The politics of adapting to climate change: who defines what success means?

Abstract 

The need for planned adaptation across countries in the Global South will require a massive scaling up of international adaptation finance. The recent UNEP adaptation gap report identified a financing gap of US$187-359 billion per year (UNEP, 2024).  There is an increasing international focus on identifying what works to ensure limited finance is spent efficiently and that adaptation action is ‘adequate and effective’ in the face of escalating climate impacts. With current cuts to available public finance, these concerns will become more pressing. We know from other policy areas that measurement frameworks and indicators are one tool of accountability and can be powerful. They can define the policy question at hand, embed social values, and promote visions of the future. Through an exploration of the development and deployment of a range of adaptation measurement tools, this paper will show how measurement approaches and knowledge practices shape adaptation action and what we know about progress on adaptation.  

Dr Susannah Fisher is a Principal Research Fellow at UCL and holds a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship exploring the knowledge politics of adapting to climate change. She has worked with governments, international organisations and entrepreneurs to help them plan for the impacts of climate change. She previously worked as a Senior Research in the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and led a research portfolio in Europe’s climate innovation agency. She is the author of a popular science book – Sink or Swim: how the world needs to adapt to a changing climate.