How far has society come in adapting to climate change? This is the question posed by an international group of researchers from 20 institutions in 12 countries, who recently published an extensive meta-analysis in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The researchers examined 1,472 scientific documents on human adaptation to climate change. The data comes from the Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative, a programme that aims to gather and synthesise literature on adaptation to climate change.
The data collected was analysed according to the types of actors behind adaptation measures: individuals and households, governments (at local and national level), international or multinational governance institutions, and private-sector companies.
The conclusions are unmistakable: on average, throughout the world, individuals and households are making far greater efforts than governments to adapt to climate change.
The actions in question include planting crops that are more resistant to extreme weather conditions, moving away from areas most directly affected by storms and floods, and changing outdoor working hours to favour cooler periods of the day.
“Individuals are primarily focused on changing what they can control: their own behaviors,” outlined co-author Elphin Tom Joe, noting, however, that the gap between governments and citizens is much wider in rural than urban areas.
The authors also note that, even in regions where governments are deploying adaptation measures, their actions focus mainly on planning and financing, while the responsibility of implementation is mainly up to individuals.
They give the example of the United States, where the government “may offer guidance on flood-proofing homes”, but where the financial charge of implementing such renovations falls to the homeowners.
And in countries with more limited resources, “the burden is even heavier”, said study co-author Christine Kirchhoff.
According to the study, national governments are the second-most likely type of societal actor to adapt, particularly in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and small island states.
In Europe, national and local governments are mentioned with equal frequency (19% each). On the other hand, individuals and households are mentioned far more often than governmental actors as a whole, especially in Asia and Africa.
“We see impacts of climate change across the globe, and a lot of those impacts are disproportionately felt by communities or individuals who are already overburdened,” Kirchhoff noted.
“The strong evidence for individuals or households as prime actors for the implementation of actual adaptation aligns with earlier research, which concluded that adaptation is often a highly localised phenomenon with a tendency towards autonomous and incremental adaptation.
“This pattern is further supported by our finding that individuals and households are mostly engaged with behavioural/cultural responses,” the researchers concluded.