What does transformative adaptation look like?

Session organizer: UNDP with ICCCAD

Session chair: UNDP / ICCCAD
Session rapporteur: UNDP
Conference theme: Financing of Adaptation & Climate Resilient Development
Session format: Panel debate (Open)

Session summary:
The terms “transformative” and “transformational” are used in various contexts to point to a
need to raise the level of ambition of national and global adaptation efforts, including in the
context of climate finance. To some, current efforts at adaptation remain too small, too
scattered and too short-term to add up to the fundamental reorientation of humankind
needed to survive the impacts of higher temperatures, erratic rainfall, sea level rise and
intensifying disasters. To others, there is a need for adaptation efforts to be socially and
economically transformative – addressing systemic inequalities that contribute to or worsen
vulnerability to climate change, for example, unequal treatment of women and girls, or lack
of land tenure by small farmers.

The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report suggested that transformational adaptation “changes the
fundamental attributes of a system in response to climate and its effects” and can include
adaptation at greater scale or magnitude, the introduction of new technologies or practices,
the formation of new structures or systems of governance, or shifts in the location and time-
frame of activities. The term incremental adaptation is used to describe the opposite end of
the spectrum and “accounts for actions where the central aim is to maintain the essence and
integrity of a system or process at a given scale”. In the climate finance context,
“incremental” is used in a specific way to describe the needs of a country that go beyond
business-as-usual development – needs that arise directly from climate change impacts and
are therefore the responsibility of the global community to address, applying the principle of
common but differentiated responsibility.

In the context of particular climate funds, the term “transformative” can take on an
additional dimension, referring to creating the necessary conditions for sustainable market-
based economic growth. The Green Climate Fund, for example, includes in its investment
criteria “market development and transformation”, as a sub-criterion indicating potential for
a “paradigm shift” to low-emission and climate-resilient development. The Fund is “driven
by innovation and targets its investments for transformational impact.”

The session will be introduced by a moderator who will invite 4-5 panel members to share
their vision of what truly transformative adaptation looks like, drawing on examples where
possible. Each person will be invited to speak for 3 minutes, after which the moderator will
allow 15 minutes for the panel members to interact with each other, followed by opening
the discussion to the floor.

Outcomes of the session: A collective picture of what “transformative adaptation” looks like
in 2018, in the context of available climate finance and the world’s adaptation needs.

Partner organisations: UNDP, ICCCAD, WRI, SANBI tbc