Advancing Climate Change Adaptation

The impacts of climate change are vast and consequential. The years 2012 to 2016, using conservative estimates, revealed more than 1500 climate-related disaster events displacing over 3.2 million people and causing USD$450 billion in financial losses. Recent studies confirm that extreme weather events and the failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation are the leading risks to global stability. Climate change adaptation is advancing differently in nations across the world. Using pragmatism as a theoretical framework and applying a mixed methods approach, this dissertation seeks to identify determinants of adaptation. Grounded theory analysis of 403 national documents from 192 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change identified 35 themes of climate change adaptation. A mixed methods data transformation model was applied to study the influence of several relatively stable parameters on the level of climate change adaptation. Nineteen variables were suitable for Principal Component Analysis, which further categorized 15 as determinants. The top 5 determinants were identified using between groups multivariate analysis. The influence of geopolitical variables on climate change adaptation were analyzed, these included: GDP per capita, economic classification, system of government, level of democracy, land type, region, level of conflict, and refugees. The research resulted in several significant and unexpected findings. Countries with the highest levels of adaptation appear to have many key commonalities. This dissertation seeks to identify ways in which we can collectively advance climate change adaptation.Ph.D