Eur. J. Int. Relations http://doi.org/cd6b (2017)

In recent years the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has increasingly addressed adaptation alongside long-standing efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Although there is a growing literature on how countries and communities are preparing for, and dealing with, the impacts of climate change, global adaptation governance has remained relatively understudied.

To begin to address this, Nina Hall from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Italy, and Åsa Persson from the Stockholm Environment Institute, Sweden, examine adaptation governance under the UNFCCC, and the degree to which it has been legalized.

They find more attempts to govern adaptation than are revealed in most existing 'mitigation-focused' accounts of climate governance. They go on to analyse UNFCCC documents, secondary literature on adaptation initiatives and institutions, interviews with experts and negotiators. They find that adaptation governance is low in precision — rules are typically ambiguously defined — and low in obligation — rules are not usually legally binding. They suggest this is because adaptation is a contested global public good and because 'package deals' are made with mitigation commitments.