Page - 17 - in options, Volume winter 2017/2018

www.iiasa.ac.at winter 2017/18 ◼ options 17 Public and private When implementing local climate policies, one major question is how public authorities could share responsibility for adaptation with private companies or individuals. “Public authorities play a central role in climate change adaptation,” explains IIASA researcher Mia Landauer, who works in the IIASA Risk and Resilience Program and Arctic Futures Initiative. “However, engaging the private sector and shifting responsibility towards them would be beneficial for adaptation.” Landauer’s recent case study of Copenhagen and Helsinki with colleagues from Aalto University, indicates that more attention needs to be paid to how local authorities engage private actors. “So far, regulations and market-based mechanisms with strong public ownership have been used to foster adaptation and to involve and steer private actors,” says Landauer. “However, in practice this provided little motivation for the private sector to take responsibility for implementing adaptation actions.” Landauer’s research recommends focusing on questions such as who bears the consequences of climate change, and who should carry the residual risk? “Public authorities should assess the ‘problem ownership’ of adaptation policies and measures, and hence identify in which contexts adaptation is a public or private good,” she says. “This would clarify citizens’ and companies’ motivation and capacities to adapt.” The City of Helsinki, for example, offers a highly energy-efficient district cooling service, which private actors can buy: centrally-cooled water can be pumped directly into private ventilation systems, in order to regulate indoor temperature in the case of extreme heat events. Here, the public healthcare service carries the residual health risk of exposure to heat. Unfortunately, coordination between public authorities and the private sector is also often lacking in planning and implementing national climate policies. In a Nordic study comparing national climate and tourism strategies, Landauer found that important details, about how snow-based tourism can adapt to shifting seasons, for example, were absent from the national climate strategies. The same was true the other way round: tourism strategies did not state how the sector could implement climate adaptation actions. “There was hardly any mention of one in the other,” explained Landauer. “There must be more collaboration in order to build coherent and effective strategies across scales and sectors.” These concrete policy and action recommendations, made through evidence- based understanding of how sectors, countries, and individuals’ actions affect each other, are essential for humanity to adapt to our changing climate. NL Further info § Landauer M, Goodsite ME, & Juhola S (2017). Nordic National Climate Adaptation and Tourism Strategies – (How) Are They Interlinked? Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism: 1-12. [pure.iiasa.ac.at/14658] § Klein J, Landauer M, & Juhola S (2016). Local authorities and the engagement of private actors in climate change adaptation. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy: 1-20. [pure.iiasa.ac.at/13956] § ar16.iiasa.ac.at/farmers-in-ethiopia/ § ar16.iiasa.ac.at/reducing-water-stress-worldwide/ Yoshihide Wada wada@iiasa.ac.at Esther Boere boere@iiasa.ac.at Mia Landauer landau@iiasa.ac.at