Adaptation - it's a mindset

In 2018, the City of Cape Town almost ran out of water and in 2019, several regions in Australia reported severe heatwaves that caused asphalt to melt and we all saw the devastation caused by the unprecedented bushfires raging across Australia.

Just last month, the Netherlands and Germany experienced unprecedented floods while parts of China received a year’s worth of rain in just 24 hours.

The European Commission’s Sustainable Finance Plan estimates that 50% of all risks to European banks stem directly or indirectly from climate change. Clearly, decisions how to respond to climate related risks are more necessary than ever, but this requires a new way of thinking in how we make such decisions.

And while we are increasingly seeing unprecedented events unfolding, the question we should be asking is two-fold: can we learn to adapt to, and prepare for, unprecedented events and if we can, which strategies are most effective in enabling resilient and well-adapted communities?

It’s the same question I pose to my students: can we really learn to adapt? Or should we just resign to the fact that the world has become more unpredictable and there is not much we can do about it?

In my work as an adaptation scientist, these are the kinds of questions I think about every day.

I think about how cities like the Gold Coast (where I live), which has not experienced serious heatwaves before, will fare when it inevitably does. Are our health systems, hospitals and communities ready for extreme heat? If everyone then cranks up their air conditioners, is the energy grid ready for such demand? How do we communicate to communities what to do in a heatwave?

If the new norm is too much water that comes too fast, what does that mean for our engineering standards and the way we design infrastructure? And if there is less water available, what does that mean for water intensive sectors such as agriculture? If the growing conditions change because of higher temperatures, what happens to some of our favourite products such as wine and coffee?

While these questions have no easy answers, what is clear is that we cannot keep making strategic and operational decisions the way we are used to.

Adaptation as a new mindset

The changes we are already seeing means we need a global and local shift in the way we think. Adaptation as a new mindset starts with the acceptance that our world is changing. It poses a key strategic question – how do these changes impact me/my community/my profession both now and in the future?

Adaptation is about understanding the long-term trends of change and it requires a broader and most of all a flexible mindset that change is evident and continuous. It requires a new understanding about risks, an understanding that the places that we love are going to change, and that living on the beachfront or in the middle of a dense forest means that there are more, and at times new, risks we are going to have to deal with.

The truth is that we often fear change. We like to keep things the way they are: the routines we do at work, the way we live and the lifestyles we enjoy. Embracing change is not easy. Look at Covid-19. The pandemic continues to bring unprecedented change to our lives. The struggle to arrive at a new normal is a challenge for each of us.

But how we approach the challenges of the pandemic or climate change adaptation depends a lot on how we think and make decisions. In my current Australian Research Council DECRA project, I critically analyse the often widespread rules of thumb (aka heuristics) about climate adaptation that dominate our decisions and policymaking. A heuristic is a rule of thumb that is based on our experience and helps us to make quicker decisions. We often are not even aware how heuristics are affecting our decision making. But they are. Recognising them and understanding how they function, can make these rules of thumb more useful for how we make decisions on adaptation.

For example, one of the most popular adaptation heuristics is that adaptation is just a local issue and hence the responsibility of local communities and local governments. Yet, research suggests that local governments often do not have the capacity to implement or resource the needed adaptations. Effective adaptation often requires a multi-level governance response where all levels work together given that many climate risks are often transboundary in nature rather than location or community specific. Sea level rise or bushfires do not stop at state or local government borders. They spill over jurisdictions and communities.

This also means that we need a national approach how we consider adaptation across Australia. Australia is a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Paris Agreement that requires all countries, including Australia, to prepare a national adaptation plan and report on its progress every five years. This is a complex and challenging task especially at a country level, and it requires a national conversation as to how we intend to make decisions on adapting to climate change across all levels, and which adaptation heuristics do we choose to pay attention to in the process.

Indeed, paying close attention to the kinds of heuristics we use is essential for improved decision-making, and reflecting on these can even lead to the discovery of new heuristics that work better. Heuristics are mental tools that, if robust, can assist us in dealing with the increasing complexity of our world while supporting a new mindset. In short, while the effects of climate change are real and observable in the world around us, the solution to dealing with climate change starts very much with the mindset we have.

Dr Johanna Nalau is an award-winning adaptation scientist who thrives on finding clues how humans can better see into the future and make robust decisions today to secure a more resilient future. Her Australian Research Council DECRA research focuses on understanding climate adaptation decision heuristics and the role these play in adaptation decision- and policy-making processes. Dr Nalau is Lead Author in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment report in Working Group II (Chapter 15 Small Islands), Co-chair of the Science Committee of the World Adaptation Science Program, and leads the Adaptation Science Research Theme at Cities Research Institute.