Barriers to Climate Change Adaption: a Diagnostic Framework California Energy Commission Table of Contents

This report presents a framework to systematically identify and organize barriers that may impede managing the risks and impacts resulting from climate change (such as those caused by sea level rise, shifts in seasons, changes in water supply availability, and others). The framework targets planned adaptation (that is, preparation for and management of impacts) and focuses on potentially challenging obstacles, but ones that can be overcome. The framework is made up of three key components. The first component is an idealized depiction of the adaptation decision‐making process that provides the foundation for identifying and organizing the barriers into a logical framework, which helps to recognize when and why they occur. The second component consists of three core elements of any adaptation process: the actors involved, the larger context in which they act (for example, governance), and the system of concern that is exposed to climate change and that needs to be managed. These three elements are the principal sources for why a given barrier arises in the adaptation process. The third component of the framework serves as a guide for how to determine whether an encountered barrier is under the current and local influence of the actor. This component opens up options for policy or management interventions to overcome the barrier. Together, the nature of the barrier, its source, and the location of influence over the barrier provide a “road map” to design strategies to circumvent, remove, or lower the barriers. It provides a systematic starting point for answering critical questions about how to support climate change adaptation at all levels of decision‐making (local, state, and federal government and in the private sector). This project is important because it created a testable framework that would allow decision makers to identify what barriers must be overcome to reduce environmental or economic damages of climate change.