Disaster reduction,loss and damage data,and the post-2015 international policy agenda

Disaster risk management, particularly management of climate-related risks, has become central to the international policy agenda. Reducing hazard-related loss and damage relies heavily on scientific inputs. Science, in turn, relies on data—in this case 1) risk-related data on hazards, exposure and vulnerability, and 2) data on associated loss and damage outcomes. The latter, data on losses and damage, are also post-2015 international policy outcome indicators at the highest level, required for countries’ monitoring of progress in reducing disaster risk, adapting to climate change, and achieving sustainable development. Although the quantity and accessibility of loss and damage data are improving, a number of issues continue to constrain their potential. These include needs for more consistent cataloguing of hazards and extreme events, more systematic and accurate documentation of per-event losses and damage, more precise cross-referencing of hazard events with associated loss and damage, and improved standardization and interoperability among databases. We identify measures for improvement in this regard, both for research purposes and for post-2015 international policy implementation.     

Reducing the risks posed by natural hazards and climate change: the need for a participatory dialogue between the scientific community and policy makers

In the last two decades we witnessed a progressive shift in the approach towards the reduction of the impact of natural hazards. From a general reactive approach, focusing on strengthening disaster response mechanisms, we have moved to proactive approaches. There has been recognition that each element of society, from public institutions to private sector, from community-based organizations to every single individual, can make a difference by acting before disasters strike to reduce the associated risks of human and economic losses. This proactive approach can be summarized in three words: Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).Today, DRR is an approach used in several sectors and research areas. In the Development sphere, DRR is considered a key feature for sustainability of economic and development gains – especially for developing countries. Significantly, the United Nations Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (2009) is titled “Risk and poverty in a changing climate” highlighting the importance of DRR in reducing poverty while being a means to address the challenges posed by adaptation to climate change.This paper, which serves as an introduction to the special issue of Environment Science & Policy on climate change impact on water-related disasters, intends to provide readers with an overview of the main policy frameworks addressing DRR internationally and in Europe. Further, it aims to offer some “food for thought” on the underlying opportunities we have to enhance the resilience of our communities towards the risks posed by weather-related hazards. It stresses the importance of governance of risks, which starts from an effective dialogue between the scientific community and the policy makers: those who have the responsibility to decide on the most cost-effective interventions to address climate change adaptation and risk reduction.     

Modelling economic impacts and adaptation to extreme events: Insights from European case studies

Adaptation to climate change in Europe has only recently become a true policy concern with the management of extreme events one priority item. Irrespective of future climatic changes increasing the need for systematic evaluation and management of extremes, weather-related disasters already today pose substantial burdens for households, businesses and governments. Research in the ADAM project identified substantial direct risks in terms of potential crop and asset losses due to combined drought and heatwave, as well as flood hazards in Southern and Eastern Europe, respectively. This paper focuses on the indirect, medium to longer term economic risks triggered by the direct risks and mediated by policy responses. We present a selection of three economic impact and adaptation assessments and modelling studies undertaken on extreme event adaptation in Europe. Responding to a need for more economically based adaptation assessments, we address some relatively unresearched issues such as the understanding of past adaptation, the role of market response to impacts as well as government’s ability to plan for and share out extreme event risks. The first analysis undertakes an empirical exploration of observed impacts and adaptation in the agricultural sector in the UK comparing the impact of consecutive extreme events over time in order to determine whether adaptation has occurred in the past and whether this can be used to inform future estimates of adaptation rates. We find that farmers and the agricultural sector clearly have adapted to extreme events over time, but whether this rate can be maintained into the future is unclear, as some autonomous adaptation enacted seemed rather easy to be taken. Markets may mediate or amplify impacts and in the second analysis, we use an economic general equilibrium model to assess the economic effects of a reduction in agricultural production due to drought and heatwave risk in exposed regions in Spain. The analysis suggests that modelled losses to the local economy are more serious in a large-scale scenario when neighbouring provinces are also affected by drought and heatwave events. This is due to the supply-side induced price increase leading to some passing on of disaster costs to consumers. The simulation highlights the importance of paying particular attention to the spatial and distributional effects weather extremes and possibly changes therein induced by climate change may incur. Finally, we discuss how national governments may better plan their disaster liabilities resulting from a need to manage relief and reconstruction activities post event. We do so using a risk based economic planning model assessing the fiscal consequences associated with the coping with natural extremes. We identify large weather-related disaster contingent liabilities, particularly in the key flood hot spot countries Austria, Romania, and Hungary. Such substantial disaster liabilities (“hidden disaster deficits”) when interacting with weak fiscal conditions may lead to substantial additional stress on government budgets and reduced fiscal space for funding other relevant public investment projects. Overall, our paper suggests the importance of respecting the specific spatial and temporal characteristics of extreme event risk when generating information on adaptation decisions. As our adaptation decisions considered, such as using sovereign risk financing instruments are associated with a rather short time horizon, the analysis largely focuses on the management of today’s extreme events and does not discuss in detail projections of risks into a future with climate change. Such projections raise important issues of uncertainty, which in some instances may actually render future projections non-robust, a constraint to be kept in mind when addressing longer term decisions, which at the same time should account for both climate and also socioeconomic change.     

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND HAZARDS MITIGATION IN THE UNITED STATES: DISASTERS BY DESIGN REVISITED

It has become clear that natural and related technological hazards and disasters are not problems that can be solved in isolation. The occurrence of disasters is a symptom of broader and more basic social problems. Since 1994, a team of over 100 expert academics and practitioners – including members of the private sector – have assessed, evaluated, and summarized knowledge about natural and technological hazards in the United States from the perspectives of the physical, natural, social, behavioral, and engineering sciences. The major thesis of the findings was losses from hazards and inability to comprehensively reduce losses of all types are the consequences of narrow and shortsighted development patterns, cultural premises, and attitudes toward the natural environment, science, and technology. To address these broad and basic problems, the study included proposals for ways in which people and the institutions of the United States can take responsibility for disaster losses, reduce future hazard losses, and link hazard mitigation to sustainable development.     

The relationship between adaptation and mitigation in managing climate change risks: a regional response from North Central Victoria,Australia

This two-part paper considers the complementarity between adaptation and mitigation in managing the risks associated with the enhanced greenhouse effect. Part one reviews the application of risk management methods to climate change assessments. Formal investigations of the enhanced greenhouse effect have produced three generations of risk assessment. The first led to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), First Assessment Report and subsequent drafting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The second investigated the impacts of unmitigated climate change in the Second and Third IPCC Assessment Reports. The third generation, currently underway, is investigating how risk management options can be prioritised and implemented. Mitigation and adaptation have two main areas of complementarity. Firstly, they each manage different components of future climate-related risk. Mitigation reduces the number and magnitude of potential climate hazards, reducing the most severe changes first. Adaptation increases the ability to cope with climate hazards by reducing system sensitivity or by reducing the consequent level of harm. Secondly, they manage risks at different extremes of the potential range of future climate change. Adaptation works best with changes of lesser magnitude at the lower end of the potential range. Where there is sufficient adaptive capacity, adaptation improves the ability of a system to cope with increasingly larger changes over time. By moving from uncontrolled emissions towards stabilisation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, mitigation limits the upper part of the range. Different activities have various blends of adaptive and mitigative capacity. In some cases, high sensitivity and low adaptive capacity may lead to large residual climate risks; in other cases, a large adaptive capacity may mean that residual risks are small or non-existent. Mitigative and adaptive capacity do not share the same scale: adaptive capacity is expressed locally, whereas mitigative capacity is different for each activity and location but needs to be aggregated at the global scale to properly assess its potential benefits in reducing climate hazards. This can be seen as a demand for mitigation, which can be exercised at the local scale through exercising mitigative capacity. Part two of the paper deals with the situation where regional bodies aim to maximise the benefits of managing climate risks by integrating adaptation and mitigation measures at their various scales of operation. In north central Victoria, Australia, adaptation and mitigation are being jointly managed by a greenhouse consortium and a catchment management authority. Several related studies investigating large-scale revegetation are used to show how climate change impacts and sequestration measures affect soil, salt and carbon fluxes in the landscape. These studies show that trade-offs between these interactions will have to be carefully managed to maximise their relative benefits. The paper concludes that when managing climate change risks, there are many instances where adaptation and mitigation can be integrated at the operational level. However, significant gaps between our understanding of the benefits of adaptation and mitigation between local and global scales remain. Some of these may be addressed by matching demands for mitigation (for activities and locations where adaptive capacity will be exceeded) with the ability to supply that demand through localised mitigative capacity by means of globally integrated mechanisms.     

Disseminating near-real-time hazards information and flood maps in the Philippines through Web-GIS

The Philippines being a locus of tropical cyclones, tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, is a hotbed of disasters. These natural hazards inflict loss of lives and costly damage to property. Situated in a region where climate and geophysical tempest is common, the Philippines will inevitably suffer from calamities similar to those experienced recently. With continued development and population growth in hazard prone areas, it is expected that damage to infrastructure and human losses would persist and even rise unless appropriate measures are immediately implemented by government. In 2012, the Philippines launched a responsive program for disaster prevention and mitigation called the Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (Project NOAH), specifically for government warning agencies to be able to provide a 6 hr lead-time warning to vulnerable communities against impending floods and to use advanced technology to enhance current geo-hazard vulnerability maps. To disseminate such critical information to as wide an audience as possible, a Web-GIS using mashups of freely available source codes and application program interface (APIs) was developed and can be found in the URLs http:// noah.dost.gov.ph and http://noah.up.edu.ph/. This Web-GIS tool is now heavily used by local government units in the Philippines in their disaster prevention and mitigation efforts and can be replicated in countries that have a proactive approach to address the impacts of natural hazards but lack sufficient funds.     

Potential synergies between existing multilateral environmental agreements in the implementation of land use,land-use change and forestry activities

There is potential for synergy between the global environmental conventions on climate change, biodiversity and desertification: changes in land management and land use undertaken to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions can simultaneously deliver positive outcomes for conservation of biodiversity, and mitigation of desertification and land degradation. However, while there can be complementarities between the three environmental goals, there are often tradeoffs. Thus, the challenge lies in developing land use policies that promote optimal environmental outcomes, and in implementing these locally to promote sustainable development. The paper considers synergies and tradeoffs in implementing land use measures to address the objectives of the three global environmental conventions, both from an environmental and economic perspective. The intention is to provide environmental scientists and policy makers with a broad overview of these considerations, and the benefits of addressing the conventions simultaneously.     

Defining response capacity to enhance climate change policy

Climate change adaptation and mitigation decisions made by governments are usually taken in different policy domains. At the individual level however, adaptation and mitigation activities are undertaken together as part of the management of risk and resources. We propose that a useful starting point to develop a national climate policy is to understand what societal response might mean in practice. First we frame the set of responses at the national policy level as a trade off between investment in the development and diffusion of new technology, and investment in encouraging and enabling society to change its behaviour and or adopt the new technology. We argue that these are the pertinent trade-offs, rather than those usually posited between climate change mitigation and adaptation. The preference for a policy response that focuses more on technological innovation rather than one that focuses on changing social behaviour will be influenced by the capacity of different societies to change their greenhouse gas emissions; by perceived vulnerability to climate impacts; and by capacity to modify social behaviour and physical environment. Starting with this complete vision of response options should enable policy makers to re-evaluate the risk environment and the set of response options available to them. From here, policy makers should consider who is responsible for making climate response decisions and when actions should be taken. Institutional arrangements dictate social and political acceptability of different policies, they structure worldviews, and they determine the provision of resources for investment in technological innovation and social change. The importance of focussing on the timing of the response is emphasised to maximise the potential for adjustments through social learning and institutional change at different policy scales. We argue that the ability to respond to climate change is both enabled and constrained by social and technological conditions. The ability of society to respond to climate change and the need for technological change for both decarbonisation and for dealing with surprise in general, are central to concepts of sustainable development.     

Public perception, knowledge and policy support for mitigation and adaption to Climate Change in Costa Rica: Comparisons with North American and European studies

Over the past 20 years considerable efforts have been invested in exploring how the public understands climate change. However, the bulk of this research has been conducted in Europe and North America and little is known about public perceptions of climate change in developing countries. This article presents the results of the first nationally representative study (n?=?1473) of public perceptions of climate change in Costa Rica. In Costa Rica, a large proportion of interviewees (i.e. over 85%) are highly concerned about climate change in general and feel, as noted in European and North American studies, that its impacts are more worrisome for people farthest away (e.g. in the developed countries or among future generations). At the local level, people feel that food (10.5%) and water (16.1%) shortages as well as poverty (11.3%) and heat waves (11.7%) are the most expected impacts of climate change. Analysis of adaptation behaviour responses suggest that individuals have a relatively lower grasp of emergency and prevention disaster plans but are relatively more proactive in preventing hydro-meteorological extremes related to water scarcity or excess. A majority of respondents engage in mitigation behaviours largely for financial or contextual reasons. Finally, support for adaptation and mitigation policy responses is generally high (i.e. above 70% of interviewee supports them) except for the case of internalizing the cost of watershed protection increasing the water tariffs (52.5%). As discussions about mitigation and adaptation become increasingly common within developing countries, questions about public perceptions in that context are more pressing than ever. Work on climate perceptions needs to be carried out in specific countries to better understand which policies are most likely to resonate with public support, and which might be most difficult to implement.     

Development based climate change adaptation and mitigation—conceptual issues and lessons learned in studies in developing countries

This paper discusses the conceptual basis for linking development policies and climate change adaptation and mitigation and suggests an analytical approach that can be applied to studies in developing countries. The approach is centred on a broad set of policy evaluation criteria that merge traditional economic and sectoral goals and broader social issues related to health and income distribution. The approach is inspired by institutional economics and development paradigms that emphasise human wellbeing, resource access, empowerment, and the arrived freedoms. It is outlined how indicators of wellbeing can be used to assess policies that integrate development and climate change policy objectives, and this approach is discussed in comparison with other work that rather have been inspired by sustainable development aspects of manmade, natural, and social capital. The experiences and results from case studies of development and climate that have done a first attempt to use human wellbeing indicators are reported and discussed. The studies include work from India, China, South Africa, Brazil, Bangladesh, and Senegal. A number of policy examples in the energy-, food-, and water sectors in these studies have shown up to demonstrate numerous linkages between development policies and climate change. Various analytical tools have been used in the studies including quantitative and qualitative scenario work as well as detailed micro-based analysis. The methodological conclusion that can be drawn from these studies, is that it is possible to apply wellbeing indicators to the more detailed policy assessment, but a link to more general national and regional scenario work is not yet established.     

How water saving irrigation contributes to climate change resilience—a case study of practices in China

A warming climate system is now an indisputable fact. An effective response to climate change should include both mitigation and adaptation. Water is essential to human survival and social development. But the shortage of water resources is a worldwide problem, which in China has been exacerbated by climate change. In order to find out how to cope with climate change successfully, this study, on the basis of China statistical data 2007–2009, quantitatively analyzes the role of water saving irrigation (WSI) in addressing climate change. The study shows that water saving irrigation (WSI) can serve as a useful enabler in dealing with climate change. From the perspective of mitigation, the 3-year total CO₂ emission reduction stands at 34.67 (21.83 ~ 47.48) Mt, about per year 11.56(7.28 ~ 15.83)Mt. From the perspective of adaptation, the total water saved from 2007 to 2009 stands at 96.85 (61.81 ~ 129.66) Gm³. If per unit farmland irrigation takes a 3-year average of agricultural water consumption, the water saved in 2009 is enough to irrigate additional 5.70 (3.80 ~ 7.80) Mhm², or to increase the grain yield by 22.04 (14.68 ~ 30.15) Gt. In addition, WSI can reduce soil salinization and conserve soil to sustain land productivity and environmental benefits. So WSI can be a positive measure in coping with climate change when it is rightly deployed. However, the costs and local context of such practices call for further studies.     

Widening the scope of policies to address climate change: directions for mainstreaming

Both mitigation of and adaptation to climate change require actions to be taken in many sectors of society, but so far this is hardly happening. This paper suggests possibilities for widening climate change policy by strengthening inter-linkages between climate policies and various relevant policy areas to mainstream climate change concerns. It argues that, if these inter-linkages can be strengthened and policy coherence is improved, the effectiveness of climate policy can be enhanced while also supporting these other policy areas. The contention in this paper is that improved policy coherence and mainstreaming requires climate policies to go beyond the UNFCCC framework to realise its full potential and to better deal with possible trade-offs. The potential benefits in the policy domains of poverty reduction, rural development and agriculture, disaster management, energy security, air quality and trade, and finance are examined, and the institutional and organisations linkages highlighted. Finally, opportunities for mainstreaming are identified to make better use of possible synergies between climate and related policy areas.     

Adapting to droughts in Yuanyang Terrace of SW China: insight from disaster risk reduction

Despite international focus on how to facilitate adaptation to droughts in a changing climate, a good deal of adaptation will be enacted at the local level. Focusing on the Yuanyang Terrace of SW China (a very famous agricultural heritage site), this study illustrates that land use change, dynamic adaptation and Public-Private Partnership (PPP) are the main measures to reduce the drought disaster risk and have the important role in adapting to droughts based on methodology of the land use survey, household questionnaire, local government and companies’ interview. And a new conceptual model of adaptation from the insight of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) was proposed in spatial, temporal and social dimensions. It is a good practice to adapt to disaster risk and agricultural heritage conservation by tourism development. Adaptive risk management is more important in adapting to disaster risk in order to maintain heritages conservation and local livelihood improvement.     

Financial adaptation to disaster risk in the European Union

Increasing losses from weather related extreme events coupled with limited coping capacity suggest a need for strong adaptation commitments, of which public sector responses to adjustments to actual and expected climate stimuli are key. The European Commission has started to address this need in the emerging European Union (EU) climate adaptation strategy; yet, a specific rationale for adaptation interventions has not clearly been identified, and the economic case for adaptation to extremes remains vague. Basing the diagnosis on economic welfare theory and an empirical analysis of the current EU and member states’ roles in managing disaster risk, we discuss how and where the public sector may intervene for managing climate variability and change. We restrict our analysis to financial disaster management, a domain of adaptation intervention, which is of key concern for the EU adaptation strategy. We analyse three areas of public sector interventions, supporting national insurance systems, providing compensation to the affected post event as well as intergovernmental loss sharing through the EU solidarity fund, according to the three government functions of allocation, distribution, and stabilization suggested by welfare theory, and suggest room for improvement.     

1949-2013年中国气象灾害灾情变化趋势分析

全球气候变暖和城市化带来的气象致灾因子强度、频率以及承灾体暴露性变化,使气象灾害风险管理变得更加复杂,也使其成为各国应对气候变化的当务之急和优先重点。气象灾害灾情的趋势分析可以为气象灾害防御、防灾减灾规划和气候变化适应等提供参考依据。论文从气象灾害损失和发生频次两个维度出发,基于死亡人口和直接经济损失两个表征灾害影响的关键指标,以绝对值和相对值统计了近65 a（1949-2013 年）中国气象灾害灾情的变化特征。近65 a 我国气象灾害统计结果显示：①累积死亡人口超过155 万人,死亡人口和百万人口死亡率呈明显下降趋势,年均死亡人口由20 世纪50 到60 年代的超过10 000 人逐步下降到21 世纪以来的年均约1 000 人;②直接经济损失累积约12 万亿元（2013 年价格）,直接损失绝对值呈上升趋势,年均直接经济损失由20 世纪50 年代不足1 000 亿元上升至21 世纪以来的超过 3 000 亿元,直接损失比率（直接损失占国内生产总值的比例）呈明显下降趋势,损失率由20 世纪50~60 年代超过15%下降到21 世纪以来的1%左右;③近20 a（1994-2013 年）气象灾害灾情分析表明,死亡人口和直接经济损失占所有自然灾害的比例多年平均值分别为55%和87%,考虑气象相关的滑坡、泥石流等次生地质灾害影响,该比例分别增至81%和89%,次生灾害对人口死亡的贡献突增;全球灾害数据库（EM-DAT）的统计表明,洪涝、台风、干旱和降水相关的滑坡、泥石流等次生灾害是影响中国的主要气象灾害,且影响呈上升趋势。     

CLIMATE CHANGE AND NATURAL HAZARDS IN NORTHERN CANADA: INTEGRATING INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES WITH GOVERNMENT POLICY

A study of the relationship between natural hazards and climate change in the international context provides the background for a discussion of the expected changes. In the context of this global discussion, this paper reviews the current perspectives of those natural hazards that are likely to be influenced by climate change, using northern Canada as a regional case study. The northern implications of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are examined, including the status of climate change action by the northern territorial governments, the evolving role of indigenous people, and the responsibility for climate change impacts. The difficulties surrounding natural hazards research in remote locations, and the approaches of indigenous people to natural hazards are then presented. The paper concludes with a suggested policy approach for climate change and natural hazards in northern Canada, underscoring the need for more comprehensive adaptive strategies to complement the current tendency to focus on the mitigation of greenhouse gases produced in this region.     

Climate change and local level disaster risk reduction planning: need, opportunities and challenges

The field of climate change is full of uncertainties that are limiting strategic disaster risk reduction planning. In this paper, however, we argued that there is lot to do before we get our hands on reliable estimates of future climate change impacts. It includes bringing together different stakeholders in a framework suggested in this paper, developing case studies that reflect long-term local impacts of climate change, capacity building of local stakeholders that enables them to take decisions under uncertainty etc. We proposed a simple scheme that brings together climate, disaster and policy community together to start a dialogue in a run-up to understanding wider aspects of long-term risk reduction at local level. Strategic thinking, which has only been restricted to national and regional planning to date, needs to be inculcated in local level disaster risk reduction and policy personnel as well. There is a need to move from the attitude of considering local level players as ‘implementers’ to ‘innovators’ for which developing a network of self learning and evolving organizations are required at the local level.     

Cost-effectiveness of greenhouse gases mitigation measures in the European agro-forestry sector: a literature survey

Over the last 20 years, climate change has become an increasing concern for scientists, public opinions and policy makers. Due to the pervasive nature of its impacts for many important aspects of human life, climate change is likely to influence and be influenced by the most diverse policy or management choices. This is particularly true for those interventions affecting agriculture and forestry: they are strongly dependent on climate phenomena, but also contribute to climate evolution being sources of and sinks for greenhouse gases (GHG). This paper offers a survey of the existing literature assessing cost-effectiveness and efficiency of greenhouse gas mitigation strategies or the effects of broader economic reforms in the agricultural and forestry sectors. The focus is mainly on European countries. Different methodological approaches, research questions addressed and results are examined. The main findings are that agriculture can potentially provide emissions reduction at a competitive cost, mainly with methane abatement, while carbon sequestration seems more cost-effective with appropriate forest management measures. Afforestation, cropland management and bioenergy are less economically viable measures due to competition with other land use. Mitigation policies should be carefully designed either to balance costs with expected benefits in terms of social welfare. Regional variability is one of the main drawbacks to fully assess the cost-effectiveness of different measures. Integration of models to take into account both social welfare and spatial heterogeneity seems to be the frontier of the next model generation.     

Coastal flood protection: What perspective in a changing climate? The THESEUS approach

Coastal areas are vital economic hubs in terms of settlement, industry, agriculture, trade and tourism to mention some key sectors. There are already many coastal problems including erosion, flood risk and long-term habitat deterioration. As economies continue to develop the asset base at risk will grow, while accelerating climate change will increase the likelihood of damaging extreme events, as well as accelerate habitat decline. Existing coastal management and defence approaches are not well tuned to these challenges as they assume a static situation.THESEUS project is developing a systematic approach to delivering both a low-risk coast for human use and healthy habitats for evolving coastal zones subject to multiple change factors. The project examines innovative mitigation and adaptation technologies and integrate the best of these technical measures in a strategic policy context through overarching guidelines. THESEUS activities are carried out within a multidisciplinary framework using 8 study sites across Europe, with specific attention to the most vulnerable coastal environments such as deltas, estuaries and wetlands, where many large cities and industrial areas are located.This paper describes THESEUS approach, and specifically: the Source-Pathway-Receptor-Consquence model for coastal risk assessment; the engineering, social, economic and ecological mitigation measures under analysis; the participatory approach with end users and coastal authorities for the selection and identification of the appropriate defence strategy to be planned in sudy sites.     

The perceived psychological distance of climate change impacts and its influence on support for adaptation policy

Factors influencing support for climate mitigation policy in the United States are well researched, however, research regarding individuals’ support for climate adaptation policy is relatively sparse. This study explores how an individual’s perception of climate change impacts may influence their support for adaptation actions. Results of a survey of the U.S. public (n = 653) indicates that individuals who believe climate change impacts are unlikely to happen or will primarily affect other people in other places are less likely to be concerned about climate change impacts and less likely to support climate adaptation. However, an individual’s support for climate change adaptation measures is not influenced by their perception of when climate change impacts will occur even when taking into account concern for climate impacts. Critical for policy-makers, a belief that climate adaptation measures will not be effective attenuates the relationship between psychological distance, concern for climate change impacts, and adaptation policy measures. Our results indicate that to effectively communicate about climate change, policy-makers should emphasize that: (i) climate change impacts are occurring, (ii) that their constituents are being affected now, or will be in the future, and (iii) communicate that adaptation measures can be effective in addressing risks associated with climate change impacts.