Page - 319 - in Loss and Damage from Climate Change - Concepts, Methods and Policy Options

13 ExploringandManagingAdaptationFrontiers… 319 exposure to climate-related risks and providing signalswhen adaptation limits are approached.Second,bysupportingactors inmovingawayfromadaptationlimitsby improvingex-antedecisionmaking,incentivisingriskreductionandcreatingaspace of certainty for climate resilient development. Third, by aiding actors in remaining in the tolerable risk space by facilitatingfinancial buffering as part of contingency approaches.However,inorderforrisktransferinstrumentslikeinsurancetoapproach their potential as risk management tool in developing countries, seven Pro-Poor Principles for climate risk insuranceneed tobemet. 13.2 Decision-MakingUnderClimateRisks Atthebeginningof the21stcentury,humanactivities,primarily their fossil fueluse, havethepotential to irreversiblydamagetheEarth’sclimatesystemandtransformit rapidly into “a state unknown inhumanexistence” (Barnoskyet al. 2012). Science suggests that climatechangewill causechanges in the“frequency, intensity, spatial extent, duration, and timing of extremeweather and climate events” as the IPCC SpecialReport onExtremeEvents (SREX)concludes (IPCC2012).This change in climatewill leadto“morerapid, largerandmoreunpredictablechangesinrisksthan havebeenexperienced in thepast” (RangerandFisher2012). Risk is both an analytical and a normative concept. It can be understood as the combination of the probability of an event and its consequences that harm things which human beings value (Klinke and Renn 2002).With the ultimate objective tomaintain risks for valued things at a tolerable level, actors apply riskmanage- ment strategies. They help to identify and evaluate risks, selectmeasures to avoid and prevent them from happening but also to plan for responding and recovering fromactual impacts.Riskmanagementmeasuresareused tocontrol risks for things humans value—e.g. livelihoods, ecosystems, cultural assets “with the explicit pur- poseof increasinghumansecurity,well-being,qualityof life,andsustainabledevel- opment” (IPCC2014). The idea of adaptation to climatic stressors has emerged as amainstreamriskmanagementstrategy tohelpmaintainhuman-ecological systems ina“safeoperatingspace”(Röckströmetal.2009).Effectiveadaptationmeansinte- gratingclimatechange related risks intoactors’existingdecision-makingprocesses with the aimofmaximising the long-termvalue of today’s decisions (Bouwer and Aerts 2006). This includes risk evaluation as a first step to assess potential risk to socialobjectivesandvalues followedby thedecisionwhich risk toactivelymanage andwhichnot.