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7 - Lock-Ins in Climate Adaptation Governance

Conceptual and Empirical Approaches

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2021

By
Bernd Siebenhüner ,
Torsten Grothmann ,
Dave Huitema ,
Angela Oels ,
Tim Rayner  and
John Turnpenny
Edited by
Riyanti Djalante  and
Bernd Siebenhüner
Riyanti Djalante
Affiliation:
United Nations University, Tokyo
Bernd Siebenhüner
Affiliation:
Carl V. Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Germany
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Summary

Building on the growing body of literature on barriers to adaptation to climate change, this chapter focuses on ‘lock-ins’ as a particular conceptual approach to understanding path dependencies and rigidities in policy processes with a particular relevance to the field. The central research questions are, first, how can lock-ins be conceptualised, what indicators might identify them, and how can they be detected and described? Second, we seek to understand the emergence of lock-ins in climate adaptation policies by reference to central mechanisms originating from: (1) knowledge, discourses, and expertise; (2) physical infrastructures; (3) institutions and past policy tools; and (4) actors and their respective mental frames. Third, in cases where they are considered harmful, how can lock-ins be overcome or abated? It is the central thrust of this chapter to advance an in-depth and conceptually rich explanatory approach to climate adaptation governance and its obstacles. Empirical material, including evidence from pre-existing studies, will support the argumentation essentially by way of illustration.

Keywords

adaptation to climate changelock-insbarriers to adaptationpath dependency
Type
Chapter
Information
Adaptiveness: Changing Earth System Governance , pp. 127 - 146
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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