GoApply - Multidimensional Governance of Climate Change Adaptation in Policy Making and Practice WP2 Advancing the mainstreaming of climate adaptation policies and measures Case study reports on the mainstreaming of climate adaptation Country Report Switzerland: The cantonal climate strategy of Grisons Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL Final Report Zurich, September 2018 This project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg Alpine Space programme 1 Brief Summary of the Case Study The canton of Grisons was identified as an interesting case because it has taken on a pioneer role for foster- ing adaptation to climate change on the cantonal level. The canton was among the first to both formulate a multisectoral Climate Strategy and include the topic of adaptation to climate change as an equally im- portant addition to climate change mitigation1. The primary goal of the cantonal climate strategy Grisons is to analyse the challenges related to climate change and to bundle and focus the efforts of the 13 involved cantonal offices and departments in the two fields of climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation. The strategy does this by defining sever- al fields of action, determining which cantonal offices are involved in that field and assigning one of those offices to take a leading role.2 All cantonal offices deliver progress reports to the cantonal climate secretari- at and participate in the annual climate forum which is meant to facilitate the exchange between the offic- es. An executive committee defines primary goals for the implementation of the strategy. It is made up of two members of the cantonal executive and the three directors of the cantonal offices for energy, envi- ronment and natural hazards and forests. Key elements Most important success factors: Organizing the common development of the cantonal climate strategy as an equal partnership helped to avoid intersectoral conflict and enabled fruitful horizontal cooperation. (4) The improved exchange and coordination between sectors enabled optimal use of synergies and helped to avoid conflicts of interest. (4) Acting as a unified network also lent more political weight to the suggestions and demands of the cantonal offices. (4, 6) Yearly meetings keep the topic a priority, foster exchange between offices, generate peer pressure to engage in climate change adaptation and increase awareness and expertise on the topic among the participants. (4, 5) Gathering resources for adaptation measures with clear monetary benefits such as measures re- garding natural hazards is usually simple. (7) Keeping the climate strategy concrete enough to serve as a guideline for the daily work of the in- volved offices ensured its relevance. (2, 3) Most important barriers: Lack of Resources for any measures without direct, clear monetary benefits. (7) General scepticism towards new enterprises that will result in additional work. (2, 7) Engagement of tangentially affected sectors is dependent on the personal attitudes of decision makers. (6) The cantonal climate strategy is not well known outside the cantonal offices. (5) 1 Amt für Natur und Umwelt Graubünden (ANU). 2015. Klimawandel Graubünden. Synthese der Herausforderungen und Handlungsfelder. 2 Amt für Natur und Umwelt des Kantons Graubünden (ANU). 2015a. Klimawandel Graubünden. Analyse der Heraus- forderungen und Handlungsfelder im Bereich Klimaanpassung. 2 Sovereignty of municipalities must be respected, thus largely limiting higher levels to conducting awareness-building measures and providing a strategic framework and data. (-) Actors on the local level can be difficult to reach if no existing communication channels are availa- ble. (4) Soft measures only reach actors who are already somewhat sensitized to the issue. (5, 6) Effects are difficult to quantify making them hard to evaluate. (-) Barrier categories (Biesbroek et al. 2011) 1 Conflicting Timescales 2 Substantive, Strategic and Institutional Uncertainty 3 Institutional Crowdedness and Institutional Voids 4 Fragmentation 5 Lack of Awareness and Communication 6 Motives and Willingness to Act 7 Resources Lessons learnt One of the biggest issues regarding adaptation to climate change is the fact that climate change impacts af- fect many different sectors, calling for responses from many different actors. To ensure the coherency of adaptation plans, strategies and measures and to take optimal advantage of synergies, coordination be- tween these many actors is necessary. As such, the question of how to organize this coordination is one of the most common and important barriers to climate change adaptation. On the horizontal level, traditional conflicts between sectors often further impede such coordination. Especially when it comes to questions of leadership, many offices dislike being told what to do by their peers. The canton of Grisons managed to successfully deal with these barriers by organizing the cooperation be- tween cantonal departments and offices regards adaptation to climate change as an equal partnership. The involved offices came together and commonly discussed fields of action, priorities and focal points. They then decided which offices should be involved in tackling which focal points and who should take the lead regarding each focal point. A climate secretariat coordinates the implementation of this commonly devel- oped strategy. All offices deliver yearly progress report to the climate secretariat and participate in a yearly exchange event for cantonal sectors – the climate forum. All in all, the cantonal climate strategy was quite successful in addressing the climate change impacts most relevant to Grisons, including all sectors relevant to those impacts, ensuring coherency between sectoral policy and itself and increasing the awareness and capacity of the people involved in its development and implementation. However, the engagement of some of the involved sectors lags behind that of the others, demonstrating that personal motivation and interests of important stakeholders within the cantonal ad- ministration is still a crucial factor. Additionally, the successful implementation of the strategy will largely depend on how well the different cantonal offices and departments are able to reach the local level. Recommendations for transferability The canton of Grisons has organized horizontal cooperation during the development and implementation of the cantonal climate strategy as a fairly equal partnership: One office handles much of the organizational 3 effort, but the different sectors remain individually responsible for organizing and financing measures per- taining to their sector. This approach mirrors the development process of the adaptation strategy of the federal council. It has proven successful in avoiding traditional conflicts between sectors and insuring the involvement of all relevant sectors. At the same time, this cooperative approach usually means that there is no overseeing instance that can force lagging sectors to act. Thus, the individual motives and interests of important stakeholders within the administration remains an important success factor. Measures to gener- ate social pressure to act, such as a regular exchange between sectors on progress made, may be a method to increase the compliance of reluctant participants that is more politically feasible than trying to introduce measures to generate hard pressure. Similar approaches may be fruitful in other cases where traditional rivalries between sectors or a lack of political will for hard pressure threaten the success of horizontal co- operation. However, it’s important to keep in mind that such approaches have their own drawbacks as ex- plained here. Another important lesson that should be applicable in most cases is that actual adaptation must be fitted to local needs and conditions and thus usually happens at the local level. As such, a big success factor of poli- cies or strategies formulated on a higher administrative level is the question of how to reach the local level. If any participants have cultivated existing networks to actors on the local level, these networks should be utilized whenever possible. Section I – Characterization of the Case Study and its context A characterization of the territory. Spanning 7105 square kilometres, the canton of Grisons is the largest of the Swiss canton by area but also the one with the lowest population density. Approximately 200’000 people live spread among 112 munici- palities, only 7 of which count more than 4000 inhabitants.3 The landscape is predominantly mountainous and dotted by many valleys and lakes. The most important economic sector is the service industry, espe- cially tourism. 4 According to calculations by the cantonal office for economy and tourism in the year 2008 the tourism sector was responsible for about 30% of gross value added.5 Accommodation statistics show, that there are usually more tourists during the winter season6 and winter sports are one of the big touristic attractions of the canton. Commerce and industry as well as agriculture and forestry are also fairly im- portant economic sectors. Agriculture and forestry make up for about 8% of employment compared to about 5% on national average. An estimated 50% of those farms are organic, once again far surpassing the national average of approximately 12.5%.7 Grisons, especially the agricultural sector of Grisons often takes on a pioneer role when it comes to adapting