Regional challenges of climate change adaptation in Finland: examining the ability to adapt in the absence of national level steering

Abstract

Climate change adaptation presents a challenge for all levels of governance. As impacts of climate change are most acutely felt at the regional and local level, there is a need to understand the limits and barriers of the design and implementation of adaptation measures on these levels. The aim of this paper is to focus on the regional level in Finland in order to identify the limits and barriers to regional implementation of climate change adaptation in the absence of steering from the national level. In order to do this, the paper draws on two empirical studies on adaptation within the regions of Uusimaa and Pirkanmaa in Finland. The paper describes the manner in which voluntary initiatives at the regional and local level have emerged, and regions have acted on adaptation in the absence of clear steering from the national level.

Keywords:

• climate change adaptation
• regional
• multi-level governance
• adaptive capacity
• Finland

Acknowledgements

The EUR-ADAPT project is funded by the Vetenskapsrådet in Sweden and based at Umeå University (SWE). The READNET project was part of the ISTO-programme. The authors also thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments.

Notes

Region in this paper is defined as a sub-national level of government of a country, rather than a geographical area of a continent, i.e. the Alpine region.

The plans are prepared by the regional councils. Two sets of 16 regional development programmes were analysed, for programme periods 2003–2006 and 2007–2010 (except for Varsinais-Suomi: 2001–2004 and 2005–2008).