Innovation in Climate Change Adaptation

The process of climate change adaptation is characterised by a great deal of complexity. Its successful implementation may only be achieved by a combination of a wide range of approaches, methods and processes. Climate change adaptation also needs innovation. Based on the perceived need to explore the links between climate change adaptation and innovation, this paper defines how innovation can support climate change adaptation, and suggest a variety of approaches which may help to realise its potential.

This paper reports progress of the Government of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, in implementing climate adaptation responses through the establishment of an effective adaptation architecture and incorporation of the elements of best practice adaptation policy development. Ideally, adaptation policy development should be grounded in practice; support adaptation processes that reduce social and environmental vulnerability; account for short-term variations and longer-term changes in climate; recognise the importance of scale from the local to the global; be assessed in the context of human development; and, employ participatory processes throughout its formulation and implementation.

At the centre of the NSW Government’s approach, Enabling Regional Adaptation (ERA) is an on-going, multi-region, stakeholder-led process designed to inform local and regional adaptation planning and action. ERA consists of several phases that include: integrated assessment of vulnerability at regional scale (climate and socio-economic profiling, impact pathways development, adaptive capacity assessment and identification of collective actions); development of strategic adaptation pathways, change models and process benchmarking; and, place-based dialogue on transformational adaptation with local stakeholders. ERA is supported by an adaptation architecture that includes: regional capacity building, enhancement of social capital, knowledge dissemination, research partnerships and dedicated funding. Since 2010, the project has engaged 720 regional decision-makers through 33 participatory workshops and assessed adaptation in five NSW planning regions covering 75 % of the State’s population and 64 % of Local Government Areas.

Coastal regions and islands are among the most popular tourist destinations. They are also highly vulnerable to climate change. Much of the literature on vulnerability, including IPCC reports, states that vulnerability is dynamic. However, vulnerability conceptualisations in the tourism realm have so far taken a static perspective. Static conceptualisation underestimates inherent uncertainties stemming from actor interactions (with one another and their environment) and processes. The interactions and processes are important for developing adaptive strategies in a dynamic world. Hence, frameworks for analysing tourism vulnerability as a dynamic phenomenon are urgently needed. This paper outlines the first steps taken towards a dynamic approach for analysing vulnerability of Caribbean coastal tourism. The approach consists of (1) a conceptual framework focusing on human-human and human-environment interactions at the actor level and (2) an evolutionary methodology. The methodology engages both Caribbean climate change experts and regional actors. Regional actors both respond to and help develop the framework through interactive, or companion, modelling. By focusing on interactions and processes, the approach is expected to yield key insights into the development of vulnerability through time, crucial information for adaptive management.

Whilst weather extremes are currently rarely experienced in Greater Manchester, UK, under the changing climate the temperatures are projected to rise and heatwaves are likely to become more frequent. This may be particularly dangerous to people considered to be vulnerable to excessive heat: those in poor health, young or old age, and those isolated from others because of cultural differences or sparse social networks. The risk of harm to people caused by high temperatures may be exacerbated by the urban morphology of the post-industrial conurbation, including the distribution of green spaces and the housing conditions.

This paper explores the risk of high temperatures to vulnerable communities in Greater Manchester, UK. It investigates the spatial distribution of the factors contributing to social vulnerability and the neighbourhood qualities affecting exposure to high temperatures in relation to urban heat island. The results suggest that more diverse communities and people living in rented accommodation and in poor quality housing are likely to be at the greatest risk of high temperatures. The paper concludes by proposing neighbourhood-level adaptation measures targeting the physical environment that could address this climate injustice.

Responding to disasters such as floods and bushfires demands immediate action, while adapting to the impacts of climate change requires a consistent long-term policy commitment. Systems of government need to be able to do both at the same time, despite all the other demands on scarce public resources. This chapter summarises the findings of a project that searched for opportunities to improve the situation by integrating disaster risk management and climate change adaptation. The research was based on comparative case studies of recent extreme bushfires and floods in Australia. The paper offers some practical recommendations for reform that consist of changes to agencies and funding to empower local communities as well as improve collaboration within and between sectors of society. This entails: focussing on a common policy goal of building resilience; empowering communities with local resilience building grants; promoting institutional learning by embedding climate change experts within disaster risk management organisations; and, facilitating interagency collaboration through improved networking at all levels. Such reforms will help to build resilience to both disasters and climate change.

Today, already over 50 % of the world’s population is living in cities. Climate change is an enormous challenge both for residents and for the vegetation. The situation is worsened by the decreasing air quality. This causes that dwellers are suffering from syndromes such as stress, cancer and allergies caused by heat, noise and air pollution. For this reason a vertical plant filter, the CityTree has been developed. It is a vertical plant structure that cleans the air, cools the surroundings, holds back water and reduces noise. Together with its potential to display advertisements, it is a marketing tool for companies. As a result, clean and cool air can be provided economically profitable.

In a lot of metropolitan areas worldwide façade greening is used widely. In contrast in Europe it is still an exception. The paper shows the advantages of such type of greening and underlays it with data. This allows to achieve specific aims such as cooling, stress reduction and air cleaning. Moreover the design is an important feature so that the structure can be integrated into European style cities. The free standing solution offers more independence to deliver the advantages of vertical greening in heat and air pollution hot-spots. Thus a more sustainable and environmental friendly city with a higher standard of living can be created.

Climate change adaptation (CCA) has emerged as a new paradigm of development politics. As adaptation has turned out to be less tangible than mitigation, controversies about the meaning and implementation have come up.

This paper is based on empirical research in The Gambia analyzing how CCA is mainstreamed into development strategies.

There is much political activism noticeable for translating the international idea of CCA to the local realities of The Gambia. These political efforts offer windows of opportunities for transformative processes. Many of these, however, are not seized due to country-specific and external factors. Despite this, some pragmatic and creative, approaches from the Gambian climate change network provide some adaptation and development co-benefits.

Agriculture is one of the sectors mostly affected by climate change. Nigerian farmers have been losing their harvests to the impacts of climate change leading to lower crop production and poorer livelihoods. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) is an adaptation strategy that helps rural farmers to be resilient to and cope with the effects of climate change. It can be improved through the use of space technology by empowering key actors, providing them with reliable weather forecasts at the right time.

This paper presents an assessment of already adopted space applications in Nigerian agricultural sector; the distribution of mobile phones to rural farmers by government for easy access to CSA information from extension workers. It is also a policy research on other unpractised space applications, especially the conversion of geo-data to relevant information on climate and hazards that can help local farmers, nourishing them with timely agricultural advice which enables them to have higher crop yields and a more efficient use of seeds, water and fertilizers. The farmers will also receive early warnings for drought, flooding and/or diseases on their mobile phones, thus maximizing its use. The results of this paper will be useful for crop production agencies and NGOs in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Sustainable development within the broader context of climate change is a fairly recent research topic that underpins positive trade-offs between mitigation, adaptation and societal objectives. Many decisions regarding energy and transportation infrastructures, buildings, sanitary and storm-water management, flood risk assessment and also biodiversity protection take place at the city level. In this context, climate change issues have been recognized as fundamental for urban planning, requiring an integrated response with combined mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Results are presented for the municipality of Cascais and major findings show the interplay between mitigation and adaptation measures which can be synergetic or antagonistic. The approach and methodology are being validated with the 29 municipalities covering varied climatic zones, construction materials and socio-economic contexts, which will result in a comprehensive range of trade-offs between mitigation options and adaptation needs at the city level.

Given the severity of future climate change projections and associated risks to human and natural systems, societies are now faced with a strong imperative to develop adaptation policies and actions in response. Spatial planning, which is the process through which the development and use of land is visualised, negotiated and regulated, has an important role to play in adapting to the changing climate. Despite positive steps forward in some locations, there remains a gap between spatial planning’s potential capacity to support the achievement of adaptation goals and the realisation of this role in practice. This paper reports on the findings of an online Delphi survey undertaken to build understanding of the relationship between spatial planning and climate change adaptation. The survey secured the input of over 70 academics, planners and policy makers working across these fields in ten different countries. Its results offer insights on barriers inhibiting spatial planning’s contribution to adaptation, which range from overarching systemic issues through to those concerning the detailed workings of the planning system. The Delphi survey also identified solutions that could help build the capacity of spatial planning to progress the adaptation agenda. Approaches include enhancing the adaptation knowledge, skills and technical capacity of planners and applying different concepts and methods to align spatial planning more closely with adaptation goals. In presenting and analysing the results of the Delphi survey, the aim of this paper is to help build the capacity of policy makers, practitioners and researchers to adapt spaces and places for the changing climate.

This paper presents a research study, the objective of which is to generate alternatives to improve the urban infrastructure systems of Recife, capital of the Brazilian state of Pernambuco, and to develop the city’s adaptability to possible impacts of climate change. This city is always at risk from flooding and landslides caused by erosion of hillsides when heavy and/or prolonged rains occur. These cause destruction and deaths.

The research method applied was a case study and the data were collected through direct observation in an attempt to identify vulnerabilities in the infrastructure of the city. The data collected were analysed by 20 experts on urban infrastructure systems and the adaptation problem was structured around Value-Focused Thinking (VFT) methodology.

Among other findings, it became clear that electricity poles and wires are poorly maintained; there are urban drainage problems and substantial losses from the water distribution network; there is a lack of maintenance of the sewage collection network; and the municipal waste is collected irregularly. These are some of the problems which have led to putting forward a set of alternatives to improve the infrastructure of urban systems. It was concluded that the city is not in a state of readiness to counteract the adverse impacts of possible climate changes.

Across the Sahel, rural producers struggle to maintain viable livelihoods owing to the harsh and variable climate. Unfortunately, climate change is expected to exacerbate many of the challenges they currently face. While a number of adaptive agriculture practices exist, numerous studies have demonstrated that the reasons farmers adopt (or do not adopt) these practices are complex and context dependent.

This paper seeks to broaden our understanding of how assessments of vulnerability can be used to inform development programs designed to promote adaptive agricultural practices by summarizing the methodologies and findings from four vulnerability studies relevant to the Sahel conducted for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2012 to 2014. These studies took different approaches that have advantages and challenges depending on the spatial scale being assessed. Specific assessment findings include identification of a significant difference between the practices being promoted and those being adopted, a need to improve our understanding of the current and future effectiveness of agricultural practices in a changing climate, and that vulnerability in eastern Senegal varies both spatially and with livelihood practiced. Together these assessments demonstrate that there is neither a methodology to assess vulnerability nor an agricultural practice that is likely to be universally acceptable or effective across the Sahel. This suggests that different development programs will require different levels of specificity in analysis, and that assessments should consider carefully the spatial scale over which a development program will act and which factors affect adoption of practices at those scales. The lessons and findings from these studies will be useful to anyone seeking to support climate change adaptation or assess vulnerability in the Sahel.

Climate change is a global problem and has become an important agenda in both public and private discourse in recent times. Adaptation is more relevant for poorer nations because of their relative vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, [IPCC (Contribution of working group II to the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC. University Press Cambridge, 2007a); Climate change: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Working group II contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Summary for policy makers. IPCC Secretariat, Geneva, Switzerland, 2007b]. However, this paper examined adaptation of the artisanal fisher folks to climate change in the coastal region of Ondo state, Nigeria. Data for climate variables (sea surface temperature and rainfall) were obtained from reanalyzed Satellite data and were further analyzed using sophisticated ecological models for further inferences. 5-Scale Likert scale was used to assess the current adaptation strategies adopted by artisanal fisher folks. The result revealed that rainfall pattern showed great variation over time in terms of volume and intensity; this observation is in line with the observation of FAO, 2008, that, climate change is modifying the distribution of marine and freshwater species. The trend of temperature pattern for about 30 years clearly showed high fluctuation overtime. It was observed that the fisher folks in the study area had various adaptation strategies adopted for maximum fish production/catch for livelihood and improve standard of living.

Riparian forests (RF) composition is important for moderating climate change impacts on agricultural watersheds. However, they are under threat from deforestation of catchment areas. The study used remote sensing techniques and field inventorying to assess woody species composition of RF on farmland (FA) and protected area (PA) along Afram rivercourse in the humid savanna of Ghana. Analysis of Landsat images revealed a reduction in forest cover from 1986 (50 %) to 2014 (31 %) in the river catchment. Ground survey of 60 randomly selected plots (500 m² per plot) equally divided between FA and PA along the river in a 50 m buffer zone showed a reduction in the number of woody species (diameter ≥5 cm) from PA (58) to FA (39). Shannon-Wiener Index for species diversity also reduced from PA (3.8 ± 0.05) to FA (3.1 ± 0.08). Diameter class distribution of species of both PA and FA showed a reversed J-shaped curve indicating successful regeneration. Reduction in species density per hectare from PA (545 ± 18) to FA (277 ± 13) is likely to increase the surface exposure of the riparian area in FA. This will heighten risks of climate disasters such as fires and flooding. Education of farmers on the importance of riparian forests may ensure their protection.

Flood risk occurrence is very often related to heavy precipitation; and available future weather data is a potential source for long term flood risk prediction. The aim of this paper was to determine and analyze trends in rainfall, temperature and PET under present and future climatic conditions using Long Ashton Research Science-Weather Generator (LARS-WG) software, in prediction of flood risk occurrence in Abidjan. This work was based on the integration of Hydro climatic daily data within LARS-WG software. The processing steps are: (1) calibrating and validating the model using 50 years measured data, (2) generating baseline data for 50 years, (3) processing future scenario data based on baseline already set using HADCM3 and (4) Comparing baseline and generated scenario data. The resulting statistics show that temperature will increase by 0.32, 1.36 and 2.54 °C for the periods 2011–2030, 2046–2065 and 2080–2099 respectively. Then rainfall in the same period will increase by 4 %, 6 % and 10 % respectively. The mean and high flooding risk will then increase in long term within this urban area. Thus this future large extension of flooding occurrence imposes to take future weather scenario into account in prediction and management of flooding risk in Abidjan District.

In this paper, an innovative climate change adaptation plan for Central Manchester University Hospitals is presented. This adaptation plan is structured in four blocks: (1) stakeholder engagement, (2) information gathering on local climate change impacts, local health inequalities spatial planning and attitudes to more sustainable mode of transport of patients, visitors and staff, (3) decision making and implementation, and (4) monitoring.

The estimate temperature change of the summer warmest day is about +3 °C by 2099 and the central estimate of change in the precipitation on the wettest day is about +18.8 % by 2099 in Manchester. This change in the climate can harshly affect the health of 71 % of the population in Manchester who lives in deprivation. NHS, as the largest public health organisation in the UK, has the responsibility to reduce health inequalities as well as to enhance resilience in the local community by promoting behavioural change. The travel survey carried out at Manchester Royal infirmary (MRI) from travel activities revealed that the main barriers to switching to a more sustainable mode of transport are poor services, tickets affordability, child-care commitments, convenience and shift patterns. The most popular sustainable travel plan initiative is the interest free public transport season ticket loan, with the bike scheme and car-sharing schemes the second and third most popular respectively. Implementing successful a sustainable travel plan at CMFT is contingent on the successful cross-sectoral work with Greater Manchester Public Transport and Manchester Corridor, and a significant investment in onsite facilities such as showers or safe bike shelters. CMFT has also set progress monitoring tools through carbon footprinting from travel related activities. The carbon footprint exercise shows that MRI travel carbon emissions are 5,783,427 kg CO₂e, which represents 1.7 % of national NHS travel total. Staff contributes most significantly to the MRI travel carbon footprint, with 51 % of the total carbon emission, followed by visitors with 26 %, and patients with 23 %. Nurses are the largest contributing staff group with 1,384,590 kg CO₂e but medical staffing is the largest contributor per employee with 919 kg CO₂e.

Metropolitan areas exhibit a concentration of population, economic activities and infrastructure. The different impacts of climate change can jeopardize the different functions these areas have for their population, their hinterland and the economy. Adaptations strategies are therefore highly important for densely populated and prospering regions that are subject to these impacts.

Located in the south-western part of Germany, Stuttgart Region expects a higher risk of flooding and heat stress. Due to the topographic situation, the most significant impacts are predicted within the core area of the region, with a population of approx. 2 m. people and some 100,000 jobs.

This paper presents from a practitioner perspective the adaptation strategy pursued by the Verband Region Stuttgart—the regional planning and development authority of one of Germany’s most prospering areas. The implementation of this strategy is based on close cooperation between different administrative tiers, optimized use of all available instruments, the joint development of new instruments and best practices.

It focuses on practical adaptation measures and their co-ordinated implementation as part of urban development, the protection of open spaces, public debate and political decision-making.

The paper examined the influence of climate change on cocoyam production in Aba agricultural zone of Abia State. Data for the study was collected using a participatory pair-wise ranking technique from Key cocoyam farmers, village chiefs and Agricultural extension agents in a Focused group discussion and in-depth interview. Findings revealed that the major occupation of the people in the area is farming while the major crops grown are yam, cassava and plantain. Cassava ranked first as the major source of both income and food. On the average, size of farm is 0.3 ha while land acquisition is majorly by inheritance and leasing. The major source of labour is family members and hired labored. The cocoyam cultivars grown in the area are Edeocha, Ede Uhie, okpanambe, and Ede ofe. Farmer’s previous harvest and neighbor are the major source of planting material. Major cropping pattern done in the area is mixed cropping while crops planted with cocoyam include Maize, groundnut and vegetables. Farmers aim of producing cocoyam is for consumption and sometimes sales. All farmers agreed that there is a change in the climate of their zone. The major climate variables that is changing and as well affecting cocoyam production in the zone according to the farmers are rainfall, heat (atmospheric temperature) and sunshine (solar radiation) while the major influence of climate change on cocoyam production include decline in yield of cocoyam, reduction of soil fertility, uncertainty in planting and harvesting date, stunted growth of cocoyam, increase in decay of planted corms/cormels and increase loss during storage in the barns. The study then recommends that access to and cost of fertilizer should be enhanced and subsidized by the Government, this will help farmers to have access to fertilizer thereby overcoming the problem of soil fertility reduction. It further recommends that improved storage facility should be put in place to reduce the huge loss encountered during storage.

Whilst global awareness of the importance and urgency of acting to mitigate climate change and its impacts is generally high, actual behaviour has matched neither the scale nor the complex nature of the challenge. Understanding why despite good intentions appropriate action is not forthcoming is critical if we wish to avoid catastrophic consequences for social justice and the wellbeing of humans and other species. Research gaining insight into underlying psychosocial processes has an important contribution to make in this regard, yet it tends to be overlooked.

This paper draws on an empirical interdisciplinary study enquiring into the experience of individuals acting to influence the organisation with regard to environmental decision-making. The study investigated psychosocial factors that may influence motivation, resilience and effectiveness, specifically psychological threat coping strategies, innate psychological needs, identity salience and ways of conceptualising experience.

Our study illuminates the complex nonlinear dynamics between these psychosocial forces, and reveals tensions in satisfying needs, and in the effectiveness of coping strategies such as suppressing ‘deep green’ identity, suppressing negative emotion about climate change, and in going into nature places.

The findings contribute nuanced insight to the body of knowledge about the dynamics of underlying psychosocial forces that influence approaches to climate change and other pro-environmental behaviours.

Agriculture places heavy burden on the environment in the process of providing humanity with food and fiber, while climate is the primary determinant of agricultural productivity. Given the fundamental roles of agriculture in human welfare, concern has been expressed by federal agencies and others, regarding the potential effects of climate change on agricultural productivity. The study examined the perceived impact of climate change on the livelihood of arable crop farmers in Southwest, Nigeria. Various strategies adapted to reduce the effect of climate change on their crop and livelihood includes: crop rotation (\( \overline{x}=2.68 \)), planting of leguminous crop (\( \overline{x}=2.05 \)), application of organic fertilizers (\( \overline{x}=2.28 \)), mulching (\( \overline{x}=2.38 \)) and by planting drought resistance crops (\( \overline{x}=2.30 \)). Reported among the effects of climate change on crop and farmers’ livelihood were: discoloration of crop leave (\( \overline{x}=2.49 \)), increase infestation of pests and diseases (\( \overline{x}=2.50 \)) and reduction of crop yield (\( \overline{x}=2.49 \)). Experience gathered during the course of research will be useful at both local and international level as a way of reducing climate change threat.

This paper reports doctoral research that explores grassroots technologies as an asset for poor coastal communities of Bangladesh, how local knowledge contributes to the creation of such technologies, and how they can be useful to build a community’s trust in its own adaptive capacity. Bangladesh is one of the most disaster vulnerable countries in the world due to its deltaic morphology and frequent climate-induced hazards (storm surge, annual flooding, salinity intrusion, frequent cyclones, etc.). Southwestern coastal settlements are especially vulnerable because people considered among the poorest in the world inhabit them. To cope with climate extremes under severe resource limitations, grassroots technologies evolve over generations from autonomous decision-making processes and creative experimentation. However, communities often fail to recognize the value of these technologies and may have little trust in their innate capacity for climate change adaptation.

A conceptual framework will be presented that identifies the interactions among grassroots technology, local knowledge, community trust and climate change adaptation. The framework will be validated in case studies of specific grassroots technologies identified through field observations, and explored through qualitative methods to understand the importance of indigenous knowledge to the development of community-based climate coping strategies.

This paper starts with the acknowledgment that resilience is still a confusing concept, difficult to demonstrate, but a necessity when considering community’s development programming. It then presents the innovative approach developed by the INGO Plan International while developing a toolbox addressing both programming and accountability requirements regarding resilience, i.e. combining process-oriented and performance-oriented dimensions. At first it presents the strategic and programmatic vision of Plan for resilience—child-centered approach, based on the characterization of resilient communities and on a two-levels review process (the “what” and the “how”) of programming activities. As a second part, specific processes and tools—under construction—are described, that are designed to support programming teams in: (i) screening existing programmes/projects from the resilience perspective, (ii) design projects so that they contribute to resilience building. As a conclusion, the opportunity brought upon by the resilience debate to rethink the development paradigm from a community and human perspective is highlighted. Resilience building must be understood as interfering with causal pathways of change and not only as a linear programming process towards pre-defined outcomes. To make such a shift happen on the ground, tools are needed—translating academic knowledge on resilience into practitioners’ toolbox; this paper aims at contributing to connect the dots, providing a framework for a reality check on the field of development programming.

Wetland ecosystems in Tanzania contribute significantly to livelihoods and biodiversity conservation. These ecosystems are vulnerable to both human and climate change induced impacts though the implication of climate change on these ecosystems is poorly known. We assessed a wide range of wetlands in the Ruaha River basin to quantify their biodiversity, livelihoods and potential climate change impacts. It was observed that biodiversity of wetlands is much higher than that in adjacent habitats. Wetlands are refuge for endangered plant species making them important in biodiversity conservation. Wetland cultivation and fisheries contributed over 40 % of the total household income and food. Over 90 % of the dry season agriculture is wetland dependent forming the major livelihood source for majority in the basin. The most visible climate change impacts on the wetlands of Ruaha are reduced water flows, drying of wetlands and degradation of their ecological functions. With climate change, water flows in the Ruaha have decreased by 10 % causing substantial reduction in extent of wetlands in the basin. Adapting the wetlands to climate change require evaluation of current and future climate vulnerability of wetland ecosystems and related livelihoods. This information is important in informing policies, adaptation and mitigation strategies for wetland ecosystems.

This paper examines opportunities to address the financing gap for adaptation in fragile and conflict-affected countries through greater synergies between humanitarian, development and climate finance. Fragile states which have the least capacity to address the challenges of climate change, are often most at risk and vulnerable to its effects. However, the financing gap for adaptation in fragile countries coupled with the risk of renewed conflict linked to climate change is likely to accentuate the existing adaptation divide and create a vicious negative cycle. While creating synergies between different sources of finance is a potentially powerful way to address the adaptation financing gap and avoid mal-adaptation in fragile countries, joint action remains the exception. However, innovative practices to bridge efforts across different sources of finance are emerging in different country contexts, such as Jordan and Mali. As these innovative practices are very recent, it will be critical to leverage their learning potential to fully assess their effectiveness and replicability in similar development settings. Replicability will also be constrained by the differences in perspectives, objectives and financing between the humanitarian, development and climate adaptation communities. The resilience paradigm offers an opportunity to reconcile such differences and facilitate replicability through a shared theory of change across the different communities. The formulation process for the NAPs, which has recently begun in a number of fragile states, potentially provides a practical platform to bring different communities together in support of financing sustainable climate resilient development.

Understanding context-specific barriers to effective climate change adaptation encountered by individuals is necessary to elicit a nuanced understanding of adaptation processes in order to support decision-making. Recent scholarship highlights poverty as a critical element in barriers to climate change adaptation in developing countries. However, even within developing countries marked heterogeneities in poverty and barriers to climate change adaptation exist. As part of a larger study in countries along the Indian Ocean coastline, this paper examines the gap in barriers to climate change adaptation gap between the poor and nonpoor.

A nationally-representative cross sectional survey of 1253 individuals (606 males and 647 females) was carried out in Coastal Tanzania and four counterfactual decomposition techniques were used to analyse the primary data. Differentials in climate change adaptation barriers are predominantly due to group differences in the magnitudes of the determinants (differences in group characteristics) rather than differences in the effects of the determinants (estimated coefficients). Self-rated ability to handle personal pressure and unexpected difficulties accounted for the largest share of contribution to the overall explained gap in the barrier to climate change adaptation between the poor and non-poor, suggesting that climate change adaptation differentials between the poor and non-poor in coastal Tanzania are likely due to psychosocial factors.