Lack of evidence on the potential for adaptation to adequately reduce risk is a critical gap in our ability to assess global risk transitions at the RFC level, but not the only gap. In some cases, such as RFC1, the widespread nature and rapid speed of the escalating risks, in combination with limited ability to adapt, means that transitions to high risk may occur despite medium or even high levels of adaptation. Risks that are largely natural and not widely mediated by human vulnerability are thus less likely to have risk transitions that shift under higher societal adaptation. Risk transitions that are mediated through human systems, such as distribution impacts, for example, are more likely to shift in response to adaptation as impacts are strongly mediated through vulnerability within human systems, but such a shift is difficult to quantify given knowledge gaps in the literature . However, in some circumstances, expanded global adaptation could slow some of these transitions ; in the case of RFC2, RFC3 and RFC4, the literature suggests that coordinated global adaptation could increase the global temperature at which risks transition from moderate to high, for example the prevention of mortality associated with heat stress within RFC2.
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report