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Exploring key priorities for climate change adaptation research [1]

['Desiree Rose', 'School Of Urban', 'Regional Planning', 'Department Of Earth', 'Atmospheric Sciences', 'University Of Alberta', 'Edmonton', 'Alberta', 'S. Jeff Birchall']

Date: 2026-01 

Copyright: © 2025 Rose, Birchall. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

1. Introduction

Driven by human activities, greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, causing global temperatures to climb. With every increment of warming, climate systems are further disrupted, and impacts intensify [1].

In order to moderate impacts, two complementary approaches to addressing climate change have been established: climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation (henceforth ‘mitigation’ and ‘adaptation’). Mitigation focuses on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent future warming. However, due to the multi-decade delay that occurs between reducing emissions and observing an effect on climate change, temperatures will continue to rise in the short-term regardless of mitigation action [2]. As such, adaptation is essential. Adaptation can be understood as the process of adjusting to climate impacts to minimize harm. It can take several forms, including structural (e.g., seawalls), non-structural (e.g., setbacks), and ecosystem-based (e.g., wetland preservation) approaches [3].

Local governments are often recognized as primarily responsible for adaptation [4]. Being the level of government closest to the impacts, they possess a strong understanding of how climate change manifests uniquely within their communities. Moreover, local governments are equipped with urban planning tools (e.g., strategic plans, zoning) that provide them with the legislative teeth necessary to carry out adaptation action [5].

According to the IPCC’s [1] most recent report, adaptation planning and implementation has been initiated across all regions and sectors. Despite this, scholars emphasize that current efforts are insufficient [6], with the rate of progress failing to keep pace with the increasing need [2,7]. Adaptation responses are fragmented, and implementation lag remains a key issue [8]. Importantly, adaptation research also remains incommensurate with the demand for evidence from policy-makers and practitioners. Though an exponential increase in adaptation research has occurred, large knowledge gaps persist [9]; insufficient research has been identified as a key barrier to adaptation progress [1,10]. The purpose of this editorial is to draw attention to key topics we believe warrant further scholarly attention in order to advance adaptation progress, highlighting them as research priorities for the Adaptation section of PLOS Climate: urban planning, rural and remote communities, and health.

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[1] Url: https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000794

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