Systemic climate adaptation framework

The Stockholm Environment Institute's 'Systemic climate adaptation framework' is a normative and analytical guide designed to help policymakers and practitioners move beyond fragmented, hazard-based approaches to climate adaptation. It provides a structure of three core pillars and six guiding principles to ensure adaptation policy is coherent, equitable, and robust under deep uncertainty.

• The framework is built on three core pillars: systemic risk framing, which views risks as interdependent dynamics across sectors and borders; policy interlinkages, which examines how adaptation intersects with other public policy domains; and deep uncertainty management, which plans for high-impact, unpredictable events like tipping points.
• Systemic risks are defined as those that compound with other climatic or non-climatic drivers (such as pandemics or conflicts), cascade across different sectors (e.g., energy to transport), transcend boundaries via supply chains or migration, and are exacerbated by socioeconomic vulnerabilities or fragmented governance.
• The framework proposes six guiding principles for practice: ensuring interventions are 'interconnected by design' to avoid siloed responses; establishing 'shared risk ownership' across bureaucratic boundaries; prioritizing 'co-benefits and everyday value'; ensuring 'no-regrets and anti-maladaptation' to avoid shifting risks to other groups or future generations; promoting 'equity and just resilience' by addressing structural drivers of vulnerability; and implementing 'adaptive governance under deep uncertainty' through flexibility and learning.
• To prevent maladaptation, the framework emphasizes that adaptation must not simply redistribute risk across space, time, or social groups, and that non-adaptation policies (such as land use or infrastructure) must be screened to ensure they do not inadvertently increase exposure.
• The framework argues that resilience is unsustainable without justice, requiring that adaptation redresses inequalities and incorporates diverse knowledge systems, including Indigenous and local knowledge, rather than treating vulnerability as a technical residual.
• Successful systemic adaptation depends on two cross-cutting enabling conditions: the availability of human, analytical, and institutional capacity at all levels (especially local), and the alignment of funding and incentive structures to reward systemic, co-beneficial interventions over narrow, sector-specific projects.
• The framework is intended as 'adaptable scaffolding' rather than a rigid checklist, designed to be applied selectively at key decision points such as when refreshing national strategies, screening investment pipelines, or managing post-disaster recovery.

APA

Mikaelsson, M. A., Crouse, C., Carr, E., & Klein, R. J. (2026). Systemic climate adaptation framework. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/sei-brief-may-2026-systemic-adaptation-framework.pdf

Chicago

Mikaelsson, Mikael Allan, Cynthia Crouse, Ed Carr, and Richard J.T. Klein. Systemic climate adaptation framework. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2026. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/sei-brief-may-2026-systemic-adaptation-framework.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Mikaelsson |first1=Mikael Allan |last2=Crouse |first2=Cynthia |last3=Carr |first3=Ed |last4=Klein |first4=Richard J.T. |title=Systemic climate adaptation framework |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=May 2026 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/sei-brief-may-2026-systemic-adaptation-framework.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{mikaelsson2026systemic, author = {Mikaelsson, Mikael Allan and Crouse, Cynthia and Carr, Ed and Klein, Richard J.T.}, title = {{Systemic climate adaptation framework}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2026}, month = may, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/sei-brief-may-2026-systemic-adaptation-framework.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }