New analysis of over a decade’s-worth of research on climate change in the Caribbean, suggests that national governments are important drivers of co-ordinated climate change action in the region. The research acknowledges the importance of ‘bottom-up’, community level approaches, but found that in isolation they are insufficient to meet the complex challenges posed by climate change. Delivering coordinated climate change action at the regional, national and local level, therefore was shown to require government to actively intervene to drive the process. To that extent, the research suggests that climate change adaptation is a question of governance.

The findings come from a newly-released ‘knowledge package’ that draws on research from projects that have been conducted in the Caribbean over the past 10 years. Funded by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), these projects produced many research papers, case studies, and decision-support tools, which have progressed thinking and action on climate…