Looking at adaptation through the lens of human geography – members of the HER team at LMU attended an international scientific conference in Bergen, Norway

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Over two days (15th to16th of May 2024) and twenty-five enriching sessions, scientists from across the world gathered in the Norwegian city of Bergen to discuss adaptation to climate change, hosted by the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation at the University of Bergen. The HER team from the Department of Geography at LMU was represented by a delegation of five members including Prof. Dr. Matthias Garschagen, Dr. Jan Petzold, Ms. Annika Schubert, Ms. Lena Grobusch and Ms. Deepal Doshi.

The conference opened with inspiring keynote speeches by Prof. Dr. Neil Adger, Prof. Dr. Karen O’Brien and Prof. Dr. Emily Boyd. The speakers raised thought-provoking ideas. Neil Adger proposed to think of a ‘Ministry of Climate Adaptation’ to counter the challenges of mainstreaming adaptation. Karen O’Brien invited a critical reflection on our current paradigm of risk management. Finally, Emily Boyd drew attention to the role of the elite in adaptation debates.

Thematic sessions revolved around limits to adaptation, assessing adaptation success, equity in adaptation, political economies of adaptation, migration, urban adaptation, transformative adaptation, and adaptation finance. Some of the messages that resonated across the different sessions were that adaptation was not happening at the speed and magnitude that is needed and understanding why that is, what different methodological approaches exist, and gears can be shifted to advance societal adaptation. One approach that stood out, was the use of art and ‘imaginaries’ of adaptation by the team from Basque Center for Climate Change, led by Dr. Marta Olazabal.

The LMU delegation presented in a variety of sessions. Prof. Dr. Matthias Garschagen presented some of the latest findings from a recent revision of the previous analysis (Garschagen and Doshi 2022) tracking adaptation funding from the Green Climate Fund. Dr. Jan Petzold presented on inclusive flood risk reduction for people with disabilities in Mumbai from a climate justice perspective, together with Dr. Sasha Kosanic from the Liverpool John Moores University. Ms. Annika Schubert presented a part of her doctoral work on the “capacity-action-gap” using the case of private flood risk adaptation measures. Ms. Lena Grobusch presented how a social contracts lens can be used to understand responsibility distributions for climate change adaptation. Ms. Deepal Doshi presented findings from one of her PhD publications (Doshi and Garschagen 2023) on understanding how actors evaluate ‘perceived’ adaptation solution spaces for feasibility and desirability drawing on flood risk management in Mumbai.

Beyond the engaging sessions, the conference also provided opportunities for networking and social activities to get to know each other. The conference was one of the first ever to focus on a human geography lens on adaptation and concluded with a strong call from participants for another one in the future.