Adaptation capacity and action: Sub-national government responses to climate change action

Australia and Germany are already experiencing serious climate change impacts. In Australia, recent disasters include devastating bushfires in 2019-20 and recurrent flooding in 2021-22. In Germany, recent dryness, drought periods and heat waves have harmed agriculture/forestry, while lethal extreme rainfall events in 2021 in the Ahrtal region destroyed whole communities. The IPCC documents the escalating climate change risks each country faces in coming decades, including the risks of cascading infrastructural breakdown and institutional overwhelm. As climate change adaptation is an urgent government imperative, this project provides a much-needed window into the ‘black box’ of institutional adaptation decision-making in two regions that share seemingly high adaptive capacity but slow adaptation action: Baden-Württemberg, Germany, and Victoria, Australia. The aim is to foster more effective and just public sector adaptation by analysing how and why officials are approaching adaptation the way they are. The research questions are: 1. In Baden-Württemberg and Victoria’s state governments, which groups are working on climate change adaptation and why? 2. What are their professional/disciplinary lenses and how do these shape the risks they prioritise, and the adaptation approaches they favour? How do they perceive cascading, compounding and catastrophic climate change risks? 3. How do work settings affect their perspectives and actions? What role do national differences play? 4. What does this suggest about ‘institutional barriers’ to effective and just adaptation and how these can be overcome? What positive ideas can be gleaned from diverse contexts?

Ansprechpartner: Fünfgeld H
Email: hartmut.fuenfgeld@geographie.uni-freiburg.de

Projektbeginn: 01.02.2024
Projektende: 31.12.2025

Fünfgeld H, (Projektleitung), Rickards L (Teilprojektleitung)

Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Institut für Umweltsozialwissenschaften und Geographie

Schreiberstraße 20
79098 Freiburg i. Br.

Telefon: 203 - 3563
Email: humangeo@geographie.uni-freiburg.de
http://www.geographie.uni-freiburg.de/de

• Speidel A
• Fila D
• De Kleyn L
• Denham T

• Deutschland. Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, Bund