rlacombe/ClimateX huggingface dataset:
Lawsuits against private entities contribute to articulating climate change as a legal and financial risk (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
The literature is converging to suggest that successful adaptation broadly refers to actions and policies that effectively and substantially reduce climate vulnerability, and exposure to and/or impacts of climate risk (Noble et al., 2014; Juhola et al., 2016), while creating synergies to other climate-related goals, increasing benefits to non-climate- related goals (such as current and future economic, societal and other environmental goals) and minimise trade-offs (Grafakos et al., 2019) across diverse objectives, perspectives, expectations and values (Eriksen et al., 2015; Gajjar et al., 2019a; Owen, 2020) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
According to an assessment (Figure 17.11; see SM 17.1 for full descriptions) of maladaptation-relevant outcome dimensions, here called criteria, that is, benefits to people, benefits to ecosystem services, benefits to equity (marginalised ethnic groups, gender, low-income populations), transformational potential and contribution to GHG emission reduction, no option is located at one or the other end of the adaptation-maladaptation continuum (Figure 17.11, right panel), showing that all options have some maladaptation potential, that is, trade-offs (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
The options most widely associated with successful adaptation are ‘nature restoration’, ‘social safety nets’, ‘change of farm/fishery practice’ and ‘change of diets/reducing food waste’ (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
For example, if health care could be provided with low GHG emissions, it would move closer towards successful adaptation (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
For example, particular attention should be paid to prioritising benefits to low-income groups and leveraging the transformational potential of adaptation (having the largest number of large circles), that is, many evaluated options become maladaptive by exacerbating the vulnerability of low-income groups and by fortifying the status quo (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Through these criteria, a number of adaptation options contribute to a higher potential for successful adaptation (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Distributive equity and justice: Attention to distributional equity and justice aims to ensure that adaptation interventions do not exacerbate inequities (Atteridge and Remling, 2018) and that the benefits and burdens of interventions are distributed fairly (Tschakert et al., 2013; Reckien et al., 2017; Reckien et al., 2018b; Pelling and Garschagen, 2019).A global assessment of 1682 papers on adaptation (Araos et al., 2021) finds that about 60% of articles mentioned at least one vulnerable group being involved in the implementation of adaptation or targeted by it (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Procedural justiceDifferential participation and power for more inclusive adaptation planning and implementation –Ensures that processes of representation and participation in adaptation planning, prioritisation and implementation are inclusive (Holland, 2017; Reckien et al., 2017; Reckien et al., 2018b) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
The majority of adaptation M&E efforts have so far focused on processes and outputs rather than on achieved outcomes such as climate risks, vulnerability, well-being or development (Droesch et al., 2008; GIZ and Adelphi, 2017; UNDP Cambodia, 2014; Fawcett et al., 2017) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Instead, they suggest that multiple complementary approaches combined with higher-frequency data collection produce a more elaborate picture of the effects of adaptation and resilience responses (Jones and d’Errico, 2019; Knippenberg et al., 2019; Singh et al., 2019; Jones, 2019a; see Cross-Chapter Box PROGRESS in this Chapter) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
To understand adaptation progress, the assessment of implemented adaptation actions and their outcomes requires more attention (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
This Cross-Chapter Box responds to a growing demand for assessing global climate change adaptation progress, which currently faces the challenge of lacking consensus on how adaptation progress at this level can be tracked (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Moreover, climate risks are interconnected across scales, regions and sectors (Eakin et al., 2009; Challinor et al., 2017; Cross-Chapter Box INTERREG in Chapter 16; Hedlund et al., 2018) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Yet very few scientific studies have addressed the adaptation-specific aspects of the Global Stocktake (Craft and Fisher, 2018; Tompkins et al., 2018), and there are different views and options on how assessing global progress could take place (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Due to the challenges inherent in measuring adaptation outcomes (Sections 16.3, 17.5.1 and 17.5.2.5), most global assessments to date have focused on outputs, such as whether countries have adopted adaptation plans (Berrang-Ford et al., 2021; UNEP , 2021a) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Data Global assessments typically require global availability of consistent data, be they quantitative or qualitative, which has proven to be a constraining factor for attempts to assess global adaptation (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Adaptation is hence faced with a dilemma between globally available yet generic data and regionally or locally more detailed yet patchy data (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Assessment of existing approaches to assess adaptation progress at the global level Only few global assessments of adaptation progress across sectors have been undertaken to date (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
The application of differing approaches shows that there is no single ‘best’ approach or data source to assess global progress on adaptation (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
However, they do not provide comprehensive and robust answers so far on whether climate risk and vulnerability have been reduced (Berrang-Ford et al., 2021) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Important considerations for a robust assessment framework (e.g., consistency), as well as the associated scientific challenges (e.g., aggregation, externalities, breadth versus depth of data) and the role of underlying objectives (e.g., on the contested issue of comparability) are increasingly understood (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Each approach and source of information can contribute additional knowledge, but also demonstrates limitations, so that there is no single ‘best’ approach (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Triangulated assessments have only rarely been applied (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Importantly, adaptations need to be designed to not only combat current and future climate risks but also ensure that they do not lock in undesirable pathways in the future as risks develop and change (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Effective management of climate risks will therefore be dependent on satisfactorily managing current climate risks (Boxes 17.1, 17.2, 17.5), coupled with assessing prognoses for future climate risks, and developing responses in advance for reducing those risks to tolerable residual levels (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
The dynamic nature of risk (Viner et al., 2019; Simpson et al., 2021; Sections 16.3, 16.6) also means that the contribution of current adaptations to ameliorating future risks needs to be regularly reviewed (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
These examples demonstrate that the emergence of climate risks can be at different rates and different time horizons, and the interactions between risks vary from region to region (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Different decision-making approaches can be complementary (high confidence) (Section 17.3.1; Kwakkel et al., 2016), and multiple approaches will likely be necessary in managing the risks across sectors, over different spatial scales, and over short to long time scales (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Deciding on which adaptations to adopt when managing climate risks inevitably needs examination of trade-offs in outcomes (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
For climate resilient development, dimensions of poverty, equity, justice and health need to be factored into analyses (Boxes 17.1, 17.5), many of which are difficult to quantify (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Moreover, uncertainties on the interactions within and between sectors can make trade-off analyses uneven in their precision across sectors and uncertain as to the outcome of an implemented adaptation (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Expertise and resources for using tools and approaches for integrated risk management vary between the developed and developing countries (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Exploration of adaptation scenarios can be derived from Earth System Models (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
The current levels of uncertainty surrounding the effectiveness of many adaptation options (Section 17.5.2; Cross- Chapter Box PROGRESS in this Chapter) means that decision- making approaches applicable to deep uncertainty (Cross-Chapter Box DEEP in this Chapter; Section 17.3.1) will apply in many if not most cases (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
An early step in identifying suitable integrated pathways for managing climate risks, establishing ‘no regrets’ anticipatory options in a timely manner, and avoiding path dependencies is to jointly map the steps for adapting to sectoral risks and determine suitable ways to avoid maladaptations arising (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Since AR5, the challenges facing the management of climate risks have been articulated (Adger et al., 2018; Balasubramanian, 2018), and greater clarity on the steps that could be taken to better mainstream adaptation has been developed (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Integrated risk assessments and adaptation processes are being developed but with much less experience evident in their implementation (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
They found that the plans were more oriented at the strategic level or at the level of specific projects rather than identifying methods for resolving cross-sectoral or cross-jurisdictional interactions or issues (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
A key recommendation from their review and supported by other studies (e.g., Abutaleb et al., 2018) is that plans would be improved greatly by having inputs from multiple government agencies and multiple sectors (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: medium)
Hence, satisfactorily managing intersecting climate risks in different settings, of which RKRs provide examples, is central to achieving sustainable development (high confidence) (Section 16.6.4), requiring integrated risk management within and across regions, jurisdictions, sectors and ecosystems (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Iterative processes will enable measuring progress and updating adaptation at a satisfactory rate, to account for the different needs within regions and across sectors at different times (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
The degree to which equity and justice will be achieved will be determined by the participatory processes in deciding on suitable adaptation options, the investment in the adaptation processes and the coordination and collaboration built among institutions and people across regions (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Similarly, universal water and energy access can help to reduce poverty and improve well-being while making populations less vulnerable and more resilient to adverse climate impacts (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Severe risks to natural and human systems are already observed in some places (high confidence) and could occur in many more systems worldwide before mid-century (medium confidence) and by the end of the century at all scales, from the local to the global, and at all latitudes and altitudes (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Various global trends, including rising income inequality, continued growth in greenhouse gas emissions, land use change, food and water insecurity, human displacement and reversals of long-term increasing life expectancy trends in some nations, run counter to the SDGs (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
For a given evidence and agreement statement, different confidence levels can be assigned, but increasing levels of evidence and degrees of agreement are correlated with increasing confidence.exacerbate injustices, as well as constrain the implementation of CRD for all (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Climate change intensifies existing vulnerability and inequality, with adverse impacts of climate change on the most vulnerable groups, including women and children in low-income households, Indigenous or other minority groups, small-scale producers and fishing communities, and low-income countries (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Most vulnerable regions and population groups, such as in East, Central and West Africa, South Asia, Micronesia and Melanesia, and Central America, present the most urgent need for adaptation (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Moving towards different pathways involves confronting complex synergies and trade-offs between development pathways, and the options, contested values and interests that underpin climate mitigation and adaptation choices (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Prevailing development pathways are not advancing CRD (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Some low-emissions pathways and climate outcomes are unlikely2 to be realised (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Increasing mitigation effort across multiple sectors exhibits opportunities for synergies with sustainable development, but also trade-offs that increase with mitigation efforts, that need to be balanced and managed (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Developing and transitional economies are estimated as low-cost mitigation opportunities but are often at high risk from climate change due to their regional and development context (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
This Report also uses the term ‘likely range’ to indicate that the assessed likelihood of an outcome lies within the 17–83% probability range.Systems transitions can enable CRD when accompanied by appropriate enabling conditions and inclusive arenas of engagement (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Past choices have already eliminated some development pathways, but other pathways for CRD remain (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Prospects for transformation towards CRD increase when key governance actors work together in inclusive and constructive ways to create a set of appropriate enabling conditions {Section 18.4.2} (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
CRDPs are determined through engagement in different arenas, the degree to which the emergent pathways foster just and CRD depends on how contending societal interests, values and worldviews are reconciled through inclusive and participatory interactions between governance actors in these arenas of engagement {Section 18.4.3} (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Economic sectors and global regions are exposed to different opportunities and challenges in facilitating CRD, suggesting adaptation and mitigation options should be aligned to local and regional context and development pathways (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
People, acting through enabling social, economic and political institutions are the agents of system and societal transformations that facilitate CRD founded on the principles of inclusion, equity, climate justice, ecosystem health and human well-being (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
For example, grounding adaptation actions in local realities could help to ensure that adaptive actions do not worsen existing gender and other inequities within society (e.g., leading to maladaptation practices) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Pursuing CRD involves considering a broader range of sustainable development priorities, policies and practices, as well as enabling societal choices to accelerate and deepen their implementation (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
The literature presenting research findings on climate resilient development (CRD) and pathways and processes for successfully achieving CRD has expanded significantly in the several years since the AR5 (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Furthermore, the literature describing the role of system transitions and societal transformation in enabling climate action (Box 18.1, Section 18.3), compliance with the Paris Agreement (Sections 18.1.3, 18.2.1) and achievement of the SDGs (Section 18.1.3; Box 18.4) has expanded significantly (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
However, studies that explicitly refer to CRD as a concept or a guide for policy and practice remain modest (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Moreover, current commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are not yet consistent with limiting changes in global mean temperature elevation to well-below 2°C or 1.5°C (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Exceeding these boundaries poses increased risk of large-scale abrupt or irreversible environmental changes that would threaten human and ecological well-being (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Furthermore, while a given pathway might lead to a set of desired outcomes for one region or set of actors, the process of getting there may come at high environmental, socio- and economic cost to others (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Since the AR5, the volume of research at the nexus of climate action and sustainable development has changed markedly (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Nevertheless, the concept of resilience generally, and CRD specifically, has come under increasing criticism in recent years (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
For example, the COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to have reversed gains over the past several years in terms of global poverty reduction (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
For example, recent literature on CRD emphasises the urgency of climate action that achieve significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the implementation of adaptation options that result in significant gains in human and natural system resilience (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Second, CRD is dependent on achieving transitions in key systems including energy, land and ecosystem, urban and infrastructure, and industrial systems (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Fifth, CRD involves processes involving diverse actors, at different scales operating within an environmental, developmental, socioeconomic, cultural and political context, as typified in the SDG and the Paris Agreement negotiations (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Systems transitions alone are insufficient to achieve the rapid, fundamental and comprehensive changes required for humanity and planetary health in the face of climate change (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Transformative action is increasingly urgent across all sectors, systems and scales to avert dangerous climate change and meet the SDGs (Pelling et al., 2015; IPCC, 2018a; IPCC, 2021b; Shi and Moser, 2021; Vogel and O’Brien, 2021) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Transformative actions aimed at ‘deliberately and fundamentally changing systems to achieve more just and equitable outcomes’, (Shi and Moser, 2021: 2) shift pathways towards climate resilient development (CRD) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Climate actions that support CRD are embedded in these dimensions of development; for example, social cohesion and equity, individual and collective agency, and democratising knowledge processes have been identified as steps to transform practices and governance systems for increased resilience (Ziervogel et al., 2016b; Nightingale et al., 2020; Colloff et al., 2021; Vogel and O’Brien, 2021) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Transformation may require actions that disrupt moral or social boundaries and structures that are perpetuating unsustainable systems and pathways (Vogel and O’Brien, 2021) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Extreme events and long-term climatic changes can trigger a realigning of practices, politics and knowledge (Carr, 2019; Schipper et al., 2020b) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Climate shocks, when managed within socio-political systems in ways that safeguard rather than alter practices and structures, can also reinforce rather than shift the status quo (Mosberg et al., 2017; Carr, 2019; Marmot and Allen, 2020; Arifeen and Nyborg, 2021) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
There has been an increase in transformative actions taking place through city-level resilience building aimed at shifting inequitable relations and opening up space for a plurality of actors (Rosenzweig and Solecki, 2018; Ziervogel et al., 2021) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Transformative actions meet resistance by precisely the political, social, knowledge and technical systems and structures they are attempting to transform (Blythe et al., 2018; Shi and Moser, 2021) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
There is expanding evidence that many adaptation efforts have failed to be transformative, but instead entrenched inequities, exacerbated power imbalances and reinforced vulnerability among marginalised groups and that, instead, marginalised groups and future trends in vulnerability need to be placed at the centre of adaptation planning (Atteridge and Remling, 2018; Mikulewicz, 2019; Owen, 2020; Eriksen et al., 2021a; Eriksen et al., 2021b; Garschagen et al., 2021) (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
Others may experience acute challenges with adaptation due to existing vulnerability associated with poverty and social inequality (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
While demonstrable progress has been made towards the SDGs and improving human well-being, globally and in specific nations, some observed patterns of development are inconsistent with sustainable development and the principles of CRD (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
While there are many possible successful pathways to future development in the context of climate change, history shows that pathways positive for the vast majority of people typically induce significant impacts and costs, especially on marginal and vulnerable people (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: high)
As empirical studies in the Global South have demonstrated (Lele et al., 2018), developing countries face multiple stressors, climate change being just one among them, and there are multiple normative concerns in developing country contexts, such as equity and justice, and not merely resilience (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
For example, pathways that lead to poverty reduction can have synergies with food security, water, gender, terrestrial and ocean ecosystems that support climate risk management, but also poverty alleviation projects with unintended negative consequences that increase vulnerability (e.g., Ley, 2017; Ley et al., 2020).While the scenarios literature is useful for characterising the potential climate risk implications of different global societal futures, important limitations impact their use in climate risk management planning (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Importantly, the scenarios literature overall has found trade-offs such that none of the global societal projections achieve all the SDGs (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
For all climate projections and variables, there is significant regional heterogeneity and uncertainty in projected climate change (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Thus, adaptation interventions and pathways can further the achievement of development goals such as food security (Campbell et al., 2016; Douxchamps et al., 2016; Richardson et al., 2018; Bezner Kerr et al., 2019) and improvements in human health (Watts et al., 2019) including in systems where animals and humans live in close proximity (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
Since AR5, the scientific community has deepened its understanding of the relationship between adaptation and sustainable development (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)
The critical literature on socio-ecological resilience, which has grown substantially since the last AR (IPCC AR6_WGII, confidence: very high)