Climate Adaptation and Successful Adaptation Definitions: Latin American Perspectives Using the Delphi Method

Across the world, policies and measures are being developed and implemented to reduce the risks of climate change and adapt to its current and projected adverse effects. The Paris Agreement established the global stocktake to evaluate the collective progress made on adaptation. Nevertheless, various challenges still exist when evaluating adaptation progress, among which is the lack of standard definitions to support evaluation efforts. Therefore, we investigated the views of experts regarding the definitions of adaptation given by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the definition of successful adaptation by Doria et al., with a focus on Latin America. Using the Delphi method, we obtained relevant knowledge and perspectives. As a result, we identified a high level of consensus (85%) among the experts regarding the IPCC’s definition of climate adaptation. However, there was no consensus on the definition of successful adaptation. For both definitions, we present the elements on which the experts agreed and disagreed, as well as the proposed elements that could improve the definitions to support adaptation evaluation efforts. Additionally, we introduce a list of criteria and indicators that could improve the evaluation of adaptation at different management levels and facilitate the aggregation of information on adaptation progress.