Political barriers to climate change adaptation

In his World 2.0 blog post, Johann Dupuis asks, might limits to adaptation - besides economic, ecological and technological - also be societal or political obstacles to the successful implementation of adaptation policy? But which ones?

Of the Switzerland case, the author writes: Despite its physical vulnerability to climate change, Switzerland is still in the process of elaborating a national adaptation strategy while most European countries have already done so.

After taking a look at the case of Switzerland, the author concludes: If the role of adaptation policy is to reduce vulnerability to climate change through the present modification of the behaviour of affected actors so that they integrate and anticipate future impacts of climate change, then it is far from an easy task. It requires more than technology or financial resources. It demands that we switch from a world where short term economic gains are the strongest driver of individual and collective choices, to a world were future risks — natural or economic — weigh significantly on contemporary decisions."