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Despite the increasing relevance of cross-border flows of goods, capital and people in shaping risks and opportunities today, we still live in a "bordered" world, where the nation state plays a key role in planning and governance. Yet, climate change impacts will not be contained within country borders, meaning that climate change adaptation governance should also consider "borderless climate risks" that cascade through the international system, in relatively simple or highly complex ways. In this paper, we demonstrate how the notion of borderless climate risks challenges the dominant territorial framing of adaptation and its problem structure. To advance knowledge, we ask: why has a territorial framing and the national and sub-national scales dominated adaptation governance? How do borderless climate risks challenge this framing and what are possible governance responses? We draw on constructivist international relations theory and propose that the epistemic community that developed to interpret climate change adaptation for decision-makers had certain features (e.g. strong environmental sciences foundation, reliance on place-based case study research) that established and subsequently reinforced the territorial framing. This framing was then reinforced by an international norm that adaptation was primarily a national or local responsibility, which has paradoxically also informed calls for international responsibility for funding adaptation. We conclude by identifying types of governance responses at three different scales—national and bilateral; transnational; international and regional—and invite more systematic evaluation by the IR community.

Adaptation to climate change has steadily risen on global policy agendas and entered a new era with the 2015 Paris Agreement, which established a global goal on adaptation. While this goal responds to calls to strengthen global governance of adaptation, it has not yet been operationalized. Further, few studies take stock of current global adaptation governance to inform the implementation of the goal. Against this background this review asks: To what extent is there global governance of climate change adaptation? Can it be characterized as a strong domain of global governance? In what ways is it contested? Global adaptation governance is defined here as occurring when state and non-state actors in the global (including transnational) sphere authoritatively and intentionally shape the actions of constituents towards climate change adaptation as a public goal. Although empirical evidence is scant, it is proposed here that global adaptation governance is indeed emerging. Yet, its further strengthening appears contested. First, measurement of progress towards adaptation as a public goal at the global level is severely challenged by the ambiguity of adaptation and the lack of distinct metrics. Second, the lack of a clear global-level problem-framing, or recognition of adaptation as a global public good, has meant limited legitimacy of global governance initiatives. A consequence of contestation is that governance forms and functions used so far have not been authoritative in how they seek to shape actions. The review concludes by identifying research needs for advancing science and policy on adaptation. This article is categorized under: Policy and Governance amp;gt; Multilevel and Transnational Climate Change Governance

Recent debates about the concept of planetary boundaries recall longstanding concerns about whether ecological limits are compatible with ecological democracy. The planetary boundaries framework (originally set out in Rockstrom et al., 2009a, 2009b) defines values for key Earth-system processes such as climate change and biodiversity that aim to maintain a safe distance from thresholds or levels that could endanger human wellbeing. Despite having a significant impact in policy debates, the framework has been criticised as implying an expert-driven approach to governing global environmental risks that lacks democratic legitimacy. Drawing on research on deliberative democracy and the role of science in democratic societies, we argue that planetary boundaries can be interpreted in ways that remain consistent with democratic decision-making. We show how an iterative, dialogical process to formulate planetary boundaries and negotiate planetary targets could form the basis for a democratically legitimate division of labour among experts, citizens and policy-makers in evaluating and responding to Earth-system risks. Crucial to this division of evaluative labour is opening up space for deliberative contestation about the value judgments inherent in collective responses to Earth-system risks, while also safeguarding the ability of experts to issue warnings about what they consider to be unacceptable risks. ; Funding Agencies|Australian Research CouncilAustralian Research Council [FL140100154]; Swedish Research Council Formas (Formas)Swedish Research Council Formas [211-2012-1842]

In the last decade, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has moved from a strong focus on mitigation to increasingly address adaptation. Climate change is no longer simply about reducing emissions, but also about enabling countries to deal with its impacts. Yet, most studies of the climate regime have focused on the evolution of mitigation governance and overlooked the increasing number of adaptation-related decisions and initiatives. In this article, we identify the body of rules and commitments on adaptation and suggest that there are more attempts to govern adaptation than many mitigation-focused accounts of the international climate regime would suggest. We then ask: to what degree are adaptation rules and commitments legalized in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change? We examine the degree of precision and obligation of relevant decisions through an extensive analysis of primary United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change documents, secondary literature on adaptation initiatives and institutions, interviews with climate change experts and negotiators, and participant observation at climate negotiations. Our analysis finds that adaptation governance is low in precision and obligation. We suggest that this is partly because adaptation is a contested global public good and because 'package deals' are made with mitigation commitments. This article makes a vital contribution to the global environmental politics literature given that adaptation governance is under-studied and poorly understood. It also contributes to the legalization literature by highlighting how contested global public goods may be governed globally, but with low obligation and precision.

In the last decade, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has moved from a strong focus on mitigation to increasingly address adaptation. Climate change is no longer simply about reducing emissions, but also about enabling countries to deal with its impacts. Yet, most studies of the climate regime have focused on the evolution of mitigation governance and overlooked the increasing number of adaptation-related decisions and initiatives. In this article, we identify the body of rules and commitments on adaptation and suggest that there are more attempts to govern adaptation than many mitigation-focused accounts of the international climate regime would suggest. We then ask: to what degree are adaptation rules and commitments legalized in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change? We examine the degree of precision and obligation of relevant decisions through an extensive analysis of primary United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change documents, secondary literature on adaptation initiatives and institutions, interviews with climate change experts and negotiators, and participant observation at climate negotiations. Our analysis finds that adaptation governance is low in precision and obligation. We suggest that this is partly because adaptation is a contested global public good and because 'package deals' are made with mitigation commitments. This article makes a vital contribution to the global environmental politics literature given that adaptation governance is under-studied and poorly understood. It also contributes to the legalization literature by highlighting how contested global public goods may be governed globally, but with low obligation and precision.

In the last decade, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has moved from a strong focus on mitigation to increasingly address adaptation. Climate change is no longer simply about reducing emissions, but also about enabling countries to deal with its impacts. Yet, most studies of the climate regime have focused on the evolution of mitigation governance and overlooked the increasing number of adaptation-related decisions and initiatives. In this article, we identify the body of rules and commitments on adaptation and suggest that there are more attempts to govern adaptation than many mitigation-focused accounts of the international climate regime would suggest. We then ask: to what degree are adaptation rules and commitments legalized in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change? We examine the degree of precision and obligation of relevant decisions through an extensive analysis of primary United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change documents, secondary literature on adaptation initiatives and institutions, interviews with climate change experts and negotiators, and participant observation at climate negotiations. Our analysis finds that adaptation governance is low in precision and obligation. We suggest that this is partly because adaptation is a contested global public good and because 'package deals' are made with mitigation commitments. This article makes a vital contribution to the global environmental politics literature given that adaptation governance is under-studied and poorly understood. It also contributes to the legalization literature by highlighting how contested global public goods may be governed globally, but with low obligation and precision.

In the last decade there has been a significant shift in the framing of climate governance. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has moved from an explicit focus on mitigation, to also include adaptation. Climate change is no longer simply about reducing emissions but also about enabling countries to deal with its impacts – be it on development, migration, or health. Yet most studies of the climate regime have focused on the evolution of mitigation governance, not adaptation. This tendency is partly because adaptation was considered a 'taboo' topic in the UNFCCC as many states did not want to concede that climate change was occurring, or did not want it to be considered a substitute for mitigation. In short, global adaptation governance is understudied and poorly conceptualized. In this paper, we ask: what constitutes and characterizes global adaptation governance? We attempt to characterize governance efforts in terms of what, who and how adaptation is governed. We examine: the constituent parts of an emerging regime (principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures), the institutions involved, and how these parts have been manifested in concrete modes of governance (standards and commitments, operations, finance, knowledge and networking). To aid this mapping, we use the mitigation regime as a heuristic for comparison. We find that there is indeed an emerging global regime around adaptation, although characterized by 'soft' procedural and facilitative modes of governance. Furthermore the institutional complexity and fragmentation we see in global adaptation governance arises for different reasons than for the mitigation regime. Namely the epistemic ambiguity around adaptation, including its scalar framing, and the power politics around controlling donor funds for adaptation. This paper contributes to our understanding of the shift in framing of global climate governance, from mitigation to adaptation, and the coherence of this regime.

Developed countries have pledged to provide USD 100 billion annually to developing countries to support efforts to pursue climate-friendly development and to deal with climate change effects. Although public climate finance from developed countries still falls far short of this goal, climate funding is steadily increasing. Given the magnitude of climate challenges, ensuring that resources mobilized are used efficiently and effectively is essential. This working paper outlines key features of the global climate finance landscape. It notes that the diverse sources of climate funds, the multitude of priorities, and varied channels for implementation create the potential for overlapping actions and coordination challenges. These challenges exist at both the global and national levels. At the global level, identifying a division of labour among multilateral climate funds remains a concern. National climate finance coordination arenas involve domestic governmental actors and international funders. The paper provides a foundation for a research project that analyzes the political, economic and organizational determinants of climate finance coordination at different levels of governance.

Snapshot views of environmental policy integration (EPI) practices fail to consider the stability of EPI over time – both as aspiration and performance. This paper reviews the evolution of EPI over more than two decades at the national level in the agriculture and energy sectors in Sweden – an EPI pioneer. We study how the extent of EPI stability can be explained partly by shifting political priorities by governments and partly by underlying governance models (actors and organizational landscape and policy instruments used). Comparing the two sectors, the institutionalization of EPI appears to be stronger in the energy sector. In the agricultural sector, the current reform of the Common Agricultural Policy seems to imply decreasing prominence of EPI – due to shrinking budgets for environmental targets along with greater policy goals complexity. Overall, observed shifts in governance have been mildly conducive to EPI by providing an infrastructure, but further enhancements require clear political priority awarded to the environment.