Policymakers at different government levels develop integrated adaptation strategy processes (ASPs), which are supposed to prepare a particular region, country or municipality for the impacts of climate change. The adaptation literature suggests that coordination of these efforts promises comprehensive climate change adaptation, because it allows making use of synergies and avoiding maladaptation. Nonetheless, we lack evidence about the coordination of multiple levels and its potential to actually facilitate climate change adaptation. Based on an examination of 14 integrated ASPs, the author asks how they interact with each other, if they reconcile the priorities of other levels, and if they are an adequate tool for coordinating climate change adaptation. The study reveals a considerable gap between theory and practice. It demonstrates that the call for coordination is not reflected in current adaptation policy and questions whether (more) coordination is what we need to be better prepared for the impacts of climate change.

Climate change adaptation strategies that aim to minimize harm and maximize benefits related to climate change impacts have mushroomed at all levels of government in recent years. While many studies have explored barriers that stand in the way of their implementation, the factors determining their potential to mainstream adaptation into various sectors are less clear. In the present paper, we aim to address this gap for two international, six national, and six local adaptation strategies. Based on document analyses and 35 semi‐structured interviews, the 14 case studies also explore in how far the factors facilitating climate change adaptation are similar across levels of government or level‐specific. Although located at three different levels of government, we find that the 14 adaptation strategies analyzed here represent “one‐size‐fits‐all governance arrangements” that are characterized by voluntariness and a lack institutionalization. Since adaptation strategies are relatively weak coordination hubs that are unable to force adaptation onto sectoral policy agendas, they rely mainly on sectoral self‐interest in adapting to climate change, largely determined by problem pressure. We conclude that one‐size‐fits‐all governance arrangements are rarely adequate responses to complex challenges, such as climate change. Although climate change adaptation depends more on framework conditions such as problem pressure than on administrative or governance features, the findings presented here can help to understand under what circumstances adaptation is likely to make progress.

Policy support for climate change adaptation has grown rapidly and respective tools (such as online guides and handbooks) have been documented and categorized repeatedly in recent years. Nevertheless, we still know little about how relevant their target groups find them for their work. We aim to address this gap with case studies on two well‐known support tools: the “Adaptation Wizard” from the UK and the “Klimalotse” from Germany. After showing how adaptation support tools have spread in recent years, we analyze qualitatively how relevant regional and local policy‐makers concerned with adaptation find the two tools. One of our main findings is the following discrepancy: while both tools offer support in developing and implementing comprehensive adaptation plans, local policy‐makers find this irrelevant and expect support in coping with imminent climate change impacts, for example, by single adaptation measures. Consequently, the local policy‐makers we interviewed hardly use the two tools but seek more specific support, in particular regarding vulnerability and cost–benefit assessments. We conclude that policy support tools lack relevance when their well‐intended attempt to enlighten target groups is too remote from what the latter expect.

The present paper analyses and compares how federalism in Austria and Switzerland affected climate change mitigation in the fully decentralized building sectors of the two countries during the Kyoto Period (1990–2012). This is of interest because the environmental significance of federal political systems is still contested. We first review the literature on federalism in the context of environmental and climate policymaking, and we show that the effects of federal political systems can be positive or negative (depending on interactions between politics and problem characteristics). We then summarize the two qualitative country studies. By analysing who initiated and coordinated respective policies at what time and why, we show that respective policy changes neither emerged bottom‐up nor diffused between provinces/cantons, although the latter are fully responsible for building policies. While most policy changes were triggered by federal and/or European Union interventions, the provinces/cantons usually delayed and/or watered down policy changes to smallest common denominator solutions. Based on these findings we conclude that the building sectors of the two countries became more efficient despite, not because of federalism. Against this background we recommend centralizing building policies, or to engage sub‐national actors in national target‐setting early on.