From case studies to climate adaptation policy: a framework for dialogue between local professionals and decision makers

There has been a recent burgeoning of government interest in promoting and learning from local climate change adaptation. Most popular approaches to mainstreaming of climate adaptation into sectoral policies rely on an ‘upscaling’ model in which lessons learned from local change processes are used to inform decision making at higher administrative levels.

This political approach necessitates a dialogue between regulatory policy, principally concerned with drawing generalised conclusions based on local lessons, and research projects, which examine examples of community-based climate adaptation in different contexts. This prompts researchers and their partners involved in discrete case studies of local climate adaptation to consider both how best to use their data, experiences and insights to inform policy processes:

•  How do local climate adaptation lessons become relevant for public policy?
• What are the opportunities and risks involved in exploiting local case studies for climate adaptation policy making?
• How do research projects navigate the many expectations and demands from the clients of policy in order to make their contributions relevant?

Download the policy brief (PDF, 442kb)