Nyttor med klimatanpassning – vilka är de och kan de kopplas till FN:s globala hållbarhetsmål?

Sammanfattning: This study shows that several beneficial aspects of climate adaptation in Swedish municipalities can be linked to the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. In doing so, the study also exhibits that the sustainable development goals could serve as a good tool to aid in maximizing social, environmental and economic benefits when planning and executing climate adaptation measures. A claim that is supported by the majority of the study’s participating respondents. The effects of climate change are becoming more evident and have already proven to have significant negative impacts on communities and nature around the world. This development is not expected to change, but instead to increase in the future. Consequently, the need to adapt to the future climate has been established by several actors across the scientific field, e.g. IPCC and the Swedish National Expert Council for Climate Adaptation. Climate adaptation can be expensive and should also be designed to withstand several possible future scenarios since it is rather uncertain how the future climate will in fact pan out. Since the adaptation measures are meant to last for the foreseeable future it also stands to reason that the planning and execution should include how the measures affect the surrounding communities and nature, directly or indirectly, to maximize beneficial outcomes. To explore this link between climate adaptation measures and beneficial outcomes, this study examines whether benefits from different climate adaptation projects in Swedish municipalities can be linked to United Nation’s sustainable development goals. The study also looks into the possibility of using these goals as a tool to identify and include beneficial aspects in planning and executing climate adaptation measures. To investigate these matters this study was conducted by using quantitative and qualitative text analyses of application documents as well as additional qualitative interviews.