Adaptation without borders?

The document defines indirect climate change impacts as risks observed in one location but caused by climate events elsewhere, transmitted via biophysical, trade, finance, people, and global security pathways. It highlights a significant gap in national adaptation strategies, noting that a text analysis of 25 countries' National Communications to the UNFCCC shows that keywords related to international risks are rarely used to describe climate risk profiles. The briefing emphasizes that while the private sector often manages these transboundary risks through supply chain analysis, public sector integration remains limited, as evidenced by a UK case study where international dimensions were largely omitted from the formal Climate Change Risk Assessment. The 'Adaptation Without Borders' project aims to provide conceptual frameworks and decision-support tools to help governments identify and manage these interdependencies.

• Indirect climate change impacts are defined as those "observed or expected in one place, but are brought brought about by climate change or extreme events somewhere else", such as a drought in Brazil causing livestock feed prices to rise in Europe.
• Indirect impacts are transmitted through five primary pathways: biophysical (e.g., transboundary river flows in the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra basins), trade (e.g., South Korea's food security risks due to high import dependency), finance (e.g., U.S. overseas investments), people (e.g., migration from southern to northern Europe), and the global security context (e.g., conflict risks in the Sahel, Middle East, Caucasus and Arctic).
• A text analysis of National Communications from 25 countries revealed that while keywords like 'imports' and 'exports' appeared frequently, they were generally used to describe economic contexts rather than climate risk profiles, and no specific adaptation measures for indirect impacts were mentioned.
• The private sector is better equipped to manage transboundary risks than the public sector, though gaps persist; for example, 90% of CDP respondents identified physical climate risks, but only 45% of their suppliers did.
• In the UK, the first formal national Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) failed to consider the international dimension of climate risk, a gap later addressed by a PwC report which found indirect impacts could be "an order of magnitude" larger than domestic effects in certain themes.

APA

Benzie, M., Wallgren, O., & Davis, M. (2013). Adaptation without borders? Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/SEI-DB-2013-Adaptation-Without-Borders.pdf

Chicago

Benzie, Magnus, Oskar Wallgren, and Marion Davis. Adaptation without borders? Stockholm Environment Institute, 2013. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/SEI-DB-2013-Adaptation-Without-Borders.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Benzie |first1=Magnus |last2=Wallgren |first2=Oskar |last3=Davis |first3=Marion |title=Adaptation without borders? |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=2013 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/SEI-DB-2013-Adaptation-Without-Borders.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{benzie2013adaptation, author = {Benzie, Magnus and Wallgren, Oskar and Davis, Marion}, title = {{Adaptation without borders?}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2013}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/SEI-DB-2013-Adaptation-Without-Borders.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }