A number of colleagues from the Taskforce on Conceptual Foundations Working Group on Environmental Policy Integration recently published a paper in Regional Environmental Change about the performance of climate adaptation mainstreaming as a specific form of Environmental Policy Integration.
Abstract: Adaptation to a changing climate is unavoidable. Mainstreaming climate adaptation objectives into existing policies, as opposed to developing dedicated adaptation policy, is widely advocated for public action. However, knowledge on what makes mainstreaming effective is scarce and fragmented. Against this background, this paper takes stock of peer-reviewed empirical analyses of climate adaptation mainstreaming, in order to assess current achievements and identify the critical factors that render mainstreaming effective. The results show that although in most cases adaptation policy outputs are identified, only in a minority of cases this translates into policy outcomes. This “implementation gap” is most strongly seen in developing countries. However, when it comes to the effectiveness of outcomes, we found no difference across countries. We conclude that more explicit definitions and unified frameworks for adaptation mainstreaming research are required to allow for future research syntheses and well-informed policy recommendations.
Reference: Runhaar, Hens, Bettina Wilk, Åsa Persson, Caroline Uittenbroek, Christine Wamsler. 2017. Mainstreaming Climate Adaptation: Taking Stock about “What Works” from Empirical Research Worldwide. Regional Environmental Change. Online first.
The article is available here.