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Focus Article

Contrasting frames in policy

debates on climate change
adaptation
Art Dewulf∗

The process by which issues, decisions, or events acquire different meanings from
different perspectives has been studied as framing. In policy debates about climate
change adaptation, framing the adaptation issue is a challenge with potentially far-
reaching implications for the shape and success of adaptation projects. From the
available literature on how the meaning of climate change adaptation is constructed
and debated, three key dimensions of frame differences were identified: (1) the
tension between adaptation and mitigation as two contrasting but interrelated
perspectives on climate change; (2) the contrast between framing climate change
adaptation as a tame technical problem, and framing climate change as a wicked
problem of governance; and (3) the framing of climate change adaptation as a
security issue, contrasting state security frames with human security frames. It
is argued that the study of how climate change adaptation gets framed could be
enriched by connecting these dimensions more closely with the following themes
in framing research: (1) how decision-making biases that to framing issues as
structured technical problems; (2) the process of scale framing by which issues are
situated at a particular scale level; and (3) the challenge of dealing with the variety
of frames in adaptation processes. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

How to cite this article:

WIREs Clim Change 2013, 4:321–330. doi: 10.1002/wcc.227

INTRODUCTION framing the adaptation issue is ‘perhaps the most

challenging aspect of building adaptive capacity’,
A dapting to the current and expected impacts of
climate change has gained currency as a policy
issue at different levels of governance.1 Adaptation
because adaptation is hard to frame and easily framed
‘wrongly, incompletely, or not at all’. Efforts to
define successful adaptation among experts using the
to climate change is a relatively young domain of
Delphi technique resulted in the following definition:
policy and practice, and debates on how to understand
‘any adjustment that reduces the risks associated
and shape climate change adaptation are on-going
with climate change, or vulnerability to climate
among experts, journalists, civil society organizations,
change impacts, to a predetermined level, without
and policy makers. These debates address issues
compromising economic, social, and environmental
like disaster insurance, global adaptation funding,
sustainability’.3 This definition captures important
national adaptation plans or cost-benefit analyses,
aspects of climate change adaptation but, as any
and reveal diverging ways of framing what climate
definition, does not preclude a continuing struggle in
change adaptation is really about. According to
policy debates about how climate change adaptation
the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution,2
should be framed. These frame differences have
∗ Correspondence implications for what counts as reasonable adaptation
to: art.dewulf@wur.nl
policy, as I will argue below. In this review, I will first
Public Administration and Policy Group, Wageningen University,
Wageningen, The Netherlands discuss the importance of framing in policy debates,
then discuss key dimensions of frame differences from
Conflict of interest: The author has declared no conflicts of interest existing studies on how the meaning of climate change
for this article.
adaptation is constructed and debated, and finally

Volume 4, July/August 2013 © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 321

Focus Article
point out where research on adaptation frames could
benefit from connecting more closely with established
and emerging themes in framing research. Although
the focus of this article is on how experts, journalists,
civil society organizations, and policy makers frame
the specific policy issue of climate change adaptation,
I will start by reviewing some general notions on
framing that will inform the discussion of the framing
dimensions.
FRAMING
The process by which issues, decisions, or events
acquire different meanings from different perspectives
has been studied as framing in a variety of social
science disciplines, including communication science,
social psychology, sociology, public administration,
and political science.4–9 By highlighting certain
aspects of the situation at the expense of others,
by drawing different boundaries around the issue and
by putting forward different elements as the core of
the issue, people from different backgrounds construct
frames about policy issues that may differ considerably
from how others frame the issues.
Why would frames be important for climate
change adaptation? Should not we focus rather on
actions? To address this issue, it is important to
point out that framing not only relates to action
but also is in itself a form of action in a specific
context, for example, in a multilateral negotiation,
in communicating the policy recommendations of a
research report, in a parliamentary hearing or in a
mediatized debate between civil society organizations
and government agencies. Framing is not without
consequences. A particular way of framing does not
determine what happens next, but whoever is able
to set the terms of the debate steers the debate in a
certain direction. The framing of the questions fed into
commissions or working groups, for example, bounds
the range of resulting policy recommendations.10
Frames can be understood as strong and generic
storylines that guide both analysis and action in
practical situations. They allow policy makers to
‘make a graceful normative leap from is to ought’,11
because different frames point toward different
responses or action strategies.1,12 For example, in
a comparative study of nine regional climate change
policy responses, it appeared that:
‘The situations in which system stresses were
defined as narrow, technical problems with short-
term horizons, governance structures were top-down,
did little to link actors at different scales, masked
system feedbacks, and did not provide incentive or
structure to promote learning. In contrast, in the two
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examples where the issue was framed in a broader
manner, policy implementation tended to enhance
characteristics that supported the ability to manage
resilience, including flexibility and learning.’12
Framing has been shown to affect people’s
decision preferences, particularly under conditions
of uncertainty.13,14 Decision problems that are
formulated in different ways, for example, in terms
of gains versus losses, trigger different preferences
even if the underlying decision problem remains the
same in terms of probabilities and expected outcomes.
This happens through the setting of anchors, that
is, points of reference against which alternatives are
evaluated (e.g., a short- or a long-term horizon).
In analogy with Chong and Druckman’s5 (p. 104)
example, when people are asked whether they would
favor a particular case of dike enlargement, one can
expect a much higher percentage of positive answers if
the question was prefaced with ‘Given the importance
of long-term flood safety’, compared to the preface
‘Given the importance of the rights of the current
property owners that would have to move’.
This susceptibility of people, including policy
makers, experts, and citizens, to the way issues are
framed creates the possibility for strategic framing.15
Through highlighting positive versus negative aspects
of the situation, through setting reference points, or
through including and excluding particular aspects
in a communicative act, one can try to influence
frames that others will rely on for taking decisions.
Framing can thus be used as a strategy to reach
communicational or political goals. When more
actors are trying to influence a policy debate
through framing, frame contests11,16 may be the
result, in which frames and counter-frames are
constructed, promoted, or undermined.17 Through
framing, implicitly or explicitly, particular interests
are advocated or undermined, power positions are
maintained or challenged and particular actors are
included or excluded from policy debates.18
A series of decisions need to be taken in
any process of climate change adaptation. If we
take adaptation to consist of the three key phases
of understanding, planning, and managing,19 then
framing is a crucial process not only in the
understanding phase, but also in the planning and
managing phases. When we consider the subprocesses
in each of the phases, the relevance of framing in each
these can be illustrated:
• Understanding
• Problem detection and initial framing (e.g.,
framing whether there is at all a problem to be
addressed).
Volume 4, July/August 2013

WIREs Climate Change
• Information gathering and use (e.g., framing
what available information means).
• Problem definition (e.g., reaching agreement
on the problem framing).
• Planning and decision-making
• Developing options (e.g., framing the range or
nature of options to be considered).
• Option assessment (e.g., framing of the kind
of expertise that is required).
• Selection of options (e.g., framing uncertainty
about unintended consequences).
• Managing the problem
• Implementation (e.g., how do affected actors
frame the adaptation option).
• Monitoring (e.g., framing the monitoring
requirements).
• Evaluation (e.g., framing the goals of
evaluation).
From generic models of policy development, we
know that in the agenda setting phase of the policy
cycle, framing is a crucial process steering the direction
of policy change (or stability).20,21 The specific frame
or policy image of an issue that makes it to the top
of the agenda, will direct the kind of policy change
that can take place. In the particular case of crisis
situations, which seems highly relevant for climate
change adaptation, framing what the crisis is about
intervenes in determining what will count as a proper
crisis response.16 In sum, how frames play out in
policy debates has potentially important implications
for decision-making, science–policy relations, and
policy change.
FRAMING ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE
CHANGE
In reviewing the literature on how the meaning of
climate change adaptation is constructed in policy
debates, I have inevitably made certain choices.
The focus was on adaptation (including impacts
and vulnerability), so I did not include studies on
mitigation, except where the framing of adaptation
was studied in relation to the framing of mitigation.
The interdisciplinary research database Scopus
(www.scopus.com) and the Google Books search
engine (books.google.com) were used to systematically
search for peer-reviewed publications on adaptation to
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Contrasting frames on climate change adaptation
climate change in which different frames or discourses
were identified. Excluded were studies that focused
on individual perceptions of climate change, where
individual citizens are studied at the receiving end of
(media) communications on climate change. Rather,
I searched for research where actors are studied as
actively shaping or using particular frames about
climate change adaptation in policy-relevant debates.
All the publications that have been used for the review
are mentioned in the reference list.
Given that there are multiple theoretical
approaches to framing8,22 and to discourse,23,24 the
relation between the theoretical concepts of frames
and discourses is a complicated and contentious one.
In general, discourse tends to be used as a more
encompassing and abstract concept (as a repertoire
of ideas and categories reproduced in a set of
practices) and frame as a more specific concept (as
a particular way of constructing the meaning of
something), but there is a large gray area where
the concepts are used interchangeably. Therefore I
have also included discourse research when different
discourses are identified that shape the meaning of
climate change adaptation in policy debates.
The review is structured in three sections, each
of which addresses a key dimension in the plethora
of different frames used to make sense of climate
change adaptation. These dimensions were obtained
by extracting the different frames or discourses
reported on in each of the reviewed studies, and
by interpreting the differences between them in
terms of bipolar dimensions. These dimensions were
then clustered into the three key dimensions. These
dimensions capture significant and recurring contrasts
between the studied frames, but cannot cover all the
nuances in how people make sense of climate change
adaptation. The first dimension addresses the tension
between adaptation and mitigation, as two contrasting
but interrelated perspectives on climate change. The
second dimension addresses the tension between
framing climate change adaptation as a tame technical
problem that can be solved by experts, and framing
climate change as a wicked problem of governance,
where uncertainties, institutions, and equity need to
be taken into account. The third dimension addresses
framings of climate change adaptation as a security
issue, contrasting state security frames with human
security frames. Whenever possible the implications
of the identified frames for policy debates on climate
change adaptation are discussed, by spelling out the
‘normative leaps’ implied in the frames. By doing so,
the relevance of the identified frames for legitimizing
or delegitimizing ideas, actors and proposals in policy
debates can be shown.
323

Focus Article
Framing Climate Change as an Issue of
Mitigation and/or Adaptation?
Historically, mitigation and adaptation have been
framed by scientists and policy makers as two different
approaches to deal with the same problem: climate
change.25–31 From the point of view of mitigation, the
problem is framed as human-induced climate change
through greenhouse gas emissions. From the point
of view of adaptation, the problem is framed as
climate change impacts on vulnerable environments
or social groups. These problem framings and action
strategies can be seen as complementary. Some even
claim that ‘for decades, the options available to deal
with climate change have been clear: We can act
to mitigate the future effects of climate change by
addressing the factors that cause changes in climate,
and we can adapt to changes in climate by addressing
the factors that make society and the environment
vulnerable to the effects of climate’.26 Mitigation
has also been called the best adaptation strategy.32
However, mitigation and adaptation have entertained
a tense relation through their links with different
sectors, policy arrangements, international bodies,
and scientific research communities.
The implications of framing climate change as
an emissions problem versus an impacts problem
are potentially far-reaching. With climate change
as an emissions problem, the solution is to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, turning the climate change
problem largely into an energy problem, and pointing
toward solutions such as reduced or more efficient
energy use and more sustainable energy production.
More recently forestry issues and mechanisms like
REDD+33 have been added to the mitigation
repertoire. The frame of climate neutrality is linked to
this focus on emissions, and is used to qualify activities
that do not provoke a net increase in greenhouse gas
emissions. Even if very local interventions are framed
as part of the solution (e.g., using energy-saving light
bulbs or not using a car for short distances), there is
one global parameter for the problem, which provides
clarity and seems to put all global citizens at the same
level.
With climate change framed as an adaptation
problem, the solution is to deal with climate impacts,
especially in vulnerable environments, sectors, and
societies. Impacts such as changes in rainfall patterns,
extreme weather events, floods, droughts, and sea
level rise turn the climate change problem to a large
extent into a hydrological issue, for which water
management strategies are needed. This emphasis
is somewhat less pronounced than in the case of
mitigation as an energy problem because of the
multiple and regionally differentiated climate impacts
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on, for example, water, agriculture, or biodiversity.
The frame of climate proofing becomes the crucial
one here—Are environments, societies, and human
activities able to cope with climate impacts?
Historically, the focus on mitigation has
created policy instruments that are biased against
adaptation.27 Tensions between mitigation and
adaptation in the climate governance domain were
fueled by fears that investing in adaptation would
undermine commitment to mitigation. Climate change
impacts have mostly been framed as local or
regional problems and so are adaptation strategies.
Accordingly, global policy arrangements to address
adaptation have been developing more slowly than
for mitigation,34 but are starting to take shape
(e.g., the global Adaptation Fund). Although both
mitigation and adaptation perspectives are taken
seriously nowadays and their linkages are explored,
the tension has not disappeared altogether. For
example, in a study on policy discourses on
mitigation and adaptation in the Congo basin forests,
overall the mitigation discourse seemed to be the
stronger one,29 and was supported mainly by timber
companies and some government agencies. Actors
like intergovernmental organizations and civil society
organizations put more emphasis on the discourse of
integrating adaptation and mitigation.
Framing Climate Change Adaptation as a
Tame Technical Problem Versus a Wicked
Governance Problem
Various scholars have signaled a fault line in the
ways climate change adaptation is framed between a
technoscientific framing of climate change adaptation
versus a sociopolitical framing of the issue.35–41 I try to
capture this as the distinction between framing climate
change adaptation as a ‘tame’ technical problem
versus a ‘wicked’ problem of governance.42 While
the technoscientific perspective focuses on aspects like
decision trees, impact assessments and technological
solutions, the sociopolitical perspective directs the
attention toward the high stakes, uncertainties,
communication strategies, power relations, and equity
issues related to climate change adaptation.
The starting point for distinguishing these two
framings is often a critique of the limitations of techno-
scientific approaches to climate change adaptation.
The lack of attention for equity issues (e.g., equitable
access to water in view of climate change) in scientific
models and technological solutions has been a recur-
rent critique.31,38,43 The search for technological fixes
that allow business-as-usual to continue has also been
questioned, for example, in a study of the desalin-
ization project at the United States–Mexico border
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WIREs Climate Change
that would increase reliance on carbon-intensive tech-
nology and exacerbate existing social inequalities.36
Through these critiques vulnerability and adapta-
tion are portrayed as inherently political and moral
problems,37,44 rather than tame technical problems.
Several authors have explicitly identified frames
that contrast with the technoscientific framing of
climate change adaptation and have analyzed how
these play out in adaptation debates. The distinc-
tion between scientific, economic, and communica-
tive rationalities that originates in environmental
planning,45 has also been applied to local level
climate change adaptation in Norway.46 The com-
bination of these rationalities results in three dif-
ferent discourses, carried by different actors: (1) a
scientific–economic discourse, carried by the insur-
ance industry, in which scientific rationality lies in
supporting economic processes, pointing toward a
key role for insurance schemes in adaptation; (2) an
economic–communicative discourse, carried by the
Norwegian environmental authorities, in which eco-
nomic expertise is combined with the rights of people
to become involved in decision-making that affects
their livelihood and quality of life, pointing toward
addressing economic vulnerabilities of communities;
and (3) a scientific–communicative discourse, carried
by civil protection actors, where a pluralistic view on
knowledge gives voice to scientific expertise and cit-
izen’s knowledge claims, pointing toward lay–expert
interaction in the face of adaptation uncertainties. The
differences between the discourses and their implica-
tions for the adaptation agenda show how the scien-
tific framing of climate change adaptation as a tame
technical problem gets problematized by including
economic and communicative aspects. The addition
of elements like decision-making, livelihoods, stake-
holder participation, and uncertainties portrays adap-
tation as a challenging, if not wicked governance issue.
A similar argument has been made about differ-
ent interpretations of vulnerability,40 based on a case
study in Mozambique. Outcome vulnerability is linked
to a scientific framing of climate change, through
which vulnerability is understood as the measurable
negative outcome of climate change on a particular
exposure unit. This framing is embedded in insti-
tutions like the UNFCCC, IPCC, and international
global research programs. Contextual vulnerability,
however, is linked to a human security framing of
climate change, in which vulnerability is considered to
be influenced by a broad range of dynamic contextual
conditions, including biophysical, social, economic,
political, institutional, and technological structures
and processes. The contextual vulnerability frame is
more prevalent in the domain of NGOs, development
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Contrasting frames on climate change adaptation
practitioners, and social movements. Each framing
influences the questions asked, the knowledge pro-
duced, and the adaptation policies and responses that
are prioritized: ‘The dominance of the scientific fram-
ing of climate change has meant that the scope of adap-
tation policies has been interpreted quite narrowly’.40
Based on a more recent study of adaptation in
natural resource management in Lesotho,35 a distinc-
tion has also been made between a decision-analytic
framing of climate vulnerability and adaptation,
which favors projects focusing on technological
solutions and reducing projected impacts, and an
institutional-analytic framing, which tends to produce
projects that more explicitly include uncertainties
and governance issues. While the decision-analytic
framing reduces climate change adaptation to a tame
technical decision problem, the institutional-analytic
framing acknowledges institutional barriers to adap-
tation, situated knowledge and governance issues
at multiple levels of collective action. Both frames
originate in the international discourse on climate
adaptation and are imported to the national and local
level in Lesotho through the links that national and
local actors have with the international level.
Framing Climate Change Adaptation as an
Issue of State Security Versus Human
Security
The framing of climate change adaptation as a security
issue43,47–50 can in itself be interpreted as a case of
securitization,51 that is, framing an issue as a matter of
security in order to increase its priority on the political
agenda, to silence critical voices or to legitimize drastic
measures.
There appear to be important differences,
however, in the framing of the level at which security
is to be understood and addressed. How the danger
associated with climate change is interpreted affects
which adaptation actions are taken.52 System-oriented
understandings of security in terms of state security
carry quite different implications than actor-oriented
understandings in terms of human security. The
concept of human security draws attention to those
who are vulnerable and unable to cope with or adapt
to changing conditions, and points attention toward
factors like social inequities, discriminatory policies,
economic injustices, and unequal power relations.43
In the United Nations Security Council debate
on climate change in 2007, a link was clearly made
between international security issues, the impacts of
climate change and the question of how to adapt.
The debate was predominantly held in terms of envi-
ronmental security, as in past international political
325

Focus Article
debates on climate change (e.g., in IPCC statements),
and not so much in terms of environmental conflict.47
The environmental conflict discourse is emphasizing
traditional security concerns related to environmental
issues, and focuses on the risk of violent conflict
between groups in society and between states as
natural resources degrade. The security of the state
plays a central role in this discourse, suggesting a
prime role for the state in climate change adaptation.
While the environmental conflict discourse can be
linked to military security and the security of states,
the environmental security discourse is closely linked
to human security. Environmental security discourse
emphasizes the security implications of environmental
degradation for all human beings and not just
for the state. Human security involves a broad
range of issues, including economic, food, health,
environmental, personal, community, and political
security. Here longer-term strategies for combating
processes of environmental change are advocated.
However, the political implications of framing
climate change through the loaded language of
security have not yet been fully examined.48 An
example of this at the national level is the framing of
climate change adaptation by the Dutch 2008 Delta
Committee as an issue of national security, stressing
extreme climate scenarios, danger, and the need
for top-down governmental interventions.53 Envi-
ronmental security discourses in combination with
the UNFCCC goal of ‘avoiding dangerous climate
change’ have directed the attention toward threats to
individual livelihoods and sustainable development,
and tend to stress the potential role of climate-related
disasters. The policy implications of this way of
framing climate change adaptation are directed
toward reducing exposure to hazards and mitigating
the effects of dangerous climate change, often oper-
ationalized as insurance-based adaptation strategies.
In the context of global north–south relations, these
strategies can be criticized as creating dependence of
developing countries on industrialized countries in
the knowledge-intensive domain of risk assessment
methods and catastrophe insurance techniques.48
DISCUSSION
The three key dimensions of difference in the framing
of climate change adaptation discussed above provide
important insights into the variety of frames through
which adaptation is made sense of, the policy debates
where this variety plays out, and the policy implica-
tions these frames carry. To some extent, these framing
dimensions tie into frames and discourses apparent
in broader debates about climate change9,18,54,55
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and sustainable development.56,57 Bäckstrand and
Lövbrand54 identified three different discourses on
global environmental change: (1) green governmen-
tality, emphasizing a global form of power tied to
the administrative state, with a strongly science-based
and centralized approach to stewardship of nature and
comprehensive management of its resources; (2) eco-
logical modernization, emphasizing a market-based
decentralized approach to environmental protection,
to be achieved through regulation, technology, invest-
ment and trade; and (3) civic environmentalism,
emphasizing a multilateral, democratic, and bottom-
up approach to environmental problem solving,
through participation, partnerships, and, depending
on the strand, more or less radical economic reforms.
Tensions between the green governmentality and eco-
logical modernization discourses on the one hand,
and the civic environmentalism discourse on the other
hand are recognizable in the technoscientific versus
sociopolitical contrast in climate change adaptation
frames we identified. Similarly, the concept of weak
sustainability ties in with technoscientific framings
of adaptation, while strong sustainability fits well
with sociopolitical framing of adaptation.57 Although
adaptation is framed less as an issue of market mech-
anisms than mitigation, the ecological modernization
discourse is recognizable in the emerging emphasis
on insurance-based approaches to adaptation, linked
to security frames. The contrast between state secu-
rity and human security frames on adaptation can
be tentatively linked with green governmentality and
civic environmentalism discourses, respectively, but
among the three identified framing dimensions this
contrast seems to be most specific to adaptation and
vulnerability debates.
Although interesting evidence and insights are
building up on the framing of climate change
adaptation, there is no abundance of studies on the
topic and much remains to be done. In my view,
the study of how climate change adaptation gets
framed could be extended and enriched by engaging
with established and emerging themes in the framing
literature.
Technocratic and Economic Bias in Framing
Climate Change Adaptation
Framing climate change adaptation as a tame technical
problem rather than as a wicked governance problem
could result from recurring biases in how policy mak-
ers deal with unstructured problems.42,58,59 A struc-
tured problem is well defined, has clear boundaries
and the knowledge needed to solve it can be specified.
This kind of problem can be solved by standard-
ized (quantitative) techniques and procedures, and be
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WIREs Climate Change
administered by a single policy actor. An unstructured
problem, however, is characterized by diffuse bound-
aries, ambiguity about the facts, conflicting values,
and controversy. Two pervasive biases in policy mak-
ing have been identified, resulting in the containment
of unstructured problems at a structured level. The
first is the technocratic bias, by which policy problems
are framed as well-structured and susceptible to be
resolved by the use of specialist knowledge and techni-
cal expertise. This bias functions through distinguish-
ing the relevant group of experts, who can relatively
easily agree among themselves, from the large group
of nonexperts, who are not allowed to participate.
The second is the economic bias, by which problems
are defined exclusively as matters of calculating costs
and benefits. Here, rather than restricting participa-
tion of nonexperts, the range of acceptable arguments
is restricted. Anything that cannot be translated in
monetary value is thus side-lined from the discussion.
Because these biases involve framing unstructured
problems as structured, they may effectively result in
‘solving the wrong problem’. It would be worthwhile
to investigate how these or other biases are at play
in climate change adaptation processes and to what
effect. For example, does the inclusion of ‘nonexperts’
in climate change adaptation processes counteract the
technocratic bias? Do the human security-based fram-
ings of adaptation work to counteract the economic
bias, or can these also be translated in the economic
vocabulary of costs, benefit, damage, and insurance?
Framing the Scale of the Climate Change
Adaptation Issue
A framing mechanism that seems highly relevant for
both the adaptation versus mitigation dimension and
the state security versus human security dimension is
scale framing.60–62 Scale framing refers to the process
of framing an issue at a certain scale and/or level.
Examples of this are framing mitigation as a global
issue and adaptation as a local issue, or framing the
security implications of adaptation at the system level
(linked to state security) versus at the actor level
(linked to human security). Scale framing can be used
as a means of legitimizing inclusion and exclusion of
actors, proposals, and arguments in policy processes.
Actors can behave strategically by framing the scale
of the problem such that they situate themselves at the
center of power, such that they avoid responsibility
for the problem or such that the problem gets scaled
up or down.
Scale framing seems highly relevant for climate
change adaptation, because defining the scale level
at which it needs to be addressed is highly relevant
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Contrasting frames on climate change adaptation
and tricky at the same time. The mere labeling of
flood risk management as climate change adaptation,
for example, introduces a different time scale for
the problem (from short and medium term to very
long term). In a country like the Netherlands, this
extended time scale in combination with dramatic
predictions about possible climate change impacts
have been used as argumentative resources in pleas
for high yearly budget allocations for flood risk
management.53 While the framing of the spatial scale
of adaptation in the Dutch discussion revolves mainly
around regional versus national, in the discussions
about the Adaptation Fund63 the global scale is
much more prominent. The financing mechanism
for the Adaptation Fund through a share of
proceeds on Clean Development Mechanism (CDM
projects effectively frames the adaptation issue at
global and national scales, implying responsibility of
industrialized countries toward developing countries.
With ‘vulnerable communities’ as the main target
group for the Adaptation fund, however, the relation
between this local scale frame and the global and
national scale frames is still under discussion.63
Dealing with Frame Differences in Climate
Change Adaptation Processes
A generally relevant question is how to deal with this
variety of frames in the numerous processes of climate
change adaptation on the ground. Fragmentation of
frames can form a barrier for mutual understanding
and can evolve into protracted controversies about
‘what the issue is really about’,6 delaying or impeding
effective decision-making. On the other hand, the
connection of different frames into a jointly meaning-
ful project can generate motivation and commitment
for collective action. The friction generated by the
variety of ideas, worldviews and norms embedded in
diverse frames also provides the potential for crafting
innovative solutions, granted that the participants are
able to deal with this variety.64 When different actors
encounter each other in processes of climate change
adaptation, the frames they employ are primarily used
for interacting and communicating with each other.8
In those interactions, they will have to deal in one
way or another with their mutual differences in how
they frame the issue of climate change adaptation
in their particular context.65 From this perspective,
it would be very worthwhile to investigate how this
variety of frames affects climate change adaptation
processes: which kind of frames becomes dominant;
what strategies do actors use to include or exclude
particular frames from the discussion; what happens
to the frames of vulnerable communities; and what the
effects are on climate change adaptation outcomes?
327
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Focus Article wires.wiley.com/climatechange

CONCLUSION the adaptation versus mitigation framing dimension

and the state security versus human security framing
Because framing affects information processing, steers dimension could be further explored in terms of
policy debates, and directs decision-making processes, scale framing. Whether adaptation is framed as a
it is of key importance to understand the framing local, national, or global issue carries greatly different
of climate change adaptation. From the available implications for who is considered responsible, who is
literature on how the meaning of climate change included or excluded in adaptation processes, or how
adaptation is constructed and debated, three key funding needs to be organized. Third, more insight
dimensions of frame differences were identified. First,
should be gained as to how the variety of adaptation
the framing of climate adaptation has often happened
frames can be dealt with in the numerous climate
in relation to, and sometimes in tension with, its elder
change adaptation processes, where the connection
sibling climate change mitigation. The predominant
or disconnection between the frames employed by
framing of climate change as an issue of greenhouse
the involved actors can make or break an adaptation
gas emissions has delayed the development of global
project.
policy instruments and arrangements for adaptation.
While the relatively young issue, policy domain
Second, given the knowledge-intensive nature of
and practice of climate change adaptation is taking
the climate change adaptation issue, technoscientific
shape, its meaning is constructed, debated, and
framings of adaptation as a tame technical problem
contested.66 Framing climate change adaptation can
contrast with sociopolitical framings of adaptation as
happen unwittingly or purposefully, but it is never
a wicked governance problem, where uncertainties,
neutral. There are two main traps to be avoided in
institutions, and equity need to be taken into
framing adaptation. On the one hand, actors engaged
account. Third, within the framing of climate change
in adaptation processes may get trapped in a particular
adaptation as endangering our security, system-
way of framing the issues without being fully aware of
oriented framings of adaptation as an issue of state
this, only to discover later its limitations or unintended
security contrast with actor-oriented framings of
consequences in terms of legitimizing or delegitimizing
adaptation as an issue of human security, resulting
particular actions, including or excluding particular
in different adaptation approaches.
actors, or privileging certain outcomes. On the other
As argued above, the study of how climate
hand, actors may get trapped in a frame contest,11
change adaptation gets framed could be enriched
where different actors strategically try to have their
by connecting these dimensions more closely with
frames prevail. This can result in policy controversies,
established and emerging themes in the framing litera-
intractable conflicts, or paralyzed decision-making,
ture. First, the development of technoscientific versus
which can severely hamper the achievement of
sociopolitical framings could be further clarified by
adaptation outcomes. In any case, given the variety of
investigating whether and how technocratic bias,
possible ways to frame adaptation discussed above,
economic bias, or other types of bias affect how the
reliance on a one-sided framing of the issue is unlikely
issue of climate change adaptation gets defined in the
to bring adaptation processes to fruition.
variety of processes at different levels. Second, both

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Robbert Biesbroek for his feedback on an earlier draft of this paper, Irene Lorenzoni for
the helpful discussions about the scope of the article, and the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments
that helped me to improve the quality of this article.

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