International Initiatives and Current Context for Adaptation Planning and Green Recovery

As international institutions and national and local governments face serial climate impact-driven crises, adaptation has gone from being the focus of a specialized group of planners and disaster risk management experts to one at the center of the global conversation about addressing climate change. Strengthening and accelerating adaptation and green recovery requires an understanding of the global context and on the ground realities in communities. This chapter reviews some of the key global agreements and trends—including the Paris Agreement, UN Sustainable Development Goals, and the movement by vulnerable countries for the funding of “loss and damage”—that define the current context for efforts to move from frameworks and proof points to widespread application and the work to secure the adaptation funding required for impact at scale. It also explores how a range of interrelated institutional, political, economic, socio-cultural, ecological, and technological factors create the enabling environment for change and describes how models for adaptation and climate risk management are evolving to encompass these dynamics.