Translating climate risk assessments into more effective adaptation decision-making: the importance of social and political aspects of place-based climate risk

Andrew P. Kythreotis, Matthew Hannaford, Candice Howarth and Gary Bosworth

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Climate risk continues to be framed ostensibly in terms of physical, socio-economic and/or ecological risks, as evidenced in the 2012 and 2017 UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) evidence reports. This article argues that framing climate risk in this way remains problematic for the science-policy process, particularly in ensuring adequate climate risk assessment information translates into more effective adaptation decision-making. We argue how climate risk assessments need to further consider the social and political aspects of place-based climate risk to ensure more effective adaptation policy outcomes. Using a discourse analysis of the CCRA3 Technical Report methods chapter published in June 2021, we discuss three critical themes around how climate risk is currently framed within the Technical Report methods chapter. These are (i) the over-reliance on reductive methodological framing of assessing climate risk through ‘urgency scores’; (ii) the idea of what constitutes ‘opportunity’; and (iii) the framing of transformational adaptation discourses through the lens of climate risk. To conclude, we suggest that to move beyond assessing risk solely in terms of biophysical and socio-economic risk, a greater emphasis on the social and political contexts of ‘place-based’ risk needs to be central to climate change risk assessments.

Keywords: climate change risk assessments; social and political risk; place-based climate action; adaptation decision-making and transformation; adaptation policy and governance; CCRA3; Andrew Kythreotis and Candice Howarth thank the British Academy and the Department of Business; Energy and Industrial Strategy for funding to continue this research in the context of the new civil politics of climate change (Ref. SRG19\190291); ES/S008381/1; 'through through the PlaceBased Climate Action Network' (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q51 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 10 pages
Date: 2024-04-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env and nep-inv
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Published in Environmental Science and Policy, 1, April, 2024, 154. ISSN: 1462-9011

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