Amanda Lynch – författare

While recent years have seen undeniable progress in the acknowledgment of both the dangers of climate change and the importance of working to mitigate it, little has actually been done. Emissions continue to rise, and even the ambitious targets set by international accords fall far short of the drastic cuts that are needed to prevent catastrophe. With "Adaptive Governance and Climate Change", Ronald D. Brunner and Amanda H. Lynch argue that we need to take a new tack, moving away from reliance on centralized, top-down approaches - the treaties and accords that have proved disappointingly ineffective thus far - and towards a more flexible, multi-level approach. Based in the principles of adaptive governance - which are designed to produce programs that adapt quickly and easily to new information and experimental results - such an approach would encourage diversity and innovation in the search for solutions, while at the same time pointedly recasting the problem as one in which every culture and community around the world has an inherent interest.

As greenhouse gas emissions and temperatures at the poles continue to rise, so do damages from extreme weather events affecting countless lives. Meanwhile, ambitious international efforts to cut emissions (Kyoto, Copenhagen) have proved to be politically ineffective or infeasible. There is hope, however, in adaptive governance—an approach that has succeeded in some local communities and can be undertaken by others around the globe. This book provides a political and historical analysis of climate change policy; shows how adaptive governance has worked on the ground in Barrow, Alaska, and other local communities; and makes the case for adaptive governance as a complementary approach in the climate change regime.