Climate change has caused substantial damage and increasingly irreversible losses to many vulnerable groups and regions worldwide. Municipalities are on the front line of addressing these devastating impacts and face an increasing urgency to improve their ability to manage such challenges [1]. As key actors in society’s climate change adaptation efforts, municipalities play a crucial role, especially in urban planning [2]. However, there is a widening gap between the need for adaptive solutions and their actual implementation [3]. Additionally, severe knowledge gaps and insufficient resources exacerbate this adaptative deficit [4].
To bridge this gap, the EU-funded Horizon SOTERIA project has initiated regional climate resilience dialogues across six European regions.
These efforts aim to foster a community network that promotes open discussions, transparent communication, and collaboration among stakeholders affected by climate change. Since 2023, the SOTERIA project has collaborated with the Network Climate Change Adaptation Trøndelag to engage municipalities – particularly procurement managers – to incorporate climate change risks into their purchasing process of non-life insurance. This article highlights Norway’s extensive journey in building climate change adaptation networks, offering valuable insights for the SOTERIA case regions and beyond.
Networks as soft risk mitigation strategies
An increasing number of research on climate change adaptation in municipalities emphasises networks’ potential to drive transitions toward a more precautionary approach to mitigate climate change related risks. These networks can take various forms: formal or informal, transnational, national, regional, or municipal. Most importantly, they bring together stakeholders who endure upcoming risks to share experiences, knowledge, challenges and ideas [5,6]. Such collaboration can help stakeholders to overcome some resource barriers (human, financial and knowledge-related), and help municipalities fight the pervasive ‘silo mentality’ problem [7,8].
Interactive dialogues and open communication within networks can also spark innovative solutions and tailor standardised approaches to local contexts [6,9]. Through content-focused networking across organisational boundaries, municipalities can learn from experts and experiences from their peers. This helps build their administrative and knowledge capacity for climate change adaptation, and identify specific actions to pursue, including the design and implementation of policy measures [6,10,11].
To unleash the transformative potential, it is essential to create an environment of trust among participants. This fosters a sense of alliance and ownership of proposed solutions, encouraging members to apply their network-derived insights within their respective organisations. It is also recommended to bring in external expertise, divide the participants into smaller working groups [8,11] and context-sensitive decision-making to ensure local conditions are considered under regional or national frameworks [12].
Climate change adaptation networks in Norway
The IFront Climate Change Adaptation Network
Established in 2015, the climate change adaptation network IFront was coordinated by the Norwegian Environment Agency on behalf of the Ministry of Climate and Environment [13]. It comprises 13 cities from different regions of Norway. The network aims to create an arena for the exchange of experience, knowledge development and skills enhancement. The goal was that best practise examples and experiences from the participatory city municipalities would contribute to strengthening climate change adaptation in a wider range of Norwegian municipalities [14].
An evaluation of this municipal network after four years revealed that it successfully contributed to raising awareness among the participants and enriched their knowledge about climate change adaptation. Yet the diffusion of these practices within municipalities depended on anchoring in the political leadership. The evaluation also pointed out that other directorates should have been more involved to amplify the network’s impact [15].
Network for Climate Change Adaptation Trøndelag
In 2017, the Network Climate Change Adaptation Trøndelag was launched to increase multi-stakeholder cooperation and knowledge sharing to protect buildings and infrastructure from the impacts of climate change. This network includes 36 municipalities, research organisations, and national government bodies (e.g. the Norwegian Environment Agency, Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate and Norwegian Mapping Authority), and private sector representatives [16].
An assessment of the Trøndelag network concluded that the variety of its involved partners and their expertise significantly contributed to the network’s success, leading to a range of joint activities focused on experimenting with and implementing climate change adaptation measures. Inspired by this initiative, several counties have since established similar climate change adaptation networks to harness these benefits [17,18].
A National Network for Climate Change Adaptation
Building on the success of these municipal and regional efforts, the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities (KS) – representing all municipalities in Norway – established a national network for climate change adaptation in 2022. This initiative places particular emphasis on risk and vulnerability assessments [19].
By investing in climate change adaptation networks, Norway exemplifies how municipalities can overcome common barriers, foster collaboration, and build resilience. These efforts, supported by various stakeholders, provide valuable lessons for regions worldwide facing the growing challenges of climate change.
If you are interested to know more about public and private collaboration in insurance, we invite you to visit: Climate Resilience Dialogue: Accelerating Climate Adaptation: Public-Private Collaboration in Insurance Systems”. Where you will have access to the recording of the event and the material.
About SINTEF
SINTEF is one of Europe’s largest research institutes, combining a wide range of technological disciplines and social sciences for creating technology for a better society. Active in the topic of climate change adaptation we work with private and public stakeholders to boost knowledge, solutions and methods for risk assessments and develop new innovations for the climate change adaptation of buildings, built areas and infrastructure.
About the Global Infrastructure Basel (GIB) Foundation
GIB is a Swiss non-profit foundation based in Basel, working to accelerate a mainstream transition to sustainable, resilient and regenerative infrastructure around the world. Active since 2008, we work with stakeholders across the infrastructure value chain from city and national government to project developers and infrastructure financiers. Through the Infrastructure & Nature Pillar, we promote nature-based solutions that behave as regenerative infrastructure.
About Climate Risk Advisory (CRA)
CRA is consultant company based in Oslo. We have long experience working with climate and nature risk, and legal framework both in finance and insurance, and the public sector. We transform and incorporate scientific knowledge from innovation and research projects we take part in, into business and public decision makers.
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[14] Norwegian Environment Agency. I front – kommunenettverk for klimatilpasning. Strategi 2020-2025 n.d.
[15] Handberg ØN; J S; Pedersen, S; Engebretsen, LS. Evaluering av klimatilpasningsnettverket I Front 2019.
[16] County Governor of Trøndelag. Nettverk klimatilpasning Trøndelag – Statusrapport 2017-2020 2021.
[17] Rogaland county authority. Nettverk for klimatilpasning 2020.
[18] Innlandet county authority. Klimatilpasningsnettverk i Innlandet 2023.
[19] The Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities. Klimatilpasning – KS inviterer til arbeid i kommunenettverk 2022-23 2021.
This article is published as part of the deliverables and contribution to the SOTERIA project, funded as part of Horizon Europe – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2021-2027) under grant agreement n° 101112867.
The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SOTERIA project nor those of the European Union or European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA). Neither Soteria, the European Union nor CINEA can be held responsible for them.
For the original article, please visit the SOTERIA website
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