Chapter 5. Maladaptation to Climate Change: Avoiding Pitfalls on the Evolvability Pathway - Frontiers 2018/19: Emerging Issues of Environmental Concern

As climate change negotiations progressed, researchers examined how and why some adaptation actions go awry, particularly those actions that waste substantial amounts of human, natural, or financial resources. Maladaptation thinking continues to advance, and one influential study considered the problem according to the outcomes, identifying five categories of maladaptation when compared to alternative choices. According to this analysis, maladaptations are actions that increase greenhouse gas emissions, burden the most vulnerable disproportionately, incur high opportunity costs, reduce incentives to adapt, or set paths that limit the choices available to future generations.