Dialogue event: Climate change adaptation in Vienna

Adaptation to climate change - together with climate change mitigation - plays an important role for coping with the effects of global warming at the global, national and local level. Austria is largely exposed to floods and droughts, which often bring grave social and economic consequences with them. Also the city of Vienna is considering how to best adapt to the changing climate. Many measures have already been taken. However, the need for strengthening action in the coming years, with progressing climate change, is pressing.

The aim of the 3rd dialogue event series, which is a follow-up on the dialogue event series in June 2018, is to provide Austrian policy makers and practitioners information on current national and international developments in a compact format. Furthermore, important projects for adaptation to climate change in Vienna will be presented. In the second part of the event several round tables will offer the opportunity to discuss specific "Adaptation Measures in KliP 3 (Climate Protection Program Vienna)".

RISK Research Scholar Thomas Schinko will give a talk on “Roles and Responsibilities in Climate Risk Management in Austria”, based on the RESPECT project. Climate-related risks are already being tackled and overcome in Austria within the framework of natural disaster risk management, as well as climate change adaptation. To manage these climate risks more effectively it is necessary to link natural disaster risk management and climate change adaptation to develop approaches more comprehensively. In practice, however, we often experience a policy - implementation gap. Even though climate-related risks might have been identified and potential options for dealing with them have been suggested too, their implementation in practice does not always materialize. One reason for that is the incomplete identification and allocation of roles and responsibilities. RESPECT employs the concept of risk layering – identifying efficient and acceptable interventions based on the recurrence of hazards – together with a role-play simulation for allocating roles and responsibilities to reduce, finance or accept risks.

Last edited: 27 February 2019