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"For much of recent history, climate change policy has focused on mitigation. Reducing emissions and shifting energy sources away from fossil fuels, for example, are actions that could slow the pace of climate change. But despite these (uneven) domestic and international efforts, the climate is already changing in dramatic ways. With escalating risks now certain to occur, scientific projections offer a range of possible outcomes. Coastal communities are struggling with rising sea levels, farmers are grappling with shifts in the timing of seasonal events, and cities face more frequent storm cycles. As a result, policymakers have also begun to consider tools for adaptation, as they seek to build resilience at all scales of governance. Despite the relative nascence of the field, preliminary lessons offer important guidance. This book will provide an overview of the theory and practice that underlie global adaptation efforts. Understanding the challenges that climate change adaptation presents is essential for charting a path toward global sustainability. This book is organized around the thesis that focusing exclusively on climate change mitigation policy - as many analyses do -- does not address the vast majority of human societies now compelled to live within an altered weather system. While the thrust of this book is practical, focused on a range of tools that societies can employ to adapt and build dynamic resiliency, ethical concerns underlie the global dynamic around climate change as well. The author highlights ways the changing climate will have differential effects that can both reflect and intensify current patterns of poverty. Through this lens, the book also considers challenges associated with international development and disaster risk management. The manuscript's interdisciplinary framework includes perspectives from the natural sciences, law, architecture, anthropology, humanitarian aid, economics, and public policy. Case studies illustrate the ways vastly different social contexts and governance scales reflect both innovative solutions and stubborn barriers to effective climate adaptation."--

This book offers a concise overview of climate adaptation governance. In clear, accessible language, Lisa Dale presents the theory and practice that underlie climate adaptation efforts at local and global scales, providing illuminating case studies that foreground the problems facing developing countries.

Agricultural insurance is increasingly seen as a vital tool for buffering smallholder farmers from impacts associated with climate change. Persistently low levels of insurance uptake in developing countries, combined with slim economic margins for private sector viability, has meant public sector involvement through subsidies and other forms of government support. In Rwanda, the new National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS) reflects both national awareness of rural vulnerability and an ambition to empower farmers to better withstand climate-related shocks. This pilot research sought to better understand the perspective of the farmers themselves, through semi-structured interviews with both insured and uninsured households. Results suggest a critically important role for farmers' cooperatives in rural Rwanda, bringing farm households together to share information and maximize economies of scale. Persistent barriers to broader uptake include low levels of awareness in rural areas, un-affordable policies, and expectations for payouts that cannot be met by companies.

AbstractCompetitive grants are increasingly used to induce proactive collaborative action by a range of actors to reduce forest wildfire risks. Given the rigidity of past wildfire risk governance, it is important to assess the adaptability of competitive grants as a new governance approach. Adaptive governance theory is used as a lens to assess the adaptability of the Colorado Wildfire Risk Reduction Grant (WRRG) program, which awards funds to successful applicants to reduce fuel on non‐federal lands at a community scale. Four best practices from the theory were applied: participation of and collaboration among diverse actors; co‐production of knowledge and learning toward adaptive management; cross‐scale interactions and fit between the scale of governance and the scale of the ecological problem; and the capacity for innovation and re‐organization. Using data and information about the WRRG structure and processes, awarded grantees from the first five granting cycles from 2013 to 2016, our direct participation‐observation as part of the Advisory Committee, and results from the WRRG effectiveness monitoring report, we examine the extent to which the WRRG program exhibited adaptive governance attributes. For each adaptive governance attribute, we found evidence of factors facilitating and frustrating adaptiveness of the WRRG program. We situate our findings within the broader context of using competitive grants as a forest wildfire risk governance approach and address additional directions for adaptive governance research.