Progress and Gaps in National Adaptation Policy

Globally, national governments are developing policies and plans to increase resilience to climate hazards across all sectors. To date, most methodologies used for tracking adaptation progress focus exclusively on policies and plans that explicitly mention climate adaptation, unfortunately, this practice leads to the exclusion of many policies that increase climate resilience but are not explicitly called adaptation policies, leading to an incomplete understanding of progress in this area. Using a novel methodology that utilizes a comprehensive definition of adaptation policy that includes a broader range of resilience policies than traditional tracking methods, we develop national policy inventories for adaptation in India and the United States and illustrate the landscape of adaptation policies in both countries. Through this comprehensive policy inventory and assessment, we identify key gaps and areas for increased policy attention in both countries. This work provides a critical contribution to our understanding of national-level adaptation policy progress as well as a methodological contribution that can be replicated to better understand adaptation progress in other countries.