Incorporating Climate Change Adaptation Into Framework Environmental Laws
This Article examines the various ways countries throughout the world have started to incorporate considerations of climate change adaptation into their framework environmental laws, implementing regulations, and other binding instruments. Drawing upon searches in databases of environmental laws, it examines national legislative and regulatory language, focusing on various types of provisions that address climate change adaptation. These laws serve as a valuable source of mechanisms that can be used to implement adaptation, providing a toolbox of approaches. The authors identify seven particularly important categories of adaptation provisions—assessment and science, planning, EIA, disaster preparedness and response, funding, coordination through creation of special committees and expert groups, and monitoring and evaluation of adaptation measures—and offer their reflections on practical considerations.