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

Kythreotis, Andrew P., Hannaford, Matthew, Howarth, Candice and Bosworth, Gary (2024) Translating climate risk assessments into more effective adaptation decision-making: the importance of social and political aspects of place-based climate risk. Environmental Science and Policy, 154. ISSN 1462-9011

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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.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/environmenta...
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Grantham Research Institute
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions Q Science > QC Physics
JEL classification:	Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q54 - Climate; Natural Disasters Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q51 - Valuation of Environmental Effects
Date Deposited:	04 Mar 2024 12:09
Last Modified:	22 Apr 2024 14:03
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/122155

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