This document discusses transboundary climate risks and how to manage them. It defines transboundary climate risks as risks created by climate impacts or adaptation responses that cross national borders. It provides examples of transboundary food price and flooding risks. It emphasizes the need to address knowledge gaps, adopt new approaches, enhance regional cooperation, facilitate transboundary adaptation responses, and strengthen resources to manage these risks. Reframing adaptation as a global public good could help by considering transboundary risks in addition to local risks and requiring transparency, cross-border thinking, and increased multilateral cooperation.

1. Adaptation as a global public good:
understanding and managing
transboundary climate risks
Dr. Rebecca Nadin, Head of Risk & Resilience
NAP Expo, 2019

2. Climate Risk

3. What do we mean by transboundary climate risks?
1. The risks, created by the impacts of climate change,
that cross national borders
2. The risks, created by our adaptation responses,
that cross national borders

4. How can we conceptualise transboundary climate risks?

7. Example 1: global food prices
Credit: Oxfam International

8. Example 2:
flooding and
global supply
chains
Credit: Michael Schoeneis

9. How can we manage transboundary climate risks?

10. Afghanistan
• Returning refugees and
loss of seasonal
transboundary migration
routes
• Transboundary wildlife
corridor management
• Transboundary water
resources (e.g. Amu
Darya river basin)
Bangladesh
• Transboundary
water resources
(e.g. Ganges and
Brahmaputra
river basins)
Burundi
• Transbounday
water
resources
(e.g. Nile and
Congo river
basins)
Angola
• Reintegration of refugees, ex-
combatants and displaced persons
• Transboundary water
resources(e.g. Congo and Zambezi
river basins)
Gambia
• Transboundary
wetlands
• Transboundary water
resources(e.g. Gambia
river basin)
Central African
Republic
• Agroecological system
management of Lake
Chad to maintain food
and livelihood security
Chad
• Returning refugees and
cross-border displacement
• Food and livelihood
insecurity
• Desertification
• Transboundary water
resources (e.g. Chad and
Niger lake basins)
Guinea
• Cross-border
migration from
Sahelian countries
• Food and livelihood
insecurity
• Transboundary
water resources (e.g.
Gambia and Niger
Rivers)
Guinea Bissau
• Food and livelihood
insecurity
• Transboundary
wildlife corridor
management
• Foreign competition
for fishing resources
Mozambique
• Transboundary
water
resources (e.g.
Zambezi river
basin)
Somalia
• Internal and cross-
border displacement,
and cross-border
migration
• Transboundary water
resources(e.g. Juba
and Shabelle rivers)
• Food and livelihood
insecurity
Sudan
• Refugees from
neighbouring
countries
• Transboundary water
resources(e.g. Nile
river basin)
• Food and livelihood
insecurity
• Export dependency

11. What more needs to happen?
1. Address knowledge gaps
2. Adopt new framings, tools and policy approaches
3. Enhance regional and global cooperation
4. Facilitate transboundary-specific adaptation responses
5. Strengthen resourcing

12. Action at the global and regional levels
UNFCCC:
- Adaptation Committee
- NAPs, the NAP Task Force and the NAP Global Support Programme
- Paris Agreement
Regional cooperation
- Pool knowledge and experience
- Enable resource-sharing and frameworks for collaboration
- Minimise trade-offs
- Pool financial and technical resources
- Facilitate access to international resources
- Complement communication and transparency frameworks

13. Reframing adaptation as a global public good

14. 1. Transboundary climate risk must be considered in addition to more direct, localised climate-related
risks, which will and should remain the preoccupation of adaptation planners at local and national
scales.
2. Transboundary climate risk calls for greater transparency in adaptation processes. Given the shared
nature of climate risks across borders, adaptation planners need to have access to information
about climate vulnerability and intended adaptation in other locations and at other scales in order
to assess their transboundary implications.
3. Transboundary climate risk requires all adaptation planners and stakeholders to think beyond
borders when assessing and responding to climate risk in their own territories, including when
implementing adaptation and evaluating its outcomes.
4. The shared nature of climate risks demands increased multilateral cooperation. This becomes
obvious when climate resilience is redefined as a global public good.