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Moving away from hazardous areas may be an important adaptive response under intensifying climate change, but to date such movement has been controversial and conducted with limited government or private-sector support. Research has emphasized resident perspectives on mobility, but understanding how professionals view it may open new avenues to shape future outcomes. Based on 76 interviews with professionals involved in climate responses in South Florida, we evaluate perceptions of adaptation goals, the potential role of climate mobilities in pathways supporting those goals, and associated constraints and enablers. The practitioners interviewed anticipate multiple types of climate mobilities will occur in the region, at increasing scales. Interviewees perceive climate mobilities at present, especially migration and gentrification where climate plays some role, as causing distributional inequities and financial and sociocultural disruptions, and they view existing adaptive strategies as best serving those who already have adequate resources, despite practitioners’ personal commitments to social justice goals. Although many practitioners feel prepared for their own, limited roles related to climate mobilities, they judge the region as a whole as being unprepared to support the retreat they see as inevitable, with a need for a more ambitious long-term transition plan. Achieving this need will be difficult, as practitioners indicate that climate mobilities remain hard to talk about politically. Nevertheless, interviewees believe some households are already considering moving in response to climate risks. Discussions of climate mobilities, through interviews and far beyond, may encourage more mindful choices about and engagement in climate-driven transformations.

 

Exposure to sea-level rise (SLR) and flooding will make some areas uninhabitable, and the increased demand for housing in safer areas may cause displacement through economic pressures. Anticipating such direct and indirect impacts of SLR is important for equitable adaptation policies. Here we build upon recent advances in flood exposure modeling and social vulnerability assessment to demonstrate a framework for estimating the direct and indirect impacts of SLR on mobility. Using two spatially distributed indicators of vulnerability and exposure, four specific modes of climate mobility are characterized: (1) minimally exposed to SLR (Stable), (2) directly exposed to SLR with capacity to relocate (Migrating), (3) indirectly exposed to SLR through economic pressures (Displaced), and (4) directly exposed to SLR without capacity to relocate (Trapped). We explore these dynamics within Miami-Dade County, USA, a metropolitan region with substantial social inequality and SLR exposure. Social vulnerability is estimated by cluster analysis using 13 social indicators at the census tract scale. Exposure is estimated under increasing SLR using a 1.5 m resolution compound flood hazard model accounting for inundation from high tides and rising groundwater and flooding from extreme precipitation and storm surge. Social vulnerability and exposure are intersected at the scale of residential buildings where exposed population is estimated by dasymetric methods. Under 1 m SLR, 56% of residents in areas of low flood hazard may experience displacement, whereas 26% of the population risks being trapped (19%) in or migrating (7%) from areas of high flood hazard, and concerns of depopulation and fiscal stress increase within at least 9 municipalities where 50% or more of their total population is exposed to flooding. As SLR increases from 1 to 2 m, the dominant flood driver shifts from precipitation to inundation, with population exposed to inundation rising from 2.8% to 54.7%. Understanding shifting geographies of flood risks and the potential for different modes of climate mobility can enable adaptation planning across household-to-regional scales.

 

There has been a growing interest in research on how to define and build indicators of resilience to address challenges associated with sea-level rise. Most of the proposed methods rely on lagging indicators constructed based on the historical performance of an infrastructure sub-system. These indicators are traditionally utilized to build curves that describe the past response of the sub-system to stressors; these curves are then used to predict the future resilience of the sub-system to hypothesized events. However, there is now a growing concern that this approach cannot provide the best insights for adaptive decision-making across the broader context of multiple sub-systems and stakeholders. As an alternative, leading indicators that are built on the structural characteristics that embody system resilience have been gaining in popularity. This structure-based approach can reveal problems and gaps in resilience planning and shed light on the effectiveness of potential adaptation activities. Here, we survey the relevant literature for these leading indicators within the context of sea-level rise and then synthesize the gained insights into a broader examination of the current research challenges. We propose research directions on leveraging leading indicators as effective instruments for incorporating resilience into integrated decision-making on the adaptation of infrastructure systems. 

Climate change necessitates a global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while adapting to increased climate risks. This broader climate transition will involve large-scale global interventions including renewable energy deployment, coastal protection and retreat, and enhanced space cooling, all of which will result in CO 2 emissions from energy and materials use. Yet, the magnitude of the emissions embedded in these interventions remains unconstrained, opening the potential for underaccounting of emissions and conflicts or synergies between mitigation and adaptation goals. Here, we use a suite of models to estimate the CO 2 emissions embedded in the broader climate transition. For a gradual decarbonization pathway limiting warming to 2 °C, selected adaptation-related interventions will emit ∼1.3 GtCO 2 through 2100, while emissions from energy used to deploy renewable capacity are much larger at ∼95 GtCO 2 . Together, these emissions are equivalent to over 2 y of current global emissions and 8.3% of the remaining carbon budget for 2 °C. Total embedded transition emissions are reduced by ∼80% to 21.2 GtCO 2 under a rapid pathway limiting warming to 1.5 °C. However, they roughly double to 185 GtCO 2 under a delayed pathway consistent with current policies (2.7 °C warming by 2100), mainly because a slower transition relies more on fossil fuel energy. Our results provide a holistic assessment of carbon emissions from the transition itself and suggest that these emissions can be minimized through more ambitious energy decarbonization. We argue that the emissions from mitigation, but likely much less so from adaptation, are of sufficient magnitude to merit greater consideration in climate science and policy. 

The City of Atlanta, Georgia, is a fast-growing urban area with substantial economic and racial inequalities, subject to the impacts of climate change and intensifying heat extremes. Here, we analyze the magnitude, distribution, and predictors of heat exposure across the City of Atlanta, within the boundaries of Fulton County. Additionally, we evaluate the extent to which identified heat exposure is addressed in Atlanta climate resilience governance. First, land surface temperature (LST) was mapped to identify the spatial patterns of heat exposure, and potential socioeconomic and biophysical predictors of heat exposure were assessed. Second, government and city planning documents and policies were analyzed to assess whether the identified heat exposure and risks are addressed in Atlanta climate resilience planning. The average LST of Atlanta’s 305 block groups ranges from 23.7 °C (low heat exposure) in vegetated areas to 31.5 °C (high heat exposure) in developed areas across 13 summer days used to evaluate the spatial patterns of heat exposure (June–August, 2013–2019). In contrast to nationwide patterns, census block groups with larger historically marginalized populations (predominantly Black, less education, lower income) outside of Atlanta’s urban core display weaker relationships with LST (slopes ≈ 0) and are among the cooler regions of the city. Climate governance analysis revealed that although there are few strategies for heat resilience in Atlanta (n= 12), the majority are focused on the city’s warmest region, the urban core, characterized by the city’s largest extent of impervious surface. These strategies prioritize protecting and expanding the city’s urban tree canopy, which has kept most of Atlanta’s marginalized communities under lower levels of outdoor heat exposure. Such a tree canopy can serve as an example of heat resilience for many cities across the United States and the globe.

 

An assessment of the global progress in climate change adaptation is urgently needed. Despite a rising awareness that adaptation should involve diverse societal actors and a shared sense of responsibility, little is known about the types of actors, such as state and non-state, and their roles in different types of adaptation responses as well as in different regions. Based on a largen-structured analysis of case studies, we show that, although individuals or households are the most prominent actors implementing adaptation, they are the least involved in institutional responses, particularly in the global south. Governments are most often involved in planning and civil society in coordinating responses. Adaptation of individuals or households is documented especially in rural areas, and governments in urban areas. Overall, understanding of institutional, multi-actor and transformational adaptation is still limited. These findings contribute to debates around ‘social contracts’ for adaptation, that is, an agreement on the distribution of roles and responsibilities, and inform future adaptation governance.