Adaptation

With the impacts of climate change already observed, society and ecosystems need to adapt to the risks imposed. The challenges of making present and future adaptation sustainable are a central theme of the Tyndall Centre.

Adaptation research has been a distinctive and unique feature of the Tyndall Centre since its inception in 2000. The team uses insights and methods from across the natural and social sciences to investigate the options and constraints on action towards a sustainable and equitable adaptation to climate change. The research identifies who and what is vulnerable and how adaptation can be made resilient.

Over the past decade we have contributed to every major international scientific assessment of climate change, and set the agenda on issues such as the role of government and markets in adaptation, equity dimensions of adaptation; the role of scenarios and probabilistic assessments of risk for adaptation. This research has ranged from the UK to the developing world and global scales.

The research on adaptation has promoted significant advances in the theory and practice of adaptation, including the identification of key determinants of the capacity of individuals, civil society and organisations to adapt to climate change, and the demonstration of the societal constraints on equitable and legitimate adaptation.

Key outputs have included a number of landmark books on adaptation challenges including:

Adger, W. N., Lorenzoni, I. and O’Brien, K. (eds) (2009) Adapting to Climate Change: Thresholds, Values, Governance. Cambridge University Press.

Adger, W. N. and Jordan, A. (2009) Governing Sustainability. Cambridge University Press.

Hulme and H. Neufeldt, eds. (2010) Making Climate Change Work for Us: European Perspectives on Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies. Cambridge University Press.

Jordan, A. et al (2010) Climate Change Policy in the European Union: Confronting the Dilemmas of Mitigation and Adaptation? Cambridge University Press.

Whitmarsh, L., O’Neill, S. and Lorenzoni, I. (in press) Engaging the public with climate change: communication and behaviour change. Earthscan.

Adger et al.  (2006) Fairness in Adaptation to Climate Change. MIT Press.

The Tyndall Centre adaptation research works with a number of key partners and collaborators including the Resilience Alliance, Australia’s National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility and the CSIRO Adaptation Flagship, the University of Melbourne, Arizona State university, Autonomous University of Barcelona, IVM at the Free university of Amsterdam and the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

Neil Adger led the chapter on adaptation for the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Neil Adger and Rachel Warren are both authors for chapters in the Fifth Assessment currently Underway. Jim Hall is a member of the Adaptation Sub Committee for the UK government, which independently assesses the UK’s progress on climate change policy and practice.

Theme Co-ordinator: Neil Adger