9 - Changing Ideas of Adaptation

Summary

Both mitigation and adaptation are essential parts of the climate response, yet they have very different underlying mechanisms and implications for designing actions and judging progress. Rio Climate Markers for mitigation were agreed early, but how to assess adaptation remained elusive despite mixed methods, participatory procedures, qualitative narratives and theory of change-based or realist attempts before the Paris Agreement. After Paris there was an explosion of research on adaptation, as global knowledge about development was re-evaluated from the point of view of what climate change threatens to disrupt, how and what can be done about it. By 2020 it was felt that the whole process had reached an impasse, with too much detail and not enough synthesis or insight. The practices of adaptation aid had also become troubled by the entanglement of mitigation and adaptation institutions, funding envelopes and investments. By separating the two priorities the Paris Agreement validated a focus on exactly how particular societies are threatened by climate change and how they intend to survive climate chaos.