Does mitigation shape adaptation? The urban climate mitigation-adaptation nexus

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

Existing research has increasingly identified synergies and trade-offs between urban climate change mitigation and adaptation policies. There is a gap, however, in our knowledge of the extent to which urban climate change mitigation efforts affect the adoption of adaptation policies. Analysing the presence of different levels of climate change mitigation efforts in European cities, while also considering local climate risks and national adaptation mandates, our results show a positive and significant correlation between mitigation and adaptation policies. This is partly a result of the perceptions and discourses linking global and local climate risks, and partly a consequence of the co-benefits of the two activities at the local level, which enable cities to piggyback on their prior mitigation efforts when adopting adaptation policies. A conceptual ‘mitigation-adaptation nexus’ governance framework is adopted to improve the current synergy versus conflict debate. Multilevel logit regression analyses of 261 European cities, controlling for both city- and country-level factors, suggest that adaptation is positively influenced in cities with mitigation action policies with monitoring systems, rather than mere mitigation commitments. We also find that national mandates drive local adoption of adaptation policies.
Original languageEnglish
JournalClimate Policy
Volume20
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)341-353
ISSN1469-3062
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020

ID: 239016306