EPT lectures 2024

Transformative adaptation to climate change: A contradiction in terms?

The Chair of Environmental Planning and Transformation organizes the lecture series „Planning for socio-ecological transformations“ in the summer term 2024. On Tuesday, June 25, 2024, Prof. Dr. Hartmut Fünfgeld (University Freiburg) will delve into the topic „Transformative adaptation to climate change: A contradiction in terms?„.

Protecting citizens and assets from the impacts of climate change using adaptation planning has become an urgent imperative for planners. The IPCC, many NGOs, as well as local governments are propagating ‘climate resilient development’ as a key strategy that combines the former with achieving the SDGs. However, given the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, it is becoming evident that adaptation needs to be accelerated substantially and that purely incremental approaches to adaptation are likely going to be insufficient. Rather, transformative adaptation is required that opens up innovative ideas for systemic change and translates these into urban planning and governance. Yet ‘adaptation’ and ‘climate resilience’ are inherently conservative concepts that may not engender radical thinking but rather hinder systemic change. The talk will shed light on this conundrum from a conceptual point of view and discuss its practical implications with a focus on municipal adaptation planning.

Hartmut Fünfgeld is Professor of Global Change Geography at the Institute of Environmental Social Sciences and Geography at the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg. His current research interests are socio-environmental dynamics in dealing with climate and environmental change and political-institutional processes of societal transformation. A core area of his partly transdisciplinary research is the field of climate change adaptation planning in urban and rural areas. His working group analyzes justice issues and transformation processes at the local scale.

Mehr Infos zur Ringvorlesung: „Planning for socio-ecological transformations“