Perspectives on transformational change in climate risk management and adaptation

The paper aims to identify relevant perspectives on transformative approaches and transformational change in the context of climate risk management and adaptation to propose an actionable definition for practical application. Using a systematic search and review approach, we review different perspectives across policy and scientific publications, focusing on work published in the past decade and identify common features of what transformational change in the context of climate risk management and adaptation may involve.

The authors show that different perspectives on transformational change in the context of climate risk management and adaptation persist, but certain areas of convergence are discernible. This includes understanding transformational change as part of a spectrum that begins with incremental change; involves climate risk management and adaptation measures focusing on deep-rooted, system-level change and tends to aim at enabling more just and sustainable futures; often oriented towards the long-term, in anticipation of future climate-related developments. In addition, we identify an 'operationalisation gap' in terms of translating transformational change ambitions into concrete transformative measures that can be replicated in practice.