Adaptation in Global Climate Governance: Linkages between Intergovernmental Dialoge Forums and the UNFCCC regarding Adaptation

This paper investigates how intergovernmental dialogue forums addressing climate change outside of the UNFCCC are linked with the UNFCCC regarding their statements on adaptation. The discussed forums are the Major Economies Forum, G8, and G20. Three analytical points of comparison concerning the UNFCCC are established, namely: the UNFCCC gives adaptation the same priority as mitigation; there is increasing attention for the role of transnational actors in adaptation; and there is a clear distinction between the roles of developing and developed countries. A qualitative content analysis of forums’ documents was conducted to investigate the nature of the linkages between statements related to adaptation. The key conclusion is that there is much overlap regarding adaptation statements between the dialogue forums and the UNFCCC, but there could be complementarity as regards certain adaptation subjects about which the forums made statements prior to the UNFCCC.