The effectiveness of adaptation efforts also depends on the constraints and limits that human and natural systems face when confronted with increasingly higher levels of climate risks. The concept of adaptation limits strongly affects any appropriate balance among adaptation and mitigation actions in the sense that less mitigation makes adaptation harder or even infeasible. Adaptation limits refer to the point at which an actor's objectives  cannot be secured from intolerable risks through adaptive actions . Adaptation limits can be soft or hard. Soft adaptation limits occur when options may exist but are currently not available to avoid intolerable risks through adaptive actions and hard adaptation limits occur when no adaptive actions are possible to avoid intolerable risks. Intolerable risks are those which fundamentally threaten a private or social norm-threatening, for instance, public safety, continuity of traditions, a legal standard or a social contract-despite adaptive action having been taken . Intolerable risks threaten core social objectives associated with health, welfare, security or sustainability . Through the lens of resilience, hard limits represent the range of change or disturbance beyond which a system cannot maintain
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report