Why Climate Adaptation Needs Its Own Measurable Targets

This article argues that climate adaptation efforts lack the clear, quantifiable targets that climate mitigation has (like net-zero by 2050). It explores why adaptation needs its own measurable goals to guide investment, track progress, and ensure accountability, and discusses the challenges of defining such metrics for a field that is inherently local and context-dependent.

Benjamin DeAngelo29d ago6 min readenInsight

science politics adaptation climate policy

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Key quotes

The climate mitigation world has a number. Actually, it has several: net-zero by 2050, 2°C of warming, gigatons of CO₂-equivalent reduced.

These targets are imperfect and contested, but they do something indispensable — they give governments, investors, companies, and communities a shared language for knowing where the goal posts are.

You can argue about the need to get to net-zero by a certain point in time, or whether a policy is the best way to get to net-zero.

From the article

The climate mitigation world has operational numbers; climate adaptation doesn't

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