- Title
- Barriers to effective implementation of positive climate change adaptation: disconnects between science, policy and stakeholders
- Creator
- Kiem, A. S.; Austin, E. K.
- Relation
- 2nd Practical Responses to Climate Change Conference. Water and Climate: Policy Implementation Challenges. Practical Responses to Climate Change (Canberra, A.C.T. 01-03 May, 2012) p. 573-582
- Publisher
- Engineers Australia
- Resource Type
- conference paper
- Date
- 2012
- Description
- Numerous studies have identified the potential impacts of climate change on a variety of sectors in Australia and that the need for positive adaptation outcomes is clear. However, while a lot of climate change impacts and adaptation research has been, and continues to be, conducted, the well documented facts, key themes and recommendations continue to emerge with little evidence of effective implementation of successful climate change adaptation strategies. This paper summarises the findings of several recent projects that have focused on rural communities and investigated (a) why it is the case that potential adaptation solutions and priorities have not been implemented, (b) what barriers exist that are preventing implementation of successful adaptation strategies, and (c) how these barriers might best be overcome? It was found that the two most significant barriers are: (1) the fact that climate change adaptation is usually most successful when it is location or sector specific (this is often counter to the State or Federal legislative framework that adaptation strategies and policy must work under) and (2) the apparent disconnect between what information end users and decision makers need (or think they need) and what climate science currently provides. While previous research, and anecdotal evidence, qualitatively establishes that this disconnect does exist, this research provided a "first-pass" quantification of the causes and magnitude of the disconnect from a rural end user perspective. Findings indicated a lack of detail, format and legitimacy in climate information as the main causes of the disconnect. Additionally and of concern, almost a third of all survey respondents who used (or would like to use) climate information in their decision making or adaptation frameworks believed that climate information did not meet their needs. These findings are indicative of the extent to which the disconnect prevents the translation of information on climate change impacts into successful climate change adaptation. Further effort toward robustly quantifying the causes and magnitude of the disconnect is necessary in order to achieve the considerable task of finding a solution to this barrier to adaptation.
- Subject
- climate change; adaption research; environmental policy
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1321860
- Identifier
- uon:24465
- Identifier
- ISBN:9780858259119
- Language
- eng
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