fall to the wayside if farmers believe they will be protected by insurance.  

How can we adapt better?

The main thing that planners and leaders can do to avoid maladaptation is to listen to all groups of people—whether it be undocumented immigrants, women, or religious minorities. That means stepping outside of the NGOs and other organizations that typically make the climate-planning decisions, getting on the ground, and collecting local feedback to determine what the real root of the problem is. This is outlined as well in the recent IPCC report, which stresses a holistic view of increasing ecological stewardship, education, and inclusion in coming mitigation and adaptation techniques. 

Reversing maladaptation won’t be easy, though. It requires a serious look at malpractices in current programs, like the climate financing from wealthy nations that continues to fall through. It’s also important to remember that no one strategy will fit everywhere—that’s the whole point of adaptation. What works in Rwanda might be a total disaster in Thailand, Schipper says. 

The issues that come along with climate change are complicated—and the realities of frontline communities need to take precedence over easy, speedy solutions that make the rest of us comfortable. 

“The onus is on us to pursue and include these people in the decision-making process,” says Khirfan. “I really think having a justice lens is essential.”

Sara Kiley Watson is a News Editor at Popular Science, where she has led sustainability coverage since 2021. She started her tenure at PopSci as an intern in 2017 before joining the team full time as an Editorial Assistant in 2019. Contact the author here.

Like science, tech, and DIY projects?

Sign up to receive Popular Science's emails and get the highlights.

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• 18 March 2024

Are we all doomed? How to cope with the daunting uncertainties of climate change

• Adam Sobel 0

Adam Sobel is an atmospheric scientist at Columbia University in New York, and hosts a podcast called Deep Convection .

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Wildfires are getting fiercer faster than anyone predicted — just one factor fuelling an atmosphere of climate doom. Credit: Konstantinos Tsakalidis/Bloomberg/Getty

You have full access to this article via your institution.

How doomed are we? It’s a question I have been asked as a climate scientist many times over the years, sometimes with “doomed” replaced by less printable synonyms.

I struggle to answer it every time. It’s not a scientific question, because the terms are not well defined. What does it mean to be “doomed”? And who is “we”?

Maybe some people really mean it in the most extreme and literal sense: whether global warming is going to single-handedly wipe out the human species in the near future. In that case, it’s easy to talk them down. The evidence doesn’t support that prediction.

But I think that they mostly mean to ask a more subtle question. Something like, “as someone who understands the science on climate change better than most people, what is your emotional reaction to it? How scared are you?”

Fear is an emotion. No scientist, nor anyone else for that matter, can tell you the right amount of it to feel. If you knew that you were going to die in six months, how much fear should you feel? And what should you do in response? You wouldn’t go to a scientist for the answers to these questions.

Scientists under arrest: the researchers taking action over climate change

But having facts to inform our feelings can nonetheless be helpful. Scientists can at least provide some of those. We know that the planet is warming because of human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions. We can project the rate of warming with some confidence over at least the next few decades. At a broad level, we know what many of its effects will be. But when we look more closely, and ask about the societal consequences, things get blurrier.

The global increase in temperature is the simplest and most predictable dimension of climate change. It is also the one that scares me the most, partly because the direction of change is so certain and partly because heat is such a persistent and widespread hazard. For the large proportion of the world where it’s already hot during some or all of the year, just a couple of degrees of warming will cause great societal harm. In places with cooler climates, such as much of Europe, severe heatwaves can sometimes be even more deadly, because people there are less accustomed to heat 1 .

Sea-level rise is another area in which we can be certain about how things are changing, even if we are uncertain about how fast. Extreme rainfall events are becoming heavier and hydrological droughts are worsening owing to faster evaporation of water from hotter soils and plants. Wildfires are becoming more frequent and severe for similar reasons, although they are also affected by forest-management practices.

With some other hazards, however, even the direction of change is uncertain. Individual hurricanes are getting more dangerous, because of strengthening winds and rains, and worsening coastal flooding as sea levels rise. But we don’t know whether hurricanes will become more or less frequent — if the latter, the overall risk they pose might decrease 2 . We also don’t know whether meteorological droughts — lack of rain — will become more or less prevalent, or what changes we should expect with severe convective storms that produce tornadoes and hail 3 .

This scientific uncertainty itself is scary, because it means that some things might well get worse faster than we expect. Scientists always expected warming to exacerbate wildfires in the western United States, but I don’t think anyone predicted that it would happen as soon and as badly as it has.

Threat multiplier

Particularly disturbing is the possibility of ‘tipping points’ — large, possibly abrupt and irreversible changes with planetary-scale consequences 4 , such as the loss of large chunks of the Antarctic or Greenland ice sheets, the emission of large amounts of methane from melted permafrost or sea-floor sediments, or the shutdown of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation. The probabilities of such changes happening soon are all low, but they are hard to estimate with confidence.

Despite all the facts, and the uncertainties in the facts, climate change itself is not really what keeps me up at night. Maybe that’s because my professional training has disconnected me from my emotions on this score. But I think that there is a bigger reason. If we care about climate change because we care about human well-being, then climate change can be only one part of the story.

Humanity faces many existential risks. Wars are being fought today that are already catastrophic for those in the places involved. They could become catastrophic for many more if they expand, especially in a world with many nuclear-armed nations. Loss of biodiversity and ecosystems, for example in the Amazon rainforest, is an immediate, global-scale disaster. The rise of artificial intelligence creates species-level risks, even if our assessment of them is highly speculative. What I personally find the most disturbing is the democratic backsliding in my own country — the United States — as well as in others. This threatens society’s ability to responsibly handle crises, and also tends to create other crises, as authoritarian regimes consolidate and express their power in harmful ways.

The transition towards cleaner energy sources provides glimmers of climate hope — but citizens must prevail on governments to speed it up. Credit: Getty

Climate is coupled to all these problems, in one way or another. But as scary as many direct consequences of climate change will be at 2 °C of warming or more, the greatest harm, at least in the short term, comes from its role as a ‘threat multiplier’. For example, high rates of migration from low-income countries to the United States and Europe has already been weaponized politically by far-right groups. If warming increases rates of migration, and democracies slide into authoritarianism, is that a result of climate change, or of already polarized and dysfunctional political systems? I don’t know — but I do fear this scenario deeply.

Climate change, in fact, might be one of the more certain components of our future. Social and political developments are even more difficult to predict. Can anyone really predict life on Earth in 2050, let alone 2100, well enough to suggest specific outcomes on a planetary scale, with or without climate change?

And again, even if we did know the planet’s future with perfect certainty, there still wouldn’t be a single right way to feel about it. How good or bad is the present moment, for that matter? The answer to that question depends on our position in the world. In other words: who is “we”?

Emotion and action

The writer Amitav Ghosh is one of the world’s most insightful thinkers on climate, and a friend of mine. He has argued that existential fears about climate change are actually Western fears about the end of colonial power, because in much of the rest of the world — especially for Indigenous people — “catastrophe has already happened”. For people in richer countries searching for the right way to feel about the climate crisis, it’s worth pondering this.

But maybe searching for the right emotion is not the best use of our time. Maybe a more pragmatic and constructive question than “how doomed are we?” is “what should we do about it?”

A giant fund for climate disasters will soon open. Who should be paid first?

Emotions and actions are connected, of course. ‘Doomers’ — climate communicators and activists who focus on the potential for catastrophic outcomes — are criticized for their negative messaging, which some say turns many people off and makes them less likely to act. I am sceptical of this. Greta Thunberg’s message has not been limited to expressions of positive emotion, and it’s hard to think of any climate activist who has been more effective. You could plausibly argue that the 2022 US Inflation Reduction Act, which is possibly the most important piece of federal climate legislation in the nation’s history, wouldn’t have happened without the political pressure applied by her and groups that she inspired.

But “what should we do?” is not a scientific question any more than “how doomed are we?” is. It depends on our values, and on the unscientific question of how to effect social change. Again, I don’t claim to have authoritative answers. I do think, however, that climate scientists such as myself should think a little harder about these questions than perhaps we have.

I have a few basic principles that guide my thinking. One is that democracy is crucial to human well-being, and that we should all support political candidates who think similarly, and oppose authoritarianism. In this regard, the United States has a particularly consequential election coming up this November.

Another principle is that, when it comes to the need to stop using fossil fuels, none of the uncertainties that I’ve catalogued really matter. We know that the negative consequences of warming far outweigh the positive, and that we need to cut emissions much faster than we are now 5 . Future scientific advances won’t change this calculus.

This means that collective, governmental action is essential to speed up the clean-energy transition. As citizens, we should all be politically engaged in ensuring that our countries move further and faster towards this goal. Personal actions that reduce emissions matter too: although insignificant to the global carbon budget on their own, they create a culture that motivates collective action. I am flying less, eating a mostly vegetarian diet and making other low-carbon choices, and I am talking about those choices. I am far from perfect, and I don’t seek to shame anyone else. I know that my steps are largely symbolic. But symbols matter. I take these steps to make climate awareness part of my daily life, and to show to myself and others that I take it seriously.

Treating the symptoms

Climate scientists might consider whether we have a greater responsibility than others, and whether we should seek to bring about positive outcomes through our work. Not all scientific knowledge is relevant to action. As an atmospheric dynamicist, I have come to think that I can have the most positive impact by working not on problems related to climate mitigation — stopping the burning of fossil fuels and other sources of carbon emissions — but on adaptation 6 .

Mitigation is still absolutely crucial. To make a medical analogy, it’s like treating the underlying cause of the disease. But we already know what needs to be done, and the reasons we aren’t doing it are political, not a consequence of scientific uncertainties.

How effective are climate protests at swaying policy — and what could make a difference?

Adaptation, however, is like treating the disease’s symptoms — the impacts of climate change. These are as diverse and specific as the places and ways in which climate affects society generally. Addressing those impacts requires equally diverse, specific and detailed scientific information. For me at least, this is where it’s possible to work towards answering both “what should we do?” and “how doomed are we?” at the same time.

When a national, state or local government writes a climate-adaptation plan, designs infrastructure or develops a policy that influences development in high-risk areas, it needs specific information about the relevant climate risks. Corporations, non-governmental organizations and community groups need the same, if they are taking any action that accounts for climate risk. Because climate change most sharply manifests in extreme events, information about such events’ probabilities and impacts are needed 7 .

Most climate information available from academics or governments doesn’t quite meet this need. Climate-risk-assessment tools and data sets developed to inform the insurance and financial industries are expensive and proprietary. As governments face politically difficult decisions regarding adaptation — for example, how much should taxpayers in low-risk areas pay to support protection of those in high-risk areas? — they will need relevant climate information that has been subject to open scrutiny and debate 8 .

Some uncertainties in climate science are so stubborn that we might not be able to reduce them much in the near term. Scientists such as myself can help by orienting our research towards characterizing the changing hazards, risks and uncertainties, with the granularity and pragmatism needed for decisions on adaptation, in the public domain where all the issues can be hashed out openly.

There are many other answers, of course. The important thing is to remain engaged. That means recognizing that doom is a state of mind, and that uncertainty about the planet’s future is now just part of the human condition. It means doing our best to keep both the climate crisis and the many other dimensions of human and planetary well-being in our view at the same time, both in their global and local dimensions. It means trying to live our values in ways consistent with those realities, as well as we can understand them. And it means recognizing that science has a crucial part to play — but that science can only take us so far.

Nature 627 , 483-485 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00790-6

Ballester, J. et al. Nature Med. 29 , 1857–1866 (2023).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Knutson, T. et al. Bull. Am. Meteor. Soc. 101 , E303–E322 (2020).

Article   Google Scholar  

Gensini, V. in Climate Change and Extreme Events (ed. Fares, A.) 39–56 (Elsevier, 2021).

Google Scholar  

Armstrong McKay, D. I. et al. Science 377 , eabn7950 (2022).

Allen, M. R. et al. Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5°C (IPCC, 2018).

Sobel, A. H. Clim. Change 166 , 8 (2021).

President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Extreme Weather Risk in a Changing Climate: Enhancing Prediction and Protecting Communities (The White House, 2023).

Condon, M. Ariz . St. L. J. 55 , 147–209 (2023).

Download references

Competing Interests

A.S. is on the external advisory board of Jupiter Intelligence, Inc., and receives sponsored research funding in his position at Columbia University from companies in the (re)insurance industry.

Related Articles

• Climate change
• Sustainability

Melting ice solves leap-second problem — for now

News & Views Forum 27 MAR 24

The surprising history of the Southern Ocean’s super current

News & Views 27 MAR 24

Climate change has slowed Earth’s rotation — and could affect how we keep time

News 27 MAR 24

Don’t underestimate the rising threat of groundwater to coastal cities

Correspondence 26 MAR 24

How a tree-hugging protest transformed Indian environmentalism

Comment 26 MAR 24

‘Global swimways’ on free-flowing rivers will protect key migratory fish species

Correspondence 19 MAR 24

The ‘Anthropocene’ is here to stay — and it’s better not as a geological epoch

How to achieve safe water access for all: work with local communities

Comment 22 MAR 24

Meaningfulness in a scientific career is about more than tangible outputs

Professor of Experimental Parasitology (Leishmania)

To develop an innovative and internationally competitive research program, to contribute to educational activities and to provide expert advice.

Belgium (BE)

Institute of Tropical Medicine

PhD Candidate (m/f/d)

We search the candidate for the subproject "P2: targeting cardiac macrophages" as part of the DFG-funded Research Training Group "GRK 2989: Targeti...

Dortmund, Nordrhein-Westfalen (DE)

Leibniz-Institut für Analytische Wissenschaften – ISAS – e.V.

At our location in Dortmund we invite applications for a DFG-funded project. This project will aim to structurally and spatially resolve the altere...

Postdoctoral Fellow

We are seeking a highly motivated PhD and/or MD graduate to work in the Cardiovascular research lab in the Tulane University Department of Medicine.

New Orleans, Louisiana

School of Medicine Tulane University

Posdoctoral Fellow Positions in Epidemiology & Multi-Omics Division of Network Medicine BWH and HMS

Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School are seeking applicants for 3 postdoctoral positions.

Boston, Massachusetts

Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH)

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

• Harvard Business School →
• Business & Environment →

Read posts from

• Author Alumni
• Author HBS Staff
• Author Students
• Accelerating Climate Solutions Conference 2023
• Alumni Programs
• Alumni in Climate Networking Series
• Business & Environment Initiative
• Climate Rising
• Climate Stories
• Courses & Curriculum
• Creating Emerging Markets
• Entrepreneurship
• IFC Decarbonization & Sustainable Production 2023
• IFC India 2024 - Development While Decarbonizing: India’s Path to Net Zero
• Teaching & Research

• 26 Mar 2024

IFC India: Financing the Climate Transition in India

Professor Vikram Gandhi’s Immersive Field Course (IFC) “Development while Decarbonizing: India’s Path to Net-Zero" delved into the critical aspect of decarbonization and sustainability goals amid India's rapid development. The course presented an opportunity for students to advance their knowledge of sustainability efforts, decarbonization, and net zero in the context of a broader development agenda. The class culminated in a series of site visits in January 2024 in Mumbai and Bangalore and this is one of 14 student essays that highlights their reflections on uncovering sustainable solutions across the country.

Our recent field trip to India provided valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities associated with decarbonization, particularly focusing on the financing aspects. Based on a discussion with India Climate Collaborative, we outlined four challenges that the country faces in its journey towards a net-zero target by 2070:

1) Funding Gap – Where is the Money Coming From?

A study by the CEEW (Singh & Sidhu, 2021) reveals that India needs USD 10.1 trillion between 2020 and 2070 to achieve its net-zero target. Conventional sources of capital are expected to provide USD 6.6 trillion, leaving a substantial investment gap of USD 3.5 trillion. To bridge this gap, India requires investment support worth USD 1.4 trillion until 2070, with an annual average of USD 28 billion over the next 50 years. Key sectors such as electricity, hydrogen, and vehicles are the focus of this estimate, presenting a roadmap for sustainable investment.

Is this gap unsurmountable? We believe there are reasons to feel hopeful - It all depends on how we choose to contextualize. Benchmarking the funding gap against average income per capita in rich countries (USD 40 thousand per year) offers optimism. If individuals in rich countries contribute USD 700 each, we could potentially meet the funding needs.

2) Where is the Current Funding Going?

80% of the allocated funds are directed towards energy and mobility, accounting for 40% of emissions. Sectors such as agriculture, food systems, industry, steel, and cement, collectively responsible for 60% of emissions, are not receiving adequate funding. Notably, two-thirds of venture capital (VC) is channeled into electric vehicles (EVs), indicating a disproportionate focus.

3) Global North and Global South Disparities

Despite the potential for higher social returns in developing countries, 80% of climate finance still flows to developed nations. The pivotal moment for India lies in the current decisions shaping whether it follows a high or low carbon pathway.

4) Adaptation vs. Mitigation

Only 10% of the allocated funds are dedicated to adaptation efforts, highlighting the need for a more balanced approach. Striking a balance between mitigation and adaptation is crucial for addressing the immediate impacts of climate change.

Learning from Site Visits

After spending extensive time researching our sites, our team was very excited to visit them in person in Mumbai! We attended sessions at the famous Bombay Gymkhana club in Mumbai. We had impressive guests from each site that gave tremendous overviews on GEAPP and BEST. After the presentations, our team led a site visit in person at BEST.

GEAPP Field Visit

Overview: GEAPP is an alliance of entrepreneurs, governments, technology, policy, and financing partners working together to support developing countries shift to a clean energy model that ensures universal energy access while enabling the global community to meet critical climate goals during the next decade. It was founded by Rockefeller and Ikea foundations and the Bezos Earth Fund. GEAPP launched at COP26 with aligned investments of $10B+. It is an alliance of preeminent philanthropic, government, donor, multilateral development banks, development finance institutions and private sector partners working to improve people’s lives through an inclusive and just transition to renewable energy for all. It is made up of anchor partners, investment partners, and delivery partners, as well as the country partners we work with.

Key Objectives: a. Help avoid or avert over 4 billion tons of greenhouse gasses b. Extend sustainable, reliable, productive-use energy to 1 billion underserved people c. Enable 150 million green jobs that generate inclusive economic growth

• Coordination Challenges: GEAPP recognizes that the primary challenge lies in coordinating diverse stakeholders to reach a tipping point in the renewable energy sector. Convincing the government, despite being a crucial leader, proves to be a significant hurdle. Overcoming this challenge is essential for effective sectoral leadership.

• Blended Finance Criticism: There's a notable criticism of blended finance, particularly using philanthropic capital to de-risk private investments. The response emphasizes investing philanthropic funds in systemic changes, acknowledging the pragmatic but imperfect nature of this approach for ecosystem building.

• FDI Incentives: To encourage Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in renewable projects, GEAPP engaged in central government guarantees to private actors to address issues arising from state-level payment delays. This approach acknowledges the federal system's complexities but raises concerns about potential inefficiencies in coordination.

• Innovation Imperative: Given the Western world's development on cheap fossil fuel, GEAPP highlights the challenges a need for innovative approaches in the absence of a playbook for developing without relying on inexpensive fuel sources.

BEST Field Visit:

Overview: BEST is a civic transport and electricity provider public body based in Mumbai and operates one of India's largest fleets of buses. “The Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) operates buses in Brihan, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, and Thane area, and distributes electricity in Mumbai. It is an autonomous state owned enterprise under the Mumbai Municipal Corporation. It was formally known as Bombay Electric Supply & Transport and changed its name to Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport in 1995. It was founded in 1873 and is based in Mumbai, India.” “BEST has existed for over 150 years as the transportation system for Mumbai, connecting around 3.5 million people daily with economic opportunities and essential services. As the city has grown, BEST is putting significant effort into expanding its transport options to accommodate increased demand for transportation.

Key Objectives: a. BEST will be servicing 6.5 million people by 2025 b. Transition entire fleet to electric (10k+ busses) c. Over a period of 10 years, they will save approximately 6,000 million liters of fuel and reduce CO2 emissions by 6.5 million [metric] tons

• Operational Model Shift: BEST's shift from a capital expenditure model to an operational expenditure (wet lease or dry lease) model is recognized as a strategic move. This shift allows for rapid scaling of the bus fleet without the need for substantial upfront capital.

• Collaboration with Private Actors: While BEST excels in expanding the government fleet, there's an interest in exploring ways to collaborate with private bus operators. Incentivizing private actors to transition to electric buses could significantly amplify the impact on overall emissions reduction.

• Positive Brand Perception: BEST, as a government-run company, stands out for its positive brand sentiment and customer perception. This positive image contributes to the success of their initiatives. Understanding and replicating this positive perception could be a valuable consideration for other similar entities globally. Their demand far surpasses their supply. So this new financing model will allow them to rapidly grow their fleet.

Overall, our site visits coupled with our research provided us with a broad understanding of the challenges and solutions to tackling the financing gap for the climate transition in India! Being hand on and talking to the operators far outweighed all prior research we did. It was eye opening to see organizations in India have adopted novel solutions to magnify their impact in the climate space and achieve climate sustainability goals. We are excited to go back over the coming years and watch the progression!

• Bezos earth fund: https://www.bezosearthfund.org/our-programs/global-energy-alliance-forpeople-and-planetgeapp#:~:text=Founded%20by%20Rockefeller%20and%20Ikea,enabling%20the%20global%20co mmunity%20to • Energy Alliance.org: https://www.energyalliance.org/news-insights/global-energy-alliance-forpeople-and-planet-reports-strong-first-year-working-to-boost-energy-access-and-reduceemissions-in-12-countries/ • Livemint.com: https://www.livemint.com/industry/energy/global-energy-alliance-partners-withindian-railways-ashoka-university-and-mahapreit-to-achieve-clean-energy-independence-inindia-by-2047-11683198064723.html • Netzerowired.energy: https://netzerowired.energy/geapp-announces-key-partnerships-tosupport-indias-clean-energy-goals/ • News.decresearch.com: https://news.decresearch.com/geapp-announces-major-partnershipsfor-supporting-clean-energy-goals-in-india/ • ADB.org: https://www.adb.org/news/adb-geapp-announce-35-million-energy-access-andtransition-south-and-southeast-asia • BEST: www.bestundertaking.com: https://www.bestundertaking.com/in/iis6954.asp?lang=en • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brihanmumbai_Electric_Supply_and_Transport • CB Insights: https://www.cbinsights.com/company/brihanmumbai-electric-supply-and-transport • Infa.com: https://infra.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/urban-transportation/bests-entire-fleet-will-have-electric-buses-by-2028-aaditya-thackeray/86775154 • Thecityfix.com: https://thecityfix.com/blog/building-capacity-to-scale-zero-emission-buses/ • Zoom Info: https://www.zoominfo.com/c/best-undertaking/357978137 • The ceo magazine: https://www.theceomagazine.com/executive-interviews/transportation-logistics/lokesh-chandra-2/ • Scribd.com: https://www.scribd.com/document/553185934/Urban-Trnasport • New World Encyclopedia: https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Brihanmumbai_Electricity_Supply_and_Transpo rt

Search Results

Taking into account climate and nature in monetary policy and banking supervision around the world

Remarks by frank elderson, member of the executive board of the ecb and vice-chair of the supervisory board of the ecb, at an event on climate-related financial risks hosted by the banco central do brasil.

Rio de Janeiro, 27 March 2024

Many thanks to the Banco Central do Brasil for inviting me here today. I am honoured to be speaking in Rio de Janeiro’s botanical garden. It is home to more than 6,500 different species – just a fraction of the more than 130,000 species that are estimated to be found in Brazil, the most biodiverse country in the world. But even this little glimpse into Brazil’s biodiversity is more than sufficient to appreciate the concept of natural capital and the tremendous value it represents.

At the same time, global heating and nature degradation are putting this natural capital at risk. And central banks and supervisors around the world recognise that this poses a serious threat to the stability of our economies and the robustness of our financial system.

Let me be clear from the outset: central banks and supervisors are not, and do not intend to be, policymakers in the area of climate and nature. It is governments that are responsible for climate and nature policies. In my remarks today, I will explain why central banks and supervisors have no option but to take the ongoing climate and nature crises into account to deliver on their monetary policy and banking supervision mandates. And that is exactly what central banks and supervisors around the world are doing. We at the European Central Bank (ECB) are not alone in this work, as can be seen from the work being done by the Banco Central do Brasil and most other central banks and supervisors around the world.

The relevance of climate and nature for central banks and supervisors

Human-induced global heating and nature degradation are scientifically established facts. Their devastating consequences are becoming all the more apparent in the increasing number of hazards we are seeing around the world. We don’t yet know exactly how the climate and nature crises will continue to unfold, partly because governments are taking mitigation and adaptation measures. This uncertainty also means that we don’t know exactly how the economy and the financial system will be affected.

At the same time, analysis consistently shows the vital importance of climate and nature for central banks and supervisors.

First, whatever happens, the economic impact will be profound. If left unchecked, global heating and nature degradation will contribute to increased macroeconomic volatility as climate and nature events become more frequent and have a greater impact on the economy. A successful transition to a green and sustainable economy, meanwhile, will require vast investment flows that will alter the way our economies function.

Second, the economic benefits of a timely transition far outweigh the costs, especially when considered against the alternative scenarios of doing nothing or doing too little too late. [ 1 ]

Third, climate-related risks translate into financial risks. Early work by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) shows that climate events are a driver of each traditional type of risk considered in the regulatory framework, from credit risk, liquidity risk and market risk to reputational and operational risk, including legal risk. [ 2 ] Floods, for example, could damage a company’s production facility, which could affect its ability to repay a loan, in turn leading to higher credit risk for the bank that provided the loan. Or consider what might happen if your house is built in an area vulnerable to wildfires. Your home could fall in value, leaving the bank that granted you the mortgage with higher risk on its balance sheet.

And these financial risks are not related solely to climate change. Last year, when looking at more than 4.2 million individual companies that account for over €4.2 trillion in corporate loans, we found that nearly 75% of all bank loans in the euro area are to companies that are highly dependent on at least one ecosystem service. [ 3 ] Examples of these services include the products we obtain from ecosystems, such as food, drinking water, timber and minerals; protection against natural hazards; or carbon uptake and storage by vegetation. If these ecosystem services continue to experience the level of degradation they are currently facing, the stability of individual financial institutions and the broader financial system will be at risk.

International standard-setting bodies driving global action

Recognising the relevance of climate and nature-related factors for the economy, including the financial system, international standard-setting bodies are increasingly turning their attention to this topic. This has resulted in substantial progress at the global level, although more work lies ahead of us.

For example, the BCBS has a dedicated Task Force on Climate-related Financial Risks, whose meeting this week is kindly hosted by the Banco Central do Brasil. Based on the work of this task force, the BCBS has taken concrete steps to incorporate climate-related financial risks into the Basel framework for the global prudential regulation of banks. And progress has been made across all three pillars of the prudential framework: regulation, supervision and disclosures. On the topic of disclosures, late last year the BCBS issued a consultation paper on a proposed climate-related disclosure requirements framework, building on the work done in various other fora. The deadline for comments was two weeks ago and we are now carefully assessing the feedback received.

Meanwhile, there is also progress on nature-related risks. In view of the Brazilian G20 Presidency’s priority to deepen work on sustainability-related risk, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) will this year complement its climate-related work with a stocktake of current and planned regulatory and supervisory initiatives regarding nature-related financial risks. This may build on the work already done by the Central Banks and Supervisors Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS). Last year the NGFS – which has 138 members worldwide, including the Banco Central do Brasil – published a conceptual framework to guide action by central banks and supervisors in the area of nature-related risks.

The work currently being done by the BCBS, the FSB and the NGFS will ultimately find its way to other international standard-setting bodies and translate into concrete practices by individual central banks and supervisors.

ECB measures to take climate and nature into account

Let me give you some examples of actions we have taken at the ECB.

In 2021 we unveiled an ambitious climate action plan covering macroeconomic modelling, financial stability monitoring, data collection, risk assessment capabilities and our monetary policy operations. Many of the actions we planned have now been delivered. For instance, we have made significant progress in improving the models that we use in macroeconomic analysis supporting our monetary policy decisions. Moreover, we have in place a methodology to tilt the purchase of corporate bonds towards issuers with a better climate performance – if we ever need to buy corporate bonds again in the future. In the collateral framework for our lending operations, we only accept assets that comply with the relevant sustainability reporting requirements and we are looking at setting limits on the share of assets issued by entities with a large carbon footprint.

In the area of banking supervision, we have urged banks to ensure the sound management of climate and nature-related risks, using the supervisory expectations we published in 2020 as a starting point. These expectations give guidance on how banks should integrate climate and nature-related risks into their strategy, governance and risk management. It is very much consistent with the general supervisory principles that have been established by the BCBS.

Since the ECB first started discussing climate and nature-related risks with banks back in 2019, progress has undoubtedly been made. Banks have taken steps to integrate these risks into their strategy, governance and risk management. Although at present none of the banks under our supervision fully meets all our expectations, each of our expectations has already been fulfilled by at least one bank. It shows that progress is possible, and that it is not just taking place among a few banks, but across the board. This is good news, since we expect all banks under our supervision to be fully aligned with our supervisory expectations by the end of 2024. We will enforce this final deadline as well as several interim deadlines. In fact, a number of banks under our supervision have already received binding requirements to remedy shortcomings by a certain date. If they do not comply, they will have to pay a penalty for every day that the shortcomings remain unresolved.

Building on the results achieved and progress made, earlier this year the ECB announced a new climate and nature action plan. It sets out concrete steps to consider how, within our mandate, we can further support the green transition, assess the physical impacts of climate change and explore the materiality of nature-related risks. Moreover, when we completed a review of our operational framework for implementing monetary policy two weeks ago, we announced that climate change-related considerations will be incorporated into the design of future structural monetary policy operations.

Let me conclude.

The Amazon river is subject to the “Pororoca”, one of the largest tidal bores in the world. It is an enormous wave travelling from the mouth of the Amazon on the Atlantic coast up to 800 kilometres upstream.

The climate and nature crises are unfolding. Together they are overflowing the economy and the financial system, very much like the “Pororoca” overflows the Amazon basin. Even if mitigation and adaptation measures are taken, one thing is certain: the world, the global economy and the financial system will see profound change.

In the words of Brazilian author Paulo Coelho: “You drown not from plunging into the water, but from staying submerged in it.” Emerging from the climate and nature crises requires action from all authorities within their mandate. For central banks and supervisors, this means taking climate and nature into account in the pursuit of their monetary policy and supervisory objectives. If they failed to do so, they would be failing on their mandate. The work that we are doing individually and collectively proves that we will not allow this to happen.

Thank you for your attention.

Emambakhsh, T. et al. (2023), “ The Road to Paris: stress testing the transition towards a net-zero economy ”, Occasional Paper Series , No 328, ECB.

Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (2021), Climate-related risk drivers and their transmission channels , April.

Boldrini, S. et al. (2023), “ Living in a world of disappearing nature: physical risk and the implications for financial stability ”, Occasional Paper Series , No 333, ECB.

Related topics

• Climate change
• Monetary policy
• Banking supervision

Disclaimer Please note that related topic tags are currently available for selected content only.

European Central Bank

Directorate general communications.

• Sonnemannstrasse 20
• 60314 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
• +49 69 1344 7455
• [email protected]

Reproduction is permitted provided that the source is acknowledged.

Our website uses cookies

We are always working to improve this website for our users. To do this, we use the anonymous data provided by cookies. Learn more about how we use cookies

We have updated our privacy policy

We are always working to improve this website for our users. To do this, we use the anonymous data provided by cookies. See what has changed in our privacy policy

Your cookie preference has expired