Measuring Progress in Adapting to a Changing Climate

Executive Summary

Global greenhouse gas emissions are still on the rise and the impacts of climate change, manifested for example with extensive drought episodes or sea level rise, will increasingly be experienced across countries. To address these impacts, many countries are making climate change adaptation a national priority, adopting comprehensive national policies which lay out adaptation priorities and objectives for cross-government actions.

With growing country efforts to adapt to climate change, it is important to demonstrate progress and results in the implementation of adaptation policies. Progress measurement is critical to inform and improve the planning and prioritisation of adaptation actions, to engage resources effectively and to collectively monitor the strengthening of climate resilience nationally and internationally.

Measuring adaptation progress is complex and cannot be captured in a single metric. The OECD’s work on adaptation measurement seeks to support countries in capturing the complexity of adaptation and to help demonstrate the impact of adaptation actions over time. The OECD’s approach to adaptation measurement goes beyond the project or programme level, instead evaluating nationwide, cross-cutting adaptation efforts. This approach involves four main steps: 1) assessing climate risks as measurement baselines; 2) translating adaptation needs into measurable objectives and targets; 3) tracking implementation progress towards achieving these adaptation targets; and 4) measuring the effectiveness of adaptation policies in reducing climate impacts over time.

This report presents findings of an OECD-wide stocktake of countries’ efforts in measuring adaptation, which are informed by a cross-country survey of OECD and partner countries, four country case studies (Chile, Korea, Slovak Republic and the United Kingdom) and insights gathered during OECD expert workshops.

Key findings

Baseline climate hazard and exposure information is becoming widely available. Robust, granular and regularly updated climate hazard, exposure and vulnerability information allow to determine adaptation needs and to formulate and adjust adaptation objectives and targets. While hazard assessments are increasingly available – in 60% of surveyed countries – only 40% assess the exposure of people, socio-economic assets, and ecosystems to climate impacts. Of the 22 survey responding countries that conduct regular climate risk assessments, 16 also include vulnerability assessments. However, their coverage, method and depth vary widely.

Countries are increasingly defining adaptation objectives and measuring progress towards them over time. Building on climate risk information, adaptation objectives break down a high-level adaptation vision into sub-national and sectoral adaptation objectives for which targets can be set for specific timeframes. The great majority (97%) of respondent countries report that their climate risk data inform the development of their national adaptation policies. Sixty percent of surveyed countries use this information to define adaptation objectives at the sub-national level, and 73% do so by sector. Implementation progress is also widely reported, with 70% of all surveyed countries tracking resources (inputs) allocated to adaptation as well as outputs produced, such as the structural and non-structural measures implemented.

Assessing adaptation effectiveness remains the greatest measurement challenge. Measuring whether adaptation policies reduce climate impacts over time is reported as a challenge by 80% of responding countries. One reason is that information on observed climate impacts is only partially reported. For example, while insured losses may be readily available, ecosystem damage by extreme events may not be. Secondly, establishing causal links between adaptation actions and the resulting change in climate impacts is complicated. Most causal inference studies involve in-depth research, which makes them difficult to conduct more systematically. Many countries rely on qualitative assessments, such as expert interviews, to capture successes and failures of adaptation actions, and to attribute progress to policy action over time.

The data requirements for adaptation measurement are significant. In addition to hazard modelling and climate change projections, population, household and administrative data are needed. Additional information, e.g. on climate impacts and implementation progress, needs to be collected to gather a complete picture of adaptation progress. Countries are working to bring longitudinal and spatial data together and to harmonise information from across levels of government and sectors. Stronger communication between data owners and policy makers will help to fully leverage the range of existing information and data.

Indicators play a prominent role in adaptation measurement, as reflected by the number of countries (83% of surveyed countries) using or intending to use indicators to measure adaptation progress. Indicators help to simplify, synthesise and standardise information, and thereby facilitate communication and comparability. While some countries compile indicators from existing data, others produce a wish list of indicators, which in turn drives data collection.

Strong institutional frameworks can foster adaptation measurement and the use of its results, provided there is capacity to do so. Many OECD countries are anchoring adaptation measurement in their national adaptation planning process, with results informing subsequent phases of national adaptation plans. Work is needed to increase the engagement and contribution to adaptation measurement by all relevant stakeholders. Given the wide-ranging nature of adaptation, environment ministries cannot do this alone. Legal instruments, such as incorporating adaptation measurement in climate laws, can strengthen ownership and improve data and reporting across all agencies involved. This will also strengthen the use of measurement results.

Key recommendations

• Bridge data and information gaps, including by increasing the granularity of information, to understand how adaptation policies might affect the exposure and vulnerability of populations, economies and the environment over time. Much of the data needed to measure adaptation progress already exists within sectors (e.g. water management, agriculture…). Consultative processes can help elicit relevant data that can be tied to measuring adaptation progress.

• Formulate clear objectives targeted at reducing climate impacts over time and expand the development and use of indicators to assess progress.

• Allocate appropriate and sufficient technical and financial resources to measure progress on adaptation and develop a conducive institutional framework.

• Use results of adaptation measurement to inform policy decisions. An important objective of adaptation measurement is to inform policy and resource allocation decisions. In doing so, the results of adaptation measurement can reinforce accountability and transparency, and increase the efficiency of resources deployed for adaptation.