The following policy recommendations are based on a mapping and comparative analysis of national adaptation policies in the five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.
The recommendations are situated within a growing recognition of the need to increase adaptation efforts substantially, include new emerging categories of climate risks (in particular transboundary climate risks) and approach adaptation deliberately and systemically within a larger context of sustainable development. This is in turn understood to enhance the potential of adaptation processes and outcomes to support just and equitable transformations towards sustainability.
The key findings of the report are the following:
- The Nordic countries have come a long way in developing policies that enable them to assess climate change-related risks and vulnerabilities across sectors and geographies and identify and implement necessary adaptation measures, and most countries have completed at least one adaptation policy planning cycle. Yet, the lack of comprehensive systems for conducting risk and vulnerability assessments and for monitoring, reporting, and evaluating progress means that the Nordic countries are largely operating “in the dark” when it comes to furthering climate change adaptation nationally and locally. This is especially the case with transboundary climate risks, which is a policy area of growing concern, but which currently lacks systematic policy initiatives.
- The Nordic countries generally take a mainstreaming approach to adaptation, meaning that adaptation is integrated into the responsibilities of public bodies across societal sectors. In addition, some countries have a ministry with the overarching responsibility for coordinating adaptation efforts nationally. Yet, adaptation is marked by low political priority across all the Nordic countries, which shows both in the political mandate of the coordinating ministry as well as a low level of funding for adaptation, especially when seen in comparison with mitigation.
- There is a lack of policy instruments on adaptation across the Nordic countries. Most notably, there is a significant gap in the existence of economic measures to support and incentivize adaptation nationally and locally. While some funding and insurance schemes exist, these do little to incentivize proactive adaptation, especially for private sector and individual citizens. None of the Nordic countries have penalizing measures, such as taxes.
- There is a growing awareness among both public authorities and adaptation practitioners of the importance of ensuring that adaptation is coordinated with other related policy areas, such as mitigation, civil protection and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet, in practice, adaptation is still largely working with in isolation, which increases the risk of goal conflicts and misses the potential for synergy.
After summarizing key progress factors and best practices and main challenges, the policy brief presents five main recommendations:
- Reframe adaptation as transformation and support the alignment of adaptation with other societal goals.
- Establish mechanisms for systematic knowledge generation and develop appropriate indicators for measuring and evaluating adaptation, including for transboundary climate risks.
- Break down silo-structure between sectors and develop a clearly articulated policy cycle.
- Enhance adaptation financing and economic incentive mechanisms and translate knowledge on risks and vulnerabilities to local adaptation measures.
- Enhance the political mandate for adaptation and strengthen international commitments, including through Nordic collaboration.
Along with the recently published report on transboundary climate risks in the Nordic countries (Berninger et al. 2022), the present report supports enhanced knowledge sharing and collaboration between the Nordic countries in terms of adaptation policy.
