Climate change adaptation strategies that aim to minimize harm and maximize benefits related to climate change impacts have mushroomed at all levels of government in recent years. While many studies have explored barriers that stand in the way of their implementation, the factors determining their potential to mainstream adaptation into various sectors are less clear. In the present paper, we aim to address this gap for two international, six national, and six local adaptation strategies. Based on document analyses and 35 semi-structured interviews, the 14 case studies also explore in how far the factors facilitating climate change adaptation are similar across levels of government or level-specific. Although located at three different levels of government, we find that the 14 adaptation strategies analyzed here represent “one-size-fits-all governance arrangements” that are characterized by voluntariness and a lack institutionalization. Since adaptation strategies are relatively weak coordination hubs that are unable to force adaptation onto sectoral policy agendas, they rely mainly on sectoral self-interest in adapting to climate change, largely determined by problem pressure. We conclude that one-size-fits-all governance arrangements are rarely adequate responses to complex challenges, such as climate change. Although climate change adaptation depends more on framework conditions such as problem pressure than on administrative or governance features, the findings presented here can help to understand under what circumstances adaptation is likely to make progress.

中文翻译：

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各级政府对气候变化的适应：政策变化的特点和条件

近年来，旨在将气候变化影响相关的危害最小化和收益最大化的气候变化适应战略在各级政府中如雨后春笋般出现。虽然许多研究探讨了阻碍其实施的障碍，但决定其将适应纳入各个部门主流的潜力的因素尚不清楚。在本文中，我们旨在解决两个国际、六个国家和六个地方适应战略的这一差距。基于文件分析和 35 次半结构化访谈，这 14 个案例研究还探讨了促进气候变化适应的因素在不同政府级别或特定级别之间的相似程度。虽然位于三个不同级别的政府，我们发现这里分析的 14 种适应策略代表了“一刀切”的治理安排，其特点是自愿性和缺乏制度化。由于适应战略是相对较弱的协调中心，无法将适应强加到部门政策议程上，因此它们在适应气候变化方面主要依靠部门自身利益，这在很大程度上取决于问题压力。我们得出的结论是，一刀切的治理安排很少能充分应对气候变化等复杂挑战。尽管气候变化适应更多地取决于问题压力等框架条件，而不是行政或治理特征，但此处提供的研究结果有助于理解在什么情况下适应可能会取得进展。