Climate change adaptation: the impact of law on adaptation in the private sector

This briefing paper explores how the government can encourage, facilitate, and even demand actions from the different parts of the private sector to adapt to the changing climate. It focuses on adaptation that is influenced, motivated, or in certain cases prevented or constrained by the government through laws, regulations, incentives and policies with direct or indirect affects, then develops a list of principles and outcomes for the government’s role in facilitating private sector adaptation.

It also considers how insurance law and laws affecting the built environment can facilitate adaptation, as well as how privately held natural resources—agricultural land, forests, aquaculture operations—and other resources can adapt to climate change impacts. The paper is based on ideas discussed at a workshop that brought together academics, non-profit and business representatives, and government officials to wrestle with how government might positively shape the private sector response to the effects of climate change.