The highly contextual nature of adaptation, a multitude of applied definitions of adaptation , its overlaps with development interventions, and the long time horizons over which outcomes accrue, deter a universal definition of adaptation success . Moser and Boykoff , Olazabal et al.  and Sherman and Ford  suggest criteria against which successful adaptation could potentially be tracked. The literature is converging to suggest that successful adaptation broadly refers to actions and policies that effectively and substantially reduce climate vulnerability, and exposure to and/or impacts of climate risk , while creating synergies to other climate-related goals, increasing benefits to non-climate- related goals  and minimise trade-offs  across diverse objectives, perspectives, expectations and values  .
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report