Adaptation is necessary. We realise from a lot of studies that are looking into mitigation targets in the future, that even if we want to stabilise climate change at non-dangerous levels like 450 parts per million volumes equivalent, it will be very difficult to achieve that honest emissions from greenhouse gases drop substantially in the near term. Even considering the fact that some mitigation might be achievable, there is still the great likelihood that climate change will happen in the very near future, in the shorter-term and in the longer-term. To deal with the effects of climate change we need some form of adaptation within our society. However, we know that there are not necessarily easy ways of achieving adaptation. In fact, adaptation might be inexpensive in some cases, but it might be costly in other cases. There are potential barriers and limits to adaptation and there can be physical and ecological barriers. In some cases these are actually called limits, intended as absolute limits beyond which a reversible change will occur. However, there are also other types of limits, for example, the IPCC Working Group 2 and Fourth Assessment Report talk about financial barriers, social and cultural barriers, and individual barriers. The reason perhaps for which they use these different terminologies is to indicate that some limits need not necessarily be absolute. They could actually be subjective or mutable. They don’t necessarily need to be fixed absolute limits because they can be overcome depending on how we view as individuals and as a society the notion of adaptation, and what kind of issues that brings up in trying to address it.

Social and behavioural limits can be manifested in societies in different ways. Perhaps it is useful to think about those identified in the IPCC report but question some of the underlying assumptions or underlying notions that they propose, and discuss those in more detail. From some work that we have carried out, we want to question whether there are sometimes undervalued, underestimated, or unspoken issues that actually seep into decisions that lead to adaptation. For example, we might think of cultural places and identities that can be affected by a lack of adaptation or maladaptation. The question that we want to raise is what happens if those places are lost forever. There are particular identities that we link to places and there are particular cultures that we link to places. So, what would happen to us as a society in relation to those losses, specifically if we actually value them quite closely? We care about them. Adaptation also needs to take these factors into account, which are often not spelled out like economic considerations of adaptation. We also need to think a bit more carefully about what the specific goals of adaptation are. They are underpinned by the very essence by values linked to decision-making. In decision- making there will be specific interests, views, perspectives, worldviews and particular notions of what we feel certain concepts, areas, issues are worth to ourselves. We need to clearly state them when we are taking decisions one way or another. In relation to adaptation, it is fundamental that we think carefully about whether we are targeting for vulnerability through adaptation measures in terms of being able to tolerate certain risks that might effect those more vulnerable in society, or whether we actually want to take adaptation measures geared toward that society as a whole in terms of its well-being, an improved well-being. Again there are different facets of adaptation goals and underpinning notions of those goals that can affect the way that we adapt. As far as society as a whole we need to think a bit more carefully about how we as individuals from part of a society, perceive certain risks from climate change, and how we decide to respond to them, if we decide at all. We know that those individuals are embedded with wider society. We don’t necessarily as individuals, have the freedom of choice to respond to climate change in any way that we might want to. We are constrained to a certain extent, by the societal structures in which we operate. So if we want to improve at the individual level, responding to climate change from an adaptation point of view, we need to bear in mind that they might be limited by our individual perceptions of our risk, of our situation, of what we are able to do, and also the wider context within which we are embedded. There are certain limits to adaptation from a societal, and individual, mental and governance point of view, but they are not necessarily set in stone. The question is that those limits are actually dependent upon how we see them, and they can be, at some extend, overcome presenting opportunities for further adaptation.