The law is key to governing climate risks in C&S, including regulating exposure to coastal hazards; facilitating accountable decision-making; funding arrangements, liabilities and resolving disputes; and also for securing human rights . However, it has limits and can be both an adaptation enabler and barrier . Contemporary legal practice has not enabled effective adaptation in part because SLR affects compensable property rights that are secured by the law, and which generally trump concerns about public safety, resilience and sustainability . Private property rights can be used as both a sword and a shield to privilege dominant interests by undermining land use policies, plans and implementation efforts intended to promote integrated coastal management and risk reduction . Climate change litigation has proliferated over the past decade , addressing, among other things, failures to prepare for or adapt to climate change, and to secure human rights . Reflexive and adaptive law that accounts for the distinctive features of coastal hazard risk and associated governance imperatives builds coastal C&S adaptive capacity and resilience . Procedural justice, due process and use of substantive standards instead of rules provide legal stability and enable adaptation . Coastal adaptation efforts are ultimately implemented through C&S actions that are enabled or constrained by prevailing legislative, executive and judicial provisions and practices, which differ significantly across jurisdictions . In practice, the 'coastal lawscape' is made up of interconnected cultural normative, political and legal systems that need to be understood holistically to enable coastal adaptation in C&S .
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report