ABSTRACT
It is widely accepted today that the societal consequences of our changing climate need to be dealt with in parallel to emission reductions. Climate adaptation embraces attempts to respond to current climate vulnerability, extremes and future climate change and is currently recognised as a major challenge to both developing and developed countries (Adger et al., 2007; Gagnon-Lebrun and Agrawala, 2007). Adaptation to climate variability and extremes is often seen as an important starting point for targeting future climate change and represents the most common approach taken so far (Burton, 2004; Næss et al., 2005; Tompkins, 2005; Schipper and Pelling, 2006; Wall and Marzall, 2006; Adger et al., 2007). In the climate policy literature, a broadening of the current policy-agenda, explicitly linking climate change to sustainable development, is suggested to avoid negative trade-offs and identify potential synergies (Tompkins and Adger, 2005; Linnér, 2006; Burch and Robinson, 2007; Swart and Raes, 2007).
