Question

Which question has been addressed in this step?

Identifying measures: What are the perceived problems and policy needs related to climate change adaptation?

Why has this question been chosen?

• To help public and private decision-makers identify the main perceived problems and needs that constraint the development and implementation of climate change adaptation policy.

Which methods have been applied?

• Semi-structured guided interviews, institutional mapping, literature and policy documents review. A selection of decision-makers was interviewed to cover different levels of analysis (national, regional, the 'general' adaptation level, and the sectoral level).

Why have these methods been selected?

• In the framework of the Mediation project, this study was also conducted in Austria, Finland, France, Italy, Poland, Romania, and the UK to look at the types of problems that can be generalized across public adaptation settings Europe.

What results have been obtained?

The primary needs to develop adaptation plans in Spain focus on:

• Research needs: Poorunderstanding and scarce information on regionalized impacts and vulnerability.
• Inter-agency coordination: Lack of coordination exist among national and regional governments, local authorities, and research groups working on climate change issues.
• Multi-level governance: Efforts to involve the public in debates over strategies and plans have largely been limited.
• Financial resources: Lack of funding support to develop regional and local adaptation plans.
• Political commitment and enforcement mechanisms: Perceived need for compulsory legislation and enforcement mechanisms that will help encourage the collaboration of both public and private partners in the implementation of the adaptation strategies.

Reflections on this step

• There is a clear need to improve the science/policy interactions in the field of climate change.
• The major challenges at the EU level are interagency coordination, multi-level governance, mainstreaming and coping with uncertainty, some of which were also identified as main problems in Spain.