Pathway approaches to adaptation highlight the uncertainty of future impacts of climate change and the ongoing, contingent nature of responses to these effects. This article reviews adaptation to climate change literature employing the notion of pathways and argues that these approaches offer a useful framework to spur meaningful adaptation action. After providing an overview of the history of pathway approaches, the paper focuses on four approaches that apply the metaphor of pathways differently: the socioeconomic pathways, dynamic adaptive policy pathways, pathways to resilience, and the social, technology, and environmental pathways to sustainability. Lessons and strengths from each of these approaches are highlighted. Utilizing multiple pathway approaches can further aid in creating useful and usable knowledge. However, the paper concludes by arguing that pathway approaches could be further strengthened by including political concerns and processes. Working to include the broader public within the coproduction of pathways would help achieve this goal.
Eisenhauer, DC
Pathways to Climate Change Adaptation: Making Climate Change Action Political
Geography Compass