Strategic resilience: outlining a new government approach to climate change adaptation

The authors propose a new paradigm of "strategic resilience" to help governments navigate polycrises and transboundary climate risks. This approach emphasizes building the capacity to recover from complex shocks while pursuing strategic national objectives, suggesting a "third way" that avoids both strictly territorial adaptation and the securitization of adaptation driven by defense logics. The authors argue for new governance structures or institutions capable of orchestrating national coordination and steering finance and policy.

• The authors define "strategic resilience" as the ability to withstand and recover from multiple, complex shocks while simultaneously pursuing coherent, strategic national objectives.
• The proposed strategic resilience framework is presented as a "third way" alternative to two other approaches: a strictly territorial approach to adaptation and a securitization approach dominated by defense logics, the latter of which may result in less effective investments and less collaborative policies.
• To implement this approach, the authors argue that governments require new institutions or governance structures that can lead, orchestrate national-level coordination, steer policy and finance, and move beyond traditional definitions of national interest.

APA

Benzie, M., Biesbroek, R., & Gupta, A. (2025). Strategic resilience: outlining a new government approach to climate change adaptation. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/publications/strategic-resilience/

Chicago

Benzie, Magnus, Robbert Biesbroek, and Aarti Gupta. Strategic resilience: outlining a new government approach to climate change adaptation. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2025. https://www.sei.org/publications/strategic-resilience/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Benzie |first1=Magnus |last2=Biesbroek |first2=Robbert |last3=Gupta |first3=Aarti |title=Strategic resilience: outlining a new government approach to climate change adaptation |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=4 November 2025 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/strategic-resilience/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{benzie2025strategic, author = {Benzie, Magnus and Biesbroek, Robbert and Gupta, Aarti}, title = {{Strategic resilience: outlining a new government approach to climate change adaptation}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2025}, month = nov, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/strategic-resilience/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }