Enhancing resilience, or continuing complacency? The (constrained) development of European Union adaptation policy.

From tentative beginnings two decades ago, adaptation now occupies an increasingly important position in the overall European Union (EU) climate (and environmental) policy portfolio, impinging upon multiple policy sectors. Attaining this prominence has required careful policy framing to overcome several constraints but has been helped by a supportive global institutional context. Latterly, a shift in both policy and academic research has seen more ‘transformative’ types of adaptation increasingly advocated. But whether the EU is capable of delivering sufficiently transformational policy reforms to match the seriousness of the climate crisis remains debatable. In the research literature on EU adaptation policy, multilevel policy diffusion and sectoral mainstreaming have received particular attention, with other angles relatively neglected. In an emerging era of ‘Mission-led governance’ and increasingly costly extreme weather events, future research could usefully turn to concepts of experimentalist governance and political economy to analyze progress in EU adaptation policy.