Announcements
Announcements
The Global Transboundary Climate Risk Report, created by Adaptation Without Borders, provides insights on 10 transboundary and cascading risks that remain overlooked in climate policies. These climate risks represent not only a shared adaptation challenge, but also a global responsibility for adaptation action.
Venice, a coastal city impacted by sea level rise. Photo: Adam Sébire / Climate Visuals.
The insights emerging from this report challenge a narrative that has long been embraced in climate policy: that adaptation is a local challenge, while mitigation is a global concern. Yet climate risks cross multiple jurisdictions and sectors, calling for new forms of governance, ownership frameworks and coordination mechanisms across scales.
Through case studies, authors assessed 10 globally significant transboundary climate risks. The case studies look at transboundary effects in different sectors around the world, ranging from the Japanese car industry affected by floods in Bangkok to investors and companies in Europe affected by a hurricane in Mexico. From examining these cases, key questions emerged for the design of policy solutions and governance arrangements.
Overview of the 10 transboundary climate risks and case studies assessed in this report (see Figure A.1, p.11) Graphic: Authors’ elaboration.
In a world that is increasingly interconnected, these risks are transmitted through shared natural resources and ecosystems, trade links, finance and human mobility.
The transboundary risks of climate hazards in shared river corridors can have far-reaching consequences, as direct damage of mass flows to agricultural lands and hydropower infrastructure result in a ripple effect on food supply, distribution of energy and livelihoods.
Current global frameworks are not equipped to deal with the permanent loss of fish stocks within national jurisdictions, while regional arrangements to compensate for shifting ocean resources have serious limitations. This illustrates a broader gap in policy and governance arrangements allowing bodies to adapt to and manage, for example, the movement of fish stocks to the high seas under climate change.
Extreme weather events are major triggers for food insecurity. These risks demand adaptive measures along every part of the agricultural commodity supply chain, from farm to fork. Therefore, we should build a global food system that is just and resilient, meeting the needs of billions of people as the climate changes rather than fuelling new crises.
Many developing countries are highly vulnerable to climate change and disasters. This has exposed global production processes, including industrial supply chains, to new risks that are neither fully understood nor addressed.
A failure in any single part of an interconnected electricity network could generate cascading impacts, particularly if a transboundary network relies heavily on a single or limited number of energy sources. When disruptions to power supplies are coupled with extreme weather events, the socioeconomic damage can be massive, particularly for vulnerable people, and can exacerbate inequalities and adaptive capacities.
Financial risks triggered by climate change can become transboundary as a result of the global nature of investments and the complexity of economic and financial networks. Therefore, losses from hazards that hit a firm’s productive plants in one geographic area could cascade across economic value chains and materialize in the portfolio of an investor located far from the original disaster.
Climate change has influenced the spread of vector-borne infectious diseases over the past decade, and it seems certain to significantly increase the health impacts of climate-sensitive diseases. For instance, projections show that under a scenario of 2.8℃ warming, 50% of the global population will be exposed to malaria vectors by 2050. Thus, integrated climate-informed disease surveillance and early warning response systems can anticipate risks and trigger prompt action to prevent the spread of transboundary diseases.
Climate and non-climate drivers interact and compound to influence and modify migration decisions, with impacts for both countries of origin and destination. In particular, seasonal and temporary labour migration under a changing climate can include indirect cross-border effects such as cascading impacts on remittance flows, a financial pathway of transboundary climate risks.
Cross-border and cascading climate risks to livelihoods may particularly threaten the most vulnerable groups – those who are marginalized socioeconomically, politically and culturally – or areas with weak or contested governance. The assets, capabilities and activities people need to make a living and contribute to economies can be particularly affected.
Managing transboundary climate risk is about recognizing the value and integrity of life in all parts of the world and that our wellbeing is founded upon the deep connections between all people and places. Therefore, placing wellbeing as the guiding objective for adaptation paves the way towards more ambitious and transformative adaptation policies at every level, from the local to the global.
Learn more and download the full report from the Adaptation Without Borders website below.
Team Leader: International Climate Risk and Adaptation; Senior Research Fellow
SEI Headquarters
Initiative / The initiative explores implications of transboundary climate risks and strengthens cooperation to meet the global challenge of adaptation to climate change.
Past event / Join us to discuss new evidence on ten transboundary climate risks in Adaptation Without Borders' first flagship report.
Initiative / The initiative explores implications of transboundary climate risks and strengthens cooperation to meet the global challenge of adaptation to climate change.
Other publication / Ten case studies in transboundary climate risk illuminate the blind spots for climate policymaking in this year's report.
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